No, it's not merged. You were looking on the Houzz Discussion side and here you are on the Gardenweb Discussions/Home Forums. It's been separate since we merged over two years ago. I think one day they'll merge the forums because activity has really fallen off on a lot of the GW Home forums since the merge. It's especially noticeable this year.

I dislike this change to the houzz sites. I have significantly reduced my time here because it's annoying. You don't see the last comment posted and have to scroll all the way down (sometimes 1000's of comments) to see what it is. There are no page breaks, and when you click back after wasting your time looking at a thread with a comment you've already read, it doesn't return you to your last location and you have to scroll down some more to find your place. I'm usually pretty easy going about adapting, but MHO this latest version is not improving the users experience so why keep it? Am I missing some secret friendlier way to maneuver?? At least (so far) the Gardenweb threads have not been altered and I hope they don't get any bright ideas for that.

Yes, there is a forum layout. It is weird to get to but it you use the reminder icon on you home page and click on a link you have used, you will get to this new layout:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/home-appliance-discussions-dsbr0-bd~t_28569

I don't like the new layout.

Good luck!

To see the last comment, click on the comments box in the original post. To return to the top of the page, there's an arrow in the bottom right corner.

No, it's not merged. You were looking on the Houzz Discussion side and here you are on the Gardenweb Discussions/Home Forums.

But that's the thing - no, I'm not. Like right now I am reading this thread and commenting from the Houzz discussions forum. Here is the web address for this thread:

[https://www.houzz.com/discussions/new-format-to-these-boards-dsvw-vd~4740449[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/new-format-to-these-boards-dsvw-vd~4740449)

But YOU are reading it from the Gardenweb forum. Different web address, but the content is merged between the two.

I POSTED this thread on the Gardenweb side. But if I were to post it on the Houzz side, and tag it with "Kitchens", it would post over on the Gardenweb kitchens forum too. However, one big difference - you can tag a post with up to 3 forums on Houzz. And the topic will then show up on the Houzz forums in any of those sub-forums. But whichever one you tag FIRST, that is the only one it will show up in on Gardenweb.

If you go back to the thread title page and look in the top right corner, there is a box which gives you format options--the option with two bars includes a pic, which is the format in your 'current' link. I prefer the three-bar option.

This does change the visual layout of the page. I also prefer the 3 bar option. But the 2 or 3 bar option is available on both the Houzz and Gardenweb discussions. It's not the same thing as the two different forum addresses like I linked in the first post. Homepro posted a pic of what the Houzz forums look like.

My guess is that this has been like this for a while, and I just had no idea. Homepro seemed to know about it. But like I said, I clicked on my usual Gardenweb bookmark the other day, and the page loaded as the Houzz Kitchens discussions. Which made me think they were working on updating the site so all traffic redirects to the Houzz forums, making that format the new standard.

Having played with it a few days, I do rather like it. There is definitely more traffic when the Houzz and Gardenweb discussion are merged. For example, in a 15 hour period the other day, there were 30 posts updated/commented upon in the Gardenweb Kitchens forum. That number jumped to 42 on the Houzz side, which included all the Gardenweb posts plus 12 others.

I haven't been on the Houzz side for about three months, so the change has happened since then. I checked it out this AM in Design Dilemma, and after I clicked through that annoying pop up, this is the screen shot:

The 'Top Commenters' section used to be in the top right corner, and IIRC the 'Your Topics' section is new, and seems to be specific to the forums I've viewed and/or commented on. I clicked on Kitchens, and the GW Kitchens forum threads appeared.

Thank you, southeasthouse, for pointing out the changes. I still don't like that pop up. :P

I think it is merged, at least to some degree, and the change happened within last few days. Noticed the same thing. The different interface unless you really actively escape it..and even then you see a tag next to a thread. I'm never on the Houzz site(been there once or twice in the beginning), but is like the posts are duplicated?..they go to both sides, or they go to both sides if you wish them to, maybe? In short there is a change. Hard to pinpoint what is it yet its there

Dislike it. What do I care about increase of traffic. What does he care for the logic of kings, lol. Find it overwhelming..big traffic is useful and fun to a point..at some point you get lost and it's harder to follow, and you loose motivation.

that's one of the reason I'm off all the big sites I know or frequented or tried to participate. It will be more discussion yes, while group builds itself. After some time though (might be years...but this time will come. or came already as the forums are already very established format of communicating) the quality of the discussion will go down though. It will be either less people, or less productive discussion.

just my two cents

I am not liking the new format but perhaps with time ...

@Mayflowers, I have also noticed a significant drop in activity over the last year. I used to lurk a lot and then came on board a few years ago and finally started posting. I miss all the activity. Now I am afraid it will diminish more!

What I am disliking most about the new format is all the really old threads popping up.