Eve Cunningham
While open plans can be more difficult at first, once you start implementing the tips in this post, you’ll gain confidence as your home design comes together. While I keep things simple by referring to your home, the tips work whether you’ve chosen a house, apartment, condo, or townhouse. For the best results, combine the tips in this post with the full Polished Habitat Design Method.
I suggest working through the Design Method worksheets first thinking about your open space as a whole to come up with your overall color scheme and textures, and then go back to break out the functional zones. There is a clear view from the front door straight past the open dining and kitchen into the living room, so I had to figure out how to make them all work together. I picked Sherwin-Williams Web Gray and used it on the front door, the kitchen island, and on the back wall of the dining room.
Whether your style is subtle or bold, patterns and textures add interest to your home and are an important part of your design. With an open floor plan, you have to think about the whole space when you’re selecting patterns for rugs, window treatments, and pillows.
That meant whatever we choose for the laundry room makeover needed to coordinate with the open areas of the house. Now you may be thinking that I JUST showed you our laundry room/garage entry tile touching the wood flooring so I must be breaking my own rule.
As you make future plans for your home, think about how you can unite as many of the open areas as possible with one flooring surface. We choose wood to run from the front door through the kitchen, dining room and nook.
In retrospect, we wish we would have found the money to continue it into my office, the great room, and our downstairs bedroom as well. As long as they all flow with your overall vision for your home, it’s totally fine to have fun with a variety of finishing options for each bathroom!
Open concept areas aren’t the space to get creative with lots of different wall and trim paint colors.
Keep the trim one color, and as much as you may be tempted, let the architecture of your house be your paint guide.
We have a wall in the kitchen that we can’t paint without covering the whole entryway AND stairwell AND room at the top of the stairs. When choosing a paint for the large open space, be sure to test the samples in each area as they will all have different lighting.
We’ve talked a lot about ways to help rooms feel consistent and cohesive. It’s important to have that solid underlying palette because then you can have fun mixing things up to match your personality.
Each space within your open area should have something to draw the eye and help define it as an individual room in the memory of your guest.
Whether that be sports, travel, books, or a certain design style, I bet it will help you come up with some creative ideas!
As you select furniture, be sure to check the back of each piece if it’s placement will be “floating” in your room instead of against a wall.
