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Living Rooms with Open Floor Plans

Go with the flow in an open floor plan—and make it work for you and your lifestyle.

 

Form a perfect union.

Take your cue from a kitchen’s costly-to-change fittings and duplicate their colors in softer textures in an adjacent sitting area. This sofa’s slightly rumpled slipcover fabric repeats the grayish tones of the streamlined appliances and stone countertops. The area rug and throw pillows echo the kitchen cabinets’ ruddy undertones and black painted details.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Connect open floor plans with color.

When it comes to painting great rooms, it’s sometimes hard to know when to start and stop applying color. The simplest solution? Paint all adjoining walls and architectural details the same color so as not to disrupt visual flow. Further the link between kitchen, eating and sitting areas with similarly hued accents. In this great room, sage green, silvery gray, brown and white tones supply chromatic connections.

 

 

 

Create open loft living.

Stylishly separate work and entertaining areas in ways that let views and conversation easily flow from space to space. Partial walls, strategically set islands, breakfast bars, columns and dropped or raised ceilings do just that. In this family space, knotty pine boards and timbers accentuate kitchen doorways and frame the breakfast bar to create the look of a large pass-through window.

 

 

 

 

Demarcate with furniture.

Though a properly placed sofa noticeably marks a transition from one space to the next, beefier furniture arrangements do the trick in a more impactful way. Extend a sofa’s presence, while hiding its not so-pretty back, with a console table that suits your decorating preferences. Stow good-looking baskets holding TV-room necessities underneath the table to make the arrangement appear more substantial.

 

 

 

 

 

Make multilevel open spaces.

Make sure that open-concept spaces read as one cohesive whole. Lay the same type of flooring in all areas and duplicate ceiling treatments whenever possible. When it wasn’t feasible to add beams to the dining room ceiling, the homeowner carried the living room’s tongue-and-groove board details to the dining room ceiling.

 

 

 

 

 

Maximize an open plan’s sight lines.

When planning cooking, eating and relaxation stations, consider what you want to see from each area. Place your sink or cooktop in an island so as you work, you can enjoy a hearth’s flickering flames, watch your kids as they play, talk with guests and take in panoramas framed by doors or large windows in adjacent areas.

 

 

 

Strategically divide rooms.

A clever ceiling treatment and horizontal white painted boards on the walls immediately identify this as one space. Thoughtful furniture arrangements double its purpose to include television-watching seating anchored by an area rug as well as a more intimate grouping meant for conversation. Splashy aqua hues, popping up as banding on slipcovered chairs, floral patterned pillows and solid-hued club chairs, supply a vibrant link.

 

 

 

Add focal points.

Incorporate a focal point in each adjacent space. These look-at-me elements capture the eye, while improving how the space works. This open-concept design showcases four standout features—a mirrored bar area, a paneled television wall, light-inviting breakfast room windows and a steely range hood set against a marble backsplash—making each area as visually appealing as the next.

 

 

 

Blur boundaries between rooms.

Built-in bookcases extend into a sitting area to handily unite work and relaxation zones, while supplying display shelves and behind-closed-doors storage for the family room. Shifting shades of tan on the kitchen and family room walls subtly delineate the two different areas. Want to create a similar look? Choose two shades of the same color from a paint-chip strip; the farther apart the shades, the greater the contrast.

 

 

 

Divide and conquer open plans.

Lay the groundwork for managing wide-open spaces. Arrange cozy conversation groupings, each defined with its own area rug, then spotlight each group with an impressive ceiling-mounted fixture. In this large lounge, a pair of statuesque lamps are set atop a console, subtly dividing two sitting areas without blocking sight lines or conversation.