Open plan living has long been synonymous with the latest style and cutting edge design. Making a home feel bigger, airier and brighter it has become increasingly popular with families and young professionals alike.
Though achieving a completely open plan home can be impractical, especially if you currently live in a period or rental property, you can still use the ideas behind open plan living to transform your house.
Open plan kitchen diner
One of the most popular areas to have as an open plan design is the kitchen and dining room. Combining the two spaces creates a fantastic space for entertaining and for family life, and means that whoever is doing the cooking doesn’t have to be hidden away from everyone else.
Depending on the layout of your home, achieving an open plan kitchen diner will vary in difficulty and could mean knocking down some walls or even building an extension.
However once you’ve obtained the kitchen of your dreams, all of your effort will seem well worth it.
Entire open plan floor
The next step up from an open plan kitchen diner is to include more – if not all – of your downstairs space into the design.
If you’re going to have completely open living areas, right from the kitchen through to the living room and incorporating everything in between, you’ll definitely need to consult an architect in order to ensure that any alterations are done properly.
This completely open plan look can be especially effective if you live in a characterful house or if you’ve got the space to open the room up to the full height of your house.
Defining areas
One of the main challenges that you’ll face when creating an open plan home is defining which area will be which. And as this is one of the main keys to a successful design, achieving a good division of function is crucial. The easiest non-architectural of defining your living areas is to use furniture to create visual borders.
In the kitchen this could be a work surface or dining table, in the living room sofas and chairs can be utilized and in other areas of the home free standing shelves, sideboards and bookcases can be used to help to define each space.
Dividing up the space
If you want a more permanent division between areas without detracting from the open plan feel, you can use glass or folding doors to create division when and where required.
These doors can be cleverly hidden in walls and behind furniture and then closed individually to divide up different areas whenever appropriate.
Frameless sliding doors
For the ultimate in modern open plan design, have some frameless sliding doors installed into your home.
These fantastically designed features will give you a feeling of light and space throughout your home while still provided the privacy, noise reduction and definition of space that you require.
Perfect for many areas of the home, frameless sliding doors will give you the latest innovation in the world of open plan living. Living in an open plan home can be fantastic. Giving your home the space, grandeur and ambiance that you’ve always wanted.
And with the added flexibility of frameless glass sliding doors and room dividers, you can transform your home into the ultimate des res, creating a fantastic place for both you and your family to live.
Interior/Modern Design for 2013 – open plan living and frameless sliding doors
