The open concept home has gone full circle. It was all the rage in the early 2000’s, it sort of stopped and tapered off a bit. Then came open concept bathrooms in the house and now we are back to people wanting the full open concept kitchen. 

So, whether you are remodelling or daydreaming about remodelling your home to be fully open concept we have some suggestions to keep it within reason. 

1) Keep Spaces as Individual Rooms With Open Concept 

We get it – this sounds counterintuitive for open concept, but it is critical. In order for your house to be visually appealing you need to keep your spaces separate. Cooking stays in the kitchen. Dining stays in the dining room and relaxing is for the living room. If you do not section off your home and your rooms, your open concept plan could feel like a giant dining hall that makes your space feel weird and incomplete. 

How To Do It: Add vertical layers with carpets, lamps and pots. Do not, we REPEAT DO NOT, attempt to section off every area with different wall colors or schemes. 

While color can help – so can patterns – do not go too far!

2) Avoid Too Many Patterns, Colors and Design Integrations

Your rooms need to flow from one to another but feel separate. So, if your kitchen is blue, white and grey – move those colors into your living room. It would not be a great idea to incorporate a lot more colors or design aspects like wallpaper, mismatched furniture, etc. 

How To Do It: Choose a color palette and style that you love that is fun, interchangeable and flows through the entire open concept. Selected furniture, accessories and decor in the same style but you can blend colors and shades. 

3) Don’t Skip Out On The Lighting

You cannot have too much lighting. Put everything on a dimmer if you feel it’s too much! Lighting plays a huge part in setting the mode, tone and feel of the house. You want to have the right ambience throughout the home. 

How To Do It: Plan your electrical elements as you would a design project. Think carefully about lighting in the room and how to fill up the space such as corners and the middle of the room. 

4) Don’t Reuse Furniture If It Does Not Work

This happens a lot.

People move houses and bring their old furniture. It’s either too big or too small for an open concept house. This takes away from the flow of the whole space. 

How To Do It: Measure everything. Section off your floor with painters tape so that you can see how the furniture fit. The space around it and how it makes the room feel while you are in it. If you find yourself walking through the tape, around it, or your house feels too big with the tapped sections, you know your items will not work. 

5) Don’t Misplace Your Furniture 

While speaking about reusing furniture that does not work – if you have furniture that does work and it is the same color tone and fits great – make sure it is arranged well. Placing a sectional couch and cutting off the entire kitchen might not be the best way to keep flow through your house. It could be better placed against a wall and using two sitting chairs toward the kitchen to keep a feeling of “open”.

How To Do It: Be mindful of the furniture and the placing of it. Sometimes keeping couches in the middle of the room is the best place for them. That’s why it is important to buy furniture to fit the room and if you plan on keeping items in the middle of the room – keep them with low backs so as to not cut off site lines. 

As always  – if you need help buying or selling a house do not hesitate to reach out to Gregg or Ryan. If you need help designing a room, we have people who can help you with that.