Modern homes love the space maximising benefits of open-plan living but it can easily end up feeling like one sprawling room. To make your open-plan living space feel homely, spacious and functional, a certain amount of thought needs to go into the design and décor.

Once you’ve established what kind of activities you want to do be able to in your open plan space, you can start to ‘zone’ the area. This helps to make your space feel separated yet integrated.

This doesn’t mean creating physical barriers, instead use rugs, shelving, statement pieces and lighting to define each area.

Here are our 4 top tips to help you design a defined open-plan space without interrupting the flow that makes open-plan living so great:

  1. Flooring & Rugs

To create a sense of continuity throughout your living space choose one type of flooring but make sure it’s suitable for all areas of the room. This can act as your blank canvas which you can then ‘zone’ with rugs. For example, the Rigoriga rug in the photo below establishes this area as the living room.

  1. Privacy

One drawback of open-plan living spaces is they can often feel empty and lack privacy. To avoid this, create cosy corners and semi-hidden areas with room dividers and large leafy plants.

A versatile choice like the Content by Terence Conran Counter Balance Tall Shelving is great because you can fill the shelves as much as you like. You could stack the shelves full of books to create a solid divider or leave it semi-bare for a more open feeling.

  1. Statement pieces

If you feel creating semi-physical barriers closes up your space too much, establish each zone with statement pieces. Two or three statement pieces create multiple areas of interest to keep your eyes moving around the room so it feels bigger.

The key with statement pieces is to keep the look balanced. A bold sofa like this Alexander and James sofa makes the seating area known but it will drown out the rest of the room if it’s not balanced out by other statement pieces. To keep the look feeling cohesive, look for pieces of a similar style or with the same wood colour or accent colour.

  1. Lighting

The most important tool in any interior scheme is always lighting. Lighting sets the mood, so it’s important to have different lighting for different activities in your open-plan space. Functional pendant lighting, like this Libra Merle Copper Ceiling Pendant would work in a kitchen area whilst soft table lamps, like this Libra Small Silver Bottle Lamp, help to create a cosy glow in the seating area.

 

 

Again, different types of lighting help to keep your eyes moving around the space so that although your space is defined, it actually feels and looks bigger.

If you’ve found this blog post useful, why not have a read of our other tips and tricks blog posts, like our 4 Steps to a Summer Ready Home and Space Saving Furniture.