OPEN PLAN VERSUS BROKEN PLAN. HAS LOCKDOWN CHANGED OUR INTERIOR DESIGN ASPIRATIONS?

Gosh what a rollercoaster the last year and a half has been and boy have our homes come under scrutiny. The question is “has open plan interior design stood up to 24/7 lock-ins?”

Anyone who has missed the trend for open plan interior design must have spent the last decade either in a wilderness hermitage or floating on a li-lo around their own tropical island. I have lost count of the walls demolished, skips filled and steels installed. The interior design world has gone crazy for huge open plan kitchen living spaces but was all that wall removal a good idea or has open plan become broken plan?

The truth is, we have designed numerous gorgeous open plan living spaces and they can be spectacular

There is no argument from me that huge multifunction kitchen spaces can be absolutely glorious. The vast kitchen island and ubiquitous skylights have become the number one on many of our client’s wish lists and we have helped create some absolute beauties. Huge glass doors, bespoke room dividers, pop up hobs and enormous squishy corner sofas: I could continue with the list of delicious design delights but after all, this is meant to be an article on whether these spaces actually work, or not.

Clearly defined spaces and plenty of storage are the keys to great open plan spaces

The key to successful living/kitchen spaces is clear zoning. In most cases clients are looking to accommodate a kitchen, dining and a lounge area. We are also increasingly being asked to include an area for home working into the scheme. Failure to clearly distinguish between the different use areas and your open plan space could end up looking like a jumbled mess.

Be realistic about how much storage you need and where you need it. The last thing you want is little people buzzing backwards and forwards through a cooking area to get their things, this is both annoying and a recipe for a trip to A&E.

Keeping it real and managing expectations. We are talking mess, noise, cooking smells and privacy. The flip side of open plan interior design

In an ideal world, in addition to your voluminous open plan area there would be a drawing room for quiet grown up time and a playroom to store all the toys and children’s paraphernalia. Unfortunately this isn’t often the case and the quest for the open plan dream can be at the expense of the rest of the ground floor space. 

There is a real danger that the kitchen/living open plan space can completely dominate the floor area and leave you with a tiny drawing room or worse still no drawing room. This is all well and good if your home is occupied by 2 tidy grown ups, however if your home is of the family variety, your entire ground floor could end up a sea of lego and Barbie dolls. And we all know what it’s like to tread on those in the wee hours. Not fun and pretty painful.

Hard surfaces amplify sounds. Just take a moment to think about the finishes in a kitchen:acres of solid worktop and hard floor finishes vs children, pots and pans and a TV blaring out cartoons or worse, violent computer games. Now add to that, no separation between your stairs and your living area. Are you getting the picture?

Let’s ramp it up to next level and imagine that you are trying to work from home, you can’t hear yourself think over the TV, you just trod on a spiky plastic toy on the way to get an aspirin (you have a headache, it’s a bad day), someone spilled a drink over the report you have been trying to complete, you go for a lay down and even your bed sheets smell of last nights curry cooking and to top it off you can hear the little darlings hollering from downstairs. 

Think through your open plan ground floor interior design before you start taking down those walls

Open plan living is not for everyone and the design needs to be carefully considered, preferably with the help of a professional. Think it through and be realistic. Drop us a line and we can set up a no obligation call to see how we can help you create your dream space, whether that be open plan or reversing to a more separated space. There are many options and regardless of your situation we have a solution and would love to help you make your interior design dreams a reality.