Open for Living

My husband reluctantly agreed to go see the nondescript fifties house for sale on the corner—as a favor to me. However, after dragging him over the threshold, my work was done. The floor plan captured us. We saw past the orange shag carpet, the psychedelic wallpaper, and the scattering of lime green trim to appreciate a nearly ideal layout for a growing family.

The entryway that presented the spacious living room flowed into a doorless formal dining area and melted into the kitchen that slipped into the informal eating nook. Simply, the layout had movement and when we saw our two-year-old gleefully running around the built-in oak buffet, we were sold.

The Trends are Wide Open
It seems we are not the only converts to the open floor plan. The American Institute of Architects confirms that homes are increasingly designed with open and more informal layouts, and homeowners are looking for fewer rooms that share the space and light, and are all wrapped up in a smaller housing footprint. The movement is not toward bigger; it’s toward better.

Hudson, Wisconsin. “The more that people are exposed to it, the more people say ‘Wow, this is how I want to live in my home.’”

And while open floor plans have an aesthetic appeal, it isn’t all about good looks. “Part of the trend is cost-driven,” says architect George Cundy of Cundy, Santine & Associates in Shoreview. “Let’s say you’re trying to save a dollar or two. Are you going to build a house with smaller rooms? No. You’re going use a design that flows, that makes the rooms look bigger so the rooms don’t have to be so big.”

A home that flows gives the illusion of space. Ever been in a house that is smaller than yours, but actually looks bigger? It’s the “Big Sky” phenomenon of dwellings. It’s not that the house is really any larger, but because you can see farther, everything feels more spacious. Open floor plans, because of their limited use of walls and doors, obstruct less of your sightline and make smaller homes feel roomy.

“By having an open layout there is balance and flow between each and every space, including outdoor views,” Lenzen says. “To visually see through rooms, one gets a more panoramic view of the lot. It gives a very large space feeling even in spaces that may not be that large.”

Cundy asserts there are also cultural motivations to the open floor plan movement: Modern Americans live more practically. In old Victorian homes all the way to sectioned-off ramblers, there were formal rooms such as front parlors and entertaining rooms. These spaces were used only for holidays, weddings, and funerals, and otherwise the furniture was encased in plastic and no one entered until the next event. Americans are no longer willing to pay for rooms they’re not regularly using. “Now our lifestyle is more relaxed and that is reflected in the floor plan. It is more sociable to get away from all these little rooms,” Cundy says.

As families struggle for time to simply “be,” there is a tendency toward a more collective living. “People like the idea of being in one room and still have contact—be it communicative or simply just the presence of other people in their home. It allows for a sense of community,” Lenzen says.

The cook is no longer isolated in the kitchen but can still visit with those in the living room while making dinner and knowing which child is causing the havoc on the couch. “We’ve all heard (or said) ‘Hey! Whoever is causing trouble in there, cut it out!’ but now that the gathering rooms are so part of everything, there’s no getting away with anything,” Cundy says.

Hustle and Flow
Daniel Kurth of Castle Gate Construction in Victoria recently finished a 2,200-square-foot addition/remodel in a western suburban home. The homeowners are gourmet cooks and wanted a beautiful kitchen that was also very functional.

“People often have the misperception that they have to just take down some walls to achieve an open floor plan,” he says. “But there are lots of details to pay attention to and one that often gets overlooked are the traffic patterns. How do people actually move in the house? You have to interview the family and really understand how they live.”

Kurth’s design opened up the kitchen into the two-story-high great room divided by a stunning freestanding stone fireplace. On a less dramatic but equally important note, he made the natural throughways ample and unencumbered. This makes food-laden treks to the new sunroom/dining area an easy jaunt.

And while guests enjoy the water views, the host can keep an eye on the bubbling stovetop through a bank of windows between the two rooms. “Windows can open up the feeling of a space as much as taking down a wall,” Kurth says.

Defining Space in the Open
Rick Denman of Charles Cudd Signature Homes in Minneapolis emphasizes attention to design basics is necessary to successfully pull off the open floor plan. “I think it is important that each room has its own definition, even if those rooms are open,” he says. “You don’t want to end with just a huge rectangular room with everything dumped into it.”

Smartly used details can define rooms and add necessary character where delineating walls are absent. Design elements like tray vaulted ceilings, soffits, wall textures, and transition ways, such as arches and half walls, can subtly announce the end of one space and the beginning of another. “Even changing a floor surface, transitioning it from wood to tile to carpet, can define a space,” Denman says. 

Height in floor plans with long sightlines is important because a ceiling that feels low in an expansive space can give the area an unwanted bowling alley look. “In the eighties and nineties, eight-foot ceiling height was typical,” Denman says. “That worked when you had separate formal rooms, dining space, living space, and kitchen. Now you’ll see all those spaces mingle, but with a higher ceiling and other elements like varying cabinet heights or lighting to draw the eye upward. It’s a design must.”

Furniture also works harder to delineate spaces than ever before. Now we’re seeing lots of dining rooms with only two walls, so how do you know that it’s a dining room? “Because the table is there to tell you,” Cundy says. “The furniture provides a context clue and that is all we need to define a room. It’s all in how you use it.”

This lean away from hard-defined spaces holds an additional benefit: With a more flexible definition of how each space in the home is used, homeowners can modify the rooms to fit their needs over a longer time period.

All That’s Old...
With the strong market influence of America’s Baby Boomers, one-level living—the hallmark of mid-century homes—is indeed back. Rambler owners can take their hip selves out to celebrate.

“Forty percent of the houses we built in 2005 were ramblers with open floor plans that incorporated many rooms within one large great room,” says Tom Stokes of Brenshell Homes, Inc., in St. Bonifacius. “The empty nester demographics tend to lean toward ramblers, and that whole group of individuals is coming to the forefront of the market.” These aren’t necessarily the ramblers of the seventies and eighties, Stokes explains. “With these floor plans you get big, vaulted ceilings and decorative woodwork that wasn’t around in previous eras.”

In the typical ranch plan, most of the living space, master bedroom, and laundry is all on the main level, and additional bedrooms are on the secondary level with perhaps a basement walkout. “For the empty nester market this eliminates the constant use of stairs,” Denman says, speaking to the greater accessibility needs for an aging U.S. population. “And styles are looking back to those fifties homes; they have a good floor plan and the rooms relate properly to each other. The design of a good floor plan is timeless.”

Open for Entertaining
Everyone has been to a large get-together where clumps of people ended up in separate rooms and the party never really congealed. That may have been more about the architecture than the guest list. If everyone ends up in the kitchen anyway, it’s best if it’s an integral part of the home. Open floor plans are entertainment workhorses and revelers can organically spill into other areas of the house without losing their grasp on the greater gathering.

“This is particularly important for big holidays,” Cundy says. “You have loads of relatives and your dining room table can’t accommodate everyone. Because the rooms work together, you can set out a long table in the living room” without making your relatives feel relegated to the kids’ table.

Opened Décor
The vast views in these open houses affect how a room is outfitted and decorated. “That’s particularly true of the kitchen,” says designer Jean McCue of Love That Space in Eden Prairie. “Now that kitchens are lynch pins of the open floor plan, upgrades like custom cabinetry and handsome appliances are more important since they’re seen from nearly every angle.”

And because of these panoramic views, decorating style throughout the rooms needs to show unity. “You can play with wall colors within a given palette, but I always recommend that the trim be the same throughout to really flow. Accent colors should all tie together throughout the greater space, too,” McCue says. Ultimately, open floor plans are set up as one big room, even though the spaces within may have different purposes, which means the furnishings and color palettes all have to harmonize.

While houses with open floor plans are designed to mingle rooms and functions, there are still areas meant to be more private—bedrooms and clutter-filled home offices top the list. But for all the spaciousness and family togetherness of opened homes, the lack of retreat for some can be off-putting. Sectioning off areas with décor can satisfy the yen for seclusion. “The trick is to create cozy spots with furnishings and accent pieces within the greater space,” McCue says. “Everyone needs some sanctuary.”