Before undertaking any interior design plans, or picking out furniture pieces, you’re going to need to decide on a floor plan for your new home.
There’s no right or wrong answer to whether open or closed floor plans are better – each have their own advantages – so it really comes down to choosing a floor plan that suits you and your lifestyle.
Here’s a guide to choosing the right floor plan for your home, so that you can weigh up the pros and cons for yourself!
Open floor plans are basically floor plans that involve fewer separate and closed off rooms, so that there aren’t as many walls and doors dividing up the living space e.g. the kitchen, lounge and dining area become one spacious room. Don’t worry though, bedrooms aren’t part of the open plan, so you can still have your privacy.
Our Hunter Collection has some good examples of open floor plan home designs, for example our ‘ O’SHEA ‘ design.
With an open floor plan, your home will look and feel much more spacious. There won’t be so many walls cutting into your space, so you’ll be able to make the most of the space your home has to offer.
The space that comes with an open floor plan is definitely welcome if your home is slightly on the smaller side. Closed floor plans can make homes feel cramped, so an open floor plan might be a better option to maximise the space of a smaller home.
The chefs of the family can feel a little lonely when they’re shut away in the kitchen, but with an open floor plan, you can entertain guests or catch up with the family at the same time as cooking.
There’s also no awkward hurrying to the kitchen to get your guests a drink. Instead, you can keep the conversation going whilst making a coffee.
It can often be difficult to find furniture for closed plan homes, especially if rooms are awkwardly shaped. But with open floor plans, there’s much more space to play with.
You can have your pick of furniture pieces, and with an open space, any layout goes! So you can get creative with how you lay out each area.
Open floor plans let light flow through your living space. There aren’t so many walls to block light or throw shade, so natural light is much more likely to fill your home.
Natural light creates a positive energy that you just don’t get with artificial lighting, so it’s definitely something you want to think about. Plus, natural lighting doesn’t cost you anything in bills!
When it comes to temperature control, you can expect it to be a little more expensive with an open floor plan. You’ll be heating or cooling a larger area, and heat escapes/comes in more easily with open plan homes.
Noise can be an issue with open floor plans. There’s no keeping the noise from the kitchen out of the rest of the living space, which can make cooking and watching TV at the same time difficult.
With open floor plans being more spacious, you might also find that noise bounces and echoes more than with a closed floor plan. This isn’t too bad if it’s just you, but if you’ve got a large family, or you’re entertaining guests, it could start to pose a problem.
Closed floor plans are the more traditional of home layouts, with separate rooms for relaxing, cooking, and eating.
Our flexible plans section showcases home layout options that can all be modified into homes with closed floor plans.
With open floor plans, only the bedrooms and bathrooms are private from the rest of the home. But with closed floor plans and the separate rooms that come with them, there’s an added sense of privacy.
This can also be a bonus if you have children, especially older children. Everyone can have their own space and privacy, without having to retreat to bedrooms for private conversations or phone calls.
Open floor plans usually require that you pick a design theme and stick to it, unless you want your home to look particularly quirky and eccentric. But with closed floor plans, you can have different themes in different rooms, so you don’t have to limit your artistic side when it comes to interior design.
We’re all guilty of being a little messy sometimes, and more often than not, we don’t want anyone else to witness it. Closed floor plans offer you the opportunity to shut off particularly messy rooms if you have guests over.
Some people can’t stand to have cooking smells fill the entire house, and with closed floor plans it’s easy to make sure cooking smells stay in the kitchen.
The door to the kitchen can easily be closed, so you don’t have to put up with the smell of your dinner in the living room.
The main reason people choose open floor plans over closed ones is because closed floor plans have a tendency to make a home feel cramped.
You can’t move as freely from room to room, and if you have guests over, hallways can get a little crowded.
This is particularly relevant if someone is cooking dinner whilst others are relaxing in the living area. Chefs can feel isolated, and can miss out on socialising whilst cooking.
This can also impact on family life, especially if you have children. Let’s face it, the kids probably don’t help out too often whilst you’re cooking their dinner. Instead, they’re more likely to be relaxing in the living room, or maybe doing their homework at a table. Either way, with a closed floor plan, it won’t be as easy to catch up with them.
It’s much easier to shut away and hide mess with closed floor plan, which can often cause us to get a little lazy. Rather than putting things away, it becomes tempting to just close the door on messy rooms – as long as the main living room is tidy, right? Whereas with an open floor plan, there aren’t so many places to hide mess!
So both open and closed floor plans have their advantages, the decision between the two really comes down to your lifestyle, and what you value the most – space or privacy. All of our flexible plans can be modified to suit you, whether you go with an open or closed floor plan. So weigh up the pros and cons of each, and remember to think of your everyday life, not just the times when you’ll be entertaining!