In an open floor plan, decorating is tall order

To meet the demands of today’s home buyers, builders are creating homes with open floor plans that combine the kitchen, family room, breakfast room and sometimes the keeping room and formal dining space.

Homes with open floor plans are light, airy and give the illusion of space, even in relatively small homes.

They are great for entertaining, and they’re perfect for empty nesters who are downsizing but still need a big space to accommodate their larger pieces of furniture, said Cindy McPherson of Interior Partners and owner of a home with an open floor plan.

In fact, McPherson had no plans to buy a new house until she saw the open floor plan of an infill home in Dunwoody and fell in love.

“The home has about 1,200 square feet of open space, and it’s fabulous for entertaining and large enough to accommodate a crowd,” she said.

Open floor plans sometimes present a challenge to homeowners, who puzzle over how to determine where one space starts and another ends and how to make a huge open space feel cozy and warm.

Furniture placement is a good way to divide up a large open space, said Pam Slappey of MD Design Group.

She suggested using a large sofa as a divider and placing a sofa table behind it, then adding lamps or tall plants to create a visual barrier.

“Thanks to the popularity of open floor plans, furniture makers are designing pieces that are finished on both sides,” Slappey said.

She’s used inexpensive bookshelf units from Pier One and Target to divide a large open space.

“Bookcases can be filled with artwork and vases and fulfill functional and decorative uses at the same time,” Slappey said.

In large, high-end homes, she suggested choosing large, upscale furniture created for open floor plans, such as a 12-foot curved bookcase by Habersham Designs.

In a large space, create your main seating arrangement around a focal point, such as a fireplace or a television, suggested Mona Stephen, executive director of M-One Design Group.

Warm up the space by adding area rugs and pillows.

Create secondary conversation areas as well, such as placing a pair of chairs and an end table in a corner or in front of a window, Stephen added.

“When people have a party in a large space, the room should have different conversation areas so it doesn’t seem like everyone is in one big conference room,” she added.

In her large home, McPherson placed a baby grand piano between the breakfast area and the great room to define the two uses of the space.

Since her open space has hardwood floors throughout, McPherson used area rugs to define the space, placing a rug in the sitting area and another under the breakfast table.

Take into account the size of your space when you’re choosing furniture, Stephen suggests.

“The size of the furniture should be based on the size of the space and the height of the room,” she said.

McPherson chose large pieces to fit in with the scale of her large room with high ceilings. For instance, there’s a big plasma TV over the fireplace flanked by two tall urns.

“The urns are really large, but anything smaller would look silly,” she said.

If your ceiling is low, use tall lamps and accessories or hang the curtains all the way to the ceiling to give the illusion of a taller height, Stephen suggested.

To be on the cutting edge of design, choose a soft color palette for your open floor space and add color with furniture and accessories, rather than with an accent wall, Stephen suggested.

“Dark colors are definitely a thing of the past as of right now for open floor plans. Darker paint is fine in a closed-off space like a study, but in an open space, the colors should be light and airy and the trim should be all one color for continuity,” she said.

Do’s and don’ts for open floor plans

> Do choose furniture and accessories in scale with the size of the room. If the room is large with high ceilings, choose big, bold pieces that aren’t dwarfed by the space.

> Do use lighting to define the space. Hang a chandelier over the breakfast table, pendant lights over the breakfast bar in the kitchen and can lights or spots in the living area.

> Do use screens or panels to divide the space. Hang a decorative screen from the ceiling to create a visual barrier.

> Don’t use different colors to define the space unless there is a corner or an edge between the spaces. Having two different colors meet in the middle of a solid wall gives the area an inharmonious look.

> Don’t mix extreme styles of furniture, such as a starkly modern table in the dining area and an intricately carved Victorian highboy in the living room. Everything in an open space should blend together.