Open Vs. Closed Plan Homes

Open plan living - what’s the big deal? This is one home improvement mantra that just won’t go away. Sadly, renovation is often a compromise and transforming your property can be limited by legal and financial issues. Often the switch to open plan living is out of necessity, when moving to a unit, apartment or newly constructed property, and not a viable dream for more period homes. In the end, both styles can be beautiful and practical.

An open plan living space - that is, an amalgamated area for cooking, dining and socialising purposes - has many benefits not offered by a more traditional set-up. For one thing, it creates a specifically public part of the home, a centre for interaction, relaxation and chatter, which is also useful if you enjoy entertaining. It can act as a hub for a family, make the home feel larger overall and allow you to squeeze in pieces of furniture which may have otherwise been discarded. The space allows natural light to enter more freely, with interior walls no longer a restriction, and can also be a wonder for those who suffer allergies from dust build-up. You’ll notice they feature prominently on home improvement websites, but whether this is actually due to their appeal or merely to the ease of using wide photography in such spaces is up to interpretation!

Of course, there are also some downsides. A larger space means putting more strain on your heating or cooling system. Not only will the area take longer to reach the desired temperature, it may prove more costly than if only a few rooms were heated at a time. Sound travels easily and the wall space available for decoration is reduced. Yet perhaps the most noticeable difference from a closed plan property is the fact open plan spaces may ooze sterility, tend a little towards generic and away from personal. Elongated homes with pokey little kitchens and long hallways may not feel as spacious as the modern alternative, but they certainly have character. If you’re constructing a property from scratch, you may decide the enormous effort involved in keeping an open space clean is simply not worth the trouble; or you may prefer to emphasise privacy and quietness; or you may simply desire the opportunity to decorate multiple rooms in contrasting ways. While a central hub has the potential to bring people together, it can also create tension - if anyone wants to watch television, the whole household cannot escape the noise! What’s more, open plan living reduces a home’s potential for diversified spaces - if you want to section off and designate rooms for work or play, this will inevitably be better suited to a property with a larger variety of spaces.