Decorating An Open Floor Plan House

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Today I am going to show you furniture layout ideas for an open floor plan house and decorating tips to help you create a cohesive flow between a kitchen and living room open floor plan.

Open Concept Floor Plans

An open floor plan has many benefits offering a large open space for entertaining and gathering.

However, arranging furniture and decorating an open floor plan home can quickly become overwhelming. 

The first house below that I am going to show you is one that I staged for sale and the open floor plan (with no furniture) was creating an issue for prospective buyers as they could not envision a furniture layout.

The owner asked if I would help them create a furniture layout that would be appealing to buyers.

The neutral paint color on the walls made it easy to decorate this open floor plan home.

The question, “how to paint an open floor plan” is a common one as many times, the walls all join together with no definitive stop point. The best advice is to paint the entire space the same paint color.

The first step was to create an entryway that was warm and welcoming as you walked into the home.

The idea of sofa table can be used in multiple ways. The sofa table does not need to be your “traditional” sofa table either.

In this case, we used this beautiful slim lined cabinet from HomeGoods that I had in my previous house.

As you can see it looked great behind the sofa as well as the foyer below. Which space do you like it in the best?

Behind the sofa or the small wall in the foyer?

Open Concept Living Room Kitchen Floor Plans

An open floor plan kitchen typically is off of the garage and flows into the living room. 

This particular open concept style kitchen accesses a mudroom area that leads to the garage while the other end leads to the kitchen nook and living room. 

I love the oversized large doors and dark hardware in the mudroom area off the garage and how it opens into the kitchen.

I think it’s important to have a space like this when entering from the garage. Lets face it, how often do we all really use our front doors?

Many times we enter through a side door or through a garage. 

An open floor plan kitchen will typically have a kitchen island or peninsula.

L shaped or U shaped kitchens offering an eat-in-peninsula are the perfect solution if you do not have enough room for a kitchen island.

The kitchen is a beautiful open floor plan that is jam packed with stainless steel appliances, neutral counters and amazing hardwoods.

I decided to decorate this home in a modern farmhouse theme while keeping it neutral. The natural light in this home is amazing!

When buying furniture for an open floor plan, a round dining table typically will look good in a kitchen nook area. Traditionally, kitchen nooks are a smaller space that lead to a living area. 

If you have a large dining area, then a larger dining table will make the most sense.

The goal when furnishing an open concept kitchen and living room is to make sure the traffic flows nicely from each room.  

Open Floor Plan Living Room

This particular colonial home is 2600 square feet.

Furniture layout is very important in an open concept kitchen and living room. 

Most of the time, the sectional or couch will float in the middle of the floor creating a visual border between the two spaces.

In this case, the backside of the sectional created a walkway that leads to the front door.

We used the sectional as a divider between the foyer and the tv area. The area rug creates a foundation for the living room furniture and the media console creates the focal point for the living room. 

If this were my home, I would have a beautiful wall gallery of family photos on either side of the tv.

Open Floor Plan Ideas

Open floor plan living room ideas are endless depending on how big the living room is. One idea, is to place the entire sectional in the middle of the floor creating a full walk around the sofa.

Our open floor plan living room below shows the sectional about 3 feet off the wall on either side allowing space behind to walk around. Click through this post, how to arrange a sectional, to see more of this room.

Keep in mind, our living room is fairly large which allows the sectional to float in the middle of the room but the living room above does not have enough space so the sectional is against one wall.

Here is another shot of our living room with the sofa table behind the sectional.

Open concept living is all the rage right now and will most likely continue for years. Some may find it difficult to create 2 rooms in one large space so hopefully these tips will  help you move forward and create a beautiful open space.

I remember when we finished off our lower level at our old house and our kitchen and family room were all in one space, my mom was concerned that it wasn’t going to look good but once it was done, she really liked it.

Her generation is more of the divided rooms with walls, a formal living room and formal dining room. Who even uses a formal rooms anymore?

My generation and the future generations are all about open floor plans and multipurpose rooms.

Our lake house has an open kitchen living room floor plan and you can see below, we placed the leather sofa in the middle of the living room.

A large scale rug is a must when placing a sectional or sofa in the middle of a living room. The rug will help “ground” the furniture and create visual boundaries.

Click through this post, living room remodel, to see more of our lake house living space and Airbnb listing. Yes, we are now renting our waterfront lake house in New Hampshire!

I think the open concept floor plan is here to stay so have fun with it. If you are struggling designing and creating a cozy space within an open concept floor plan, send me a picture and I’ll email you some ideas!