Timber Frame Perk - Working with an Open Floor Plan

Our Regional Sales Manager, Gregory Burnshaw offers up this feature on open floor plans:

One of the many appealing characteristics of a timber framed home is the potential for an open floor plan. Conventional "stick-built" construction necessitate load-bearing walls to support the structure and usually have many interconnected interior boxes, or rooms, obscured from one another. By contrast, timber framing uses posts, beams, and various trusses to create open spaces.

An open floor plan and vaulted space both contribute to a roomier feeling while using less square footage than a conventionally built home that is divided by supporting walls. Hence, when designing and decorating a timber frame home the open spaces need to be carefully thought out.

Designing an open floor plan and cathedral space is both fun and challenging. The great room generally becomes the focal point of a home and sets a theme that will be visually shared with the other areas of the home. Consequently, "great" rooms and the grand spaces created by an open floor plan "up the ante" in terms of how we furnish and decorate the space. Picture your current sofa and coffee table set up in the middle of a vaulted great room and you'll get the picture; a disproportion between the size of the room and the pieces within it. To maintain scale and balance, in proportion to the volume, the scale of the furnishing and finishes need to be given serious consideration.

The arrangement of pieces of furniture working together forms a mass. A grouping of sofas, chairs, and a cocktail table huddled together in cozy proximity can serve well as an intimate converssation arena and fill a portion of a large room nicely, and the mass of that grouping needs to work with the volume of the room. Oversized sofas and furniture, large scale chandeliers and paintings, sculpture and accent pieces all work well to counterbalance and fill larger spaces.

Colors and textures of the finishes and furnishing also help fill the space and volume. Recall a floor covering you may have seen in a hotel lobby, restaurant or movie theater. The large repetative pattern that feels comfortable in these larger spaces would be awkward and out of proportion in the confined space of a guest bedroom. But in the open area of your great room/dining/conversation room, it compliments the large area in terms of scale while drawing together and unifying the common areas.

Course textures consume more visual space than a smooth surface (and can help with acoustics). Light colors can create a sense of dominance in furnishings or floor covering. A light colored floor will jump up while a darker floor will recede. Whereas a light colored ceiling or vaulted roof will recede mimicking the out-of-doors while a darker colored ceiling will seem to loom lower into the space. The same principle used on walls can help bring warmth and intimacy to a large room by using darker values on the wall.

Lastly, designs utilizing diagonals (i.e. tile, furniture placement, floor coverings) take up more visual space than rectilinear arrangements. Use diagonal and other strong patterns sparingly.

For advice on decorating the open floor plan in your Woodhouse timber frame, contact Greg at 800-227-4311.