Open Floor Plan Connectivity (and some new pictures)

Not long ago, we dreamed of an open floor plan home. Expansive spaces instead of small rectangular rooms connected to each other only through narrow openings in our 1940 home. After our whole house renovation, our house certainly has an open floor plan by most standards.

We now have a totally open kitchen and family room. (here are the long promised new kitchen and family room pictures!)

 

The family room connects to the living room (in the original part of the house), through a wide arched doorway.

The living room connects to the dining room through the original arched doorway.

Only the dining room and kitchen are divided by a short hallway and our new stairwell. I actually like the separation between the dining room and kitchen because I feel removed from the mess when we eat a (rare) nice dinner in there.

When we planned the renovation, we made a concerted effort to make our house flow between rooms and for there to be connectivity in the architecture and decorating - archways, floors, molding and trim work, and paint. The archways between the rooms not only help with the openness, but also with continuity in the architecture and between the rooms. The small archway between the dining room and the hall to the kitchen was an on the spot decision during construction. I was standing in the dining room while the sheetrock was going up, looking at the space between the rooms and realized that a typical framed doorway would not make any sense here so we changed it to an archway.

To further accentuate the continuity, the crown molding and baseboard are the same throughout the first floor. (More on crown molding here). This way your eye travels through the rooms without distracting interruptions cause by the change in the molding styles.

We chose to have everything in the main areas of the house painted the same color, Duron Ivoire. This is by no means a requirement for improving the flow in an open floor plan, but it's a simple way to achieve it.

In the decor, I often choose furniture which can be moved between the rooms without issue. I don't have rooms decorated in a style other than "my style" so there aren't any themes, color schemes, or anything else that makes furniture (or lamps, pictures, and rugs for that matter) suitable only for a single space in the house. When I want to redecorate, I just move furniture I have between the rooms!

Do you have any tips or tricks to creating continuity between rooms in an open floor plan?
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p.s. Don't forget to link up your kitchen in this week's house tour party! Click here.