Open concept homes or homes with an open floor plan are often a challenge to design color for. Most people, and I’ve seen this a thousand times, choose beige or shades of gray for the entire home. This shows a lack of color knowledge and placement. This, is my specialty!

I am currently working on a virtual color consultation for a four thousand square foot home in New York. She has a few northern rooms that need to be lightened, a VERY open concept home, and afraid of using color to define her spaces.

Below is a rough layout of the home, a birds-eye view of how the house flows. There are many nooks and crannies in this home, so color is really needed to define these spaces.

Her home’s front faces north, so I used a creamy color, which she wanted.

Pillowed between the cream-colored rooms, I added a gorgeous color in the two-story foyer. This is a lot of color but a great one to welcome as you enter the home.

The trick to choosing color for large open concept homes is defining your spaces correctly. The colors can also be different from each other but should transition or flow easily from room to room.

Keep in mind that the small bathroom, usually a half bath on the main floor, is an excellent place to use a very saturated color. Another one of my signature styles is to take the color right up over the ceiling. Make this room bold and dramatic. You can read a short article I was featured in from STIR Magazine from Sherwin Williams. Don’t be afraid of color.