Nearly every log-home
floor plan you see nowadays labels an open central space as “
great room.” Great rooms have become so much a signature feature of log-home layouts that many people take the space for granted without necessarily understanding how to handle it. There’s more
planning involved than just filling it with
furniture. Great rooms are, after all, your home’s most public room.
They combine the
living,
dining and
kitchen areas that most conventional homes wall off from each other. By flowing these three spaces together, well-designed great rooms signal the informality that makes log homes so appealing. Also, the free-flowing layout spreads natural light and views to all corners.
Great rooms aren’t exclusive to log homes and began showing up in log-home plans in the 1980s, inspired by the openness of the grand lodges of the West. Eliminating walls and halls does create vastness, however, and can unsettle homeowners accustomed to formal room divisions when they start designing their log-home great room. Where does the living space stop and the eating space start? How do you keep company close to the kitchen but outside it? Defining boundaries without walls can prove challenging.
Cues can designate niches. The well-designed great room typically has five major focal points: the
window wall, the
fireplace, the loft, the ceiling and the stairs and railings. Nooks and groupings within the space can supplement these main points and enliven your great-room
design. There are many variations and finer points to consider.
Furniture is separate from design. Suffice it to say that the scale of great rooms can dwarf furniture meant for smaller, walled rooms. Size your great room to accommodate larger pieces. Avoid clutter, though; save some openness.
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Fireplace View
What great room doesn’t have a fireplace? They’re traditionally towering affairs with large stone, natural or manufactured, and a decorative mantel. The firebox itself is almost an afterthought, though a roaring wood fire commands attention. Fewer than half the fireplaces use inserts or some other high-efficiency appliance; the rest go all out for looks, not heat. Wood is the leading fuel, gas a distant second. Stoves, wood or gas, add a different look and scale. Fireplaces are more about the stonework working with the logs.
Some fireplaces combine with the window view, but more often they stand as their own eye-pleaser and heart-warmer. The fireplace view is the best vantage to appreciate the floor. Great rooms use every kind of floor and mix materials to define space, often with rugs to soften harder wood or stone.
Window View
The gable-end wall of windows in log homes is practically a must and offers many possible configurations to expose the best view. Angling the windows opens up the periphery and results in a prow front thrusting toward a panoramic view. The straight wall of windows also exposes plenty of outdoors and works best for views peeking through trees. A tall bump-out with windows brings the great-room feel to small homes.
A common log-home plan has a two-level great room, open to the ceiling. The main-level logs frame oversized but square or rectangular windows, possibly even a French door, while the upper-level portion, log or not, relies on trapezoidal windows to emphasize the wall’s rising to a point at the roof ridge.
Great rooms intending to downplay the view opt for regulation windows, usually covering just the main-level wall area but sometimes adding upper-level clerestory windows for light and to break up the expanse of logs. Great rooms often expose the view from the entry, whether just by opening the front door or through a formal entryway that serves as a transition to the drama that awaits.
Great-room windows often open to or look out on a deck. Take the great room view into account when planning your deck. Some homeowners lower their deck so the deck railing doesn’t block people’s view when seated in the great room trying to look out.
Overhead View
There are no all-log ceilings, but tongue-and-groove decking and often drywall complement log rafters or purlins supporting the roof. Great rooms below full upper levels might feature log beams overhead, but tall ceilings are the rule, often 28 feet or more to the ridge.
Some homes add trusses for overhead excitement, even where the walls aren’t full log. What are called accent homes rely on big-log trusses to advance the log look. Trusses also fill overhead volume. Large-scale lighting fixtures hang from truss chords or stand alone. High ceilings often feature fans to circulate the air, a sensible step since open great rooms are a challenge to heat efficiently. Open ceilings are the underside of roofs, so there’s no insulated attic space.
Loft View
The open space above the great room usually provides a cathedral or vaulted ceiling. A common layout provides for a loft level over the part of the first-floor that isn’t the great room. In some cases, this loft covers the kitchen space, adding definition and coziness. As focal points, lofts can offer considerable drama. An open loft area overlooking the great room adds another dimension. Homeowners often enjoy sitting in their lofty perch and gazing down at the great room ensemble while taking in window and fireplace views simultaneously. Lofts also provide a close-up of the ceiling, especially trusses and the tops of fireplaces, but it’s from the main-floor level that great rooms have the most impact, turning the eye away from the outdoors through the window to focus on the interior log work.
Stair and Railing View
Stairs are a feature of great rooms that can really boost the room’s look. They provide a level of interest between the ground level and the ceiling, ideal for drawing the eye where there are no trusses. Stairs are rarely inside the great room proper but usually along the perimeter, especially near the front door or the foyer if there is a formal entry leading to the great room. The variety of stairs takes into account the materials, sizes and scales.
Nooks and Crannies
They add intimacy and fill in-between space. Functioning as conversational groupings, computer work stations or sometimes rooms within rooms, these supplementary areas often have their own focal points.
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Fireplace View
What great room doesn’t have a fireplace? They’re traditionally towering affairs with large stone, natural or manufactured, and a decorative mantel. The firebox itself is almost an afterthought, though a roaring wood fire commands attention. Fewer than half the fireplaces use inserts or some other high-efficiency appliance; the rest go all out for looks, not heat. Wood is the leading fuel, gas a distant second. Stoves, wood or gas, add a different look and scale. Fireplaces are more about the stonework working with the logs.
Some fireplaces combine with the window view, but more often they stand as their own eye-pleaser and heart-warmer. The fireplace view is the best vantage to appreciate the floor. Great rooms use every kind of floor and mix materials to define space, often with rugs to soften harder wood or stone.
