Unleashing the Greatness of Your Great Room

With soaring ceilings and generous square footage, the great room of this traditional-style two-story Atlanta house is packed with soft color, rustic texture, a play on scale and a smart furniture plan. See the elements that went into this space and get tips for incorporating them in your own home.

Many new-construction great rooms with soaring ceilings, while open and airy, can feel impersonal. An excellent way to visually lower the height and make the space more intimate is by adding decorative molding. Here, the same 1-inch-by-6-inch wooden trim seen in the crown molding and door casing was used to create a graphic grid effect, which helps ground the space.

Using color in expansive, high-traffic spaces can be intimidating since there's so much surface to cover. Dark tones can visually shrink spaces and make them feel cavernous, while super-saturated tones can be too bold or intense. Soothing tones such as lavender, sage green or blue-gray are great choices since they add just enough color to make a room feel personalized and vibrant, but not overwhelmingly bright.

French doors are a great fit for great rooms, as they provide natural light and easy access in and out of the room. When sourcing French doors for your own remodel, keep in mind that they're available in outward-swinging and inward-swinging options. Rooms with furniture placed near the doors are best fit for outward-swinging doors, while spaces clear of furniture are ideal for doors that swing inward.