Carrying Out Construction Work

Posted on: 18 November 2020

If you're planning home extensions, you might be wondering whether to create open-plan living areas or to construct functional separate rooms. Combining the kitchen, dining, living, and study spaces allow for togetherness, but if you're working from home during the coronavirus pandemic, you might be after privacy instead. Closed-plan living offers several benefits, as explained below.

Privacy and Noise

When working in a combined area with others, avoiding distractions and focusing on the task at hand can prove challenging. Everyone is in the same place doing different things with no walls to dampen noise. If you're reading a report or trying to find a bug in a computer system, you need to focus and let your mind work. Plus, when speaking with clients via the phone or computer, you don't want them to hear arguments or loud TV background noise. With zoned living, you can create a peaceful, separate home office and enjoy some personal private space. Even post-pandemic, more people may work from home so that the benefits will be ongoing.

Lower Energy Bills

With a closed-plan house design, you'll save on heating and cooling costs, particularly if you install a multi-zone system that allows for control of independent rooms. Large open spaces — that take longer to cool and heat — are more challenging to control than smaller rooms. Plus, you can't manage energy usage by focusing on specific places. For instance, while no one might be in the dining area, you have to heat that space along with other regions equally.

However, open-plan living does cut lighting costs with fewer walls to block illumination flow. To overcome this in an independent room layout, you could install skylights or use solar power for a more energy-efficient building.

Variety of Environments

Another benefit of separate rooms is that you can enjoy more variety of environments. In an open-plan home, you might work in the study area and then move to the kitchen to cook lunch. But this relocation can feel like you haven't moved much if essentially you're in the same open space. 

With separate rooms, you can work in the office. Then, you can spend your lunch break in the kitchen and feel refreshed by the new environment. You can add to the variety with a patio where you could enjoy a coffee break while enjoying nature and the fresh air. Closed-plan living also allows you to change the decor and to give rooms slightly different personalities by your choice of wall colours and furniture while maintaining the unity of the home overall.