Article Category Oak Living Room Furniture

Open Plan Storage Ideas That Keep Living Spaces Calm

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The best open plan storage ideas share one rule: hide most of what you own, show a little of it well, and let the furniture do two jobs at once. An open plan room has fewer walls, so there is less natural space for shelves and cupboards, and everything you leave out is on view from the kitchen, the sofa and the hallway. The answer is to treat storage as part of the layout, not as an afterthought pushed against whichever wall is left.

Below you will find how to plan the room, which pieces earn their floor space, how to balance closed and open storage, and what to look for if you would rather not spend a weekend with an Allen key.

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TL;DR

  • Keep most storage closed (sideboards, cabinets, ottomans) and reserve open shelving for a few well-styled groups.
  • Use storage furniture to define zones: a console behind the sofa, a bookcase as a divider, a sideboard as the edge of the dining area.
  • Choose multifunctional pieces in small rooms: coffee tables with drawers, nesting tables, storage ottomans.
  • Leave clear walkways of roughly 90 to 107 cm so storage never blocks flow.
  • Pick furniture that arrives ready to use, in solid oak that suits a room you see from every angle.

Table of Contents

Why open plan rooms are harder to store things in

Knocking walls through gives you light and connection, but it takes something away. As Houzz points out, with fewer walls you automatically have less built-in storage space, and you have to think about where shelves go and what a sideboard or cupboard can sit against.

There is a second problem: sightlines. In a single-room layout, a pile of post on the dining table or a toy basket by the sofa is visible from the cooker. Homes & Gardens notes that without thoughtful zoning, open-plan homes can feel undefined, visually chaotic or overwhelming. Storage is one of the most useful tools for fixing that, because it gives the eye something solid to rest on.

So plan in this order:

  1. Decide what the room has to do (relaxing, eating, working, children’s play).
  2. Mark the walkways.
  3. Place the pieces that define each zone.
  4. Only then fill them.

Start by working out what you actually need to store

Before buying anything, spend ten minutes sorting what lives in the room. Group it by how often you reach for it and by how presentable it is.

  • Daily and ugly: remotes, chargers, console controllers, school bags, dog leads. These need a closed home within arm’s reach of where they are used.
  • Daily and attractive: books you are reading, a few ceramics, a fruit bowl. These can sit on open shelves or a console.
  • Occasional: table linen, board games, spare cables, photo albums. These suit deep cupboards, lower sideboard shelves or an ottoman.
  • Rarely: anything that has not been touched in a year. It probably does not belong in the main living space at all.

This simple split stops the common mistake of buying open shelves for things that were never meant to be looked at. It also tells you how much closed storage you need, and in most open plan rooms the answer is more than you think.

Zone the room with storage furniture

In an open plan space, a piece of storage furniture is often also a wall. Used well, it separates the lounge from the dining area without cutting off light.

Anchor the seating first

Homes & Gardens advises anchoring each functional grouping with a sofa and area rug, and, if space allows, adding a console and floor lamps behind the sofa to divide the seating area from the rest of the room. A slim console is ideal here: it gives you a surface for a lamp and a drawer or shelf for the things that otherwise end up on the coffee table.

Our oak coffee tables for the living room work in the same way at the centre of the grouping, and a model with drawers or a lower shelf keeps throws, magazines and remotes out of sight.

Use a bookcase as a divider

Room dividers that double as storage, such as an open bookshelf, can create a visual break between rooms and add character and depth. Because you can see through the shelves, light still travels, but the dining table no longer faces the television head-on. Keep the shelves half-filled and mix books with baskets and a few objects so the divider reads as furniture, not a wall of stuff.

Half-filled open bookcase separating dining and lounge zones

A practical tip: if the bookcase stands in the middle of the floor, check the back. Both sides will be seen, so choose a model with a finished back or fill the shelves in a way that looks tidy from each direction.

Let a sideboard mark the edge of the dining zone

A sideboard along one side of the dining area gives you somewhere to keep placemats, glasses and serving dishes close to the table, and its top becomes a landing spot for lamps, plants or a tray. It also creates a clear boundary: the dining zone ends where the sideboard does. If you are short on width, a compact model still does the job. Our guide to a 120 cm sideboard in compact flats shows how much a modest piece can hold, and downsizing with an oak sideboard covers the same idea for smaller homes.

Protect the walkways

Zoning only works if people can still move around. Interior designer Linda Crammond recommends clear circulation paths of 36 to 42 inches, including a 36-inch walkway behind a sofa. That is roughly 91 to 107 cm. Treat those paths as no-furniture zones: if a sideboard door or drawer would swing into one, choose a shallower piece or move it.

Combine closed and open storage

The most reliable approach in an open plan room is mostly closed storage with a small amount of open display. Homes & Gardens suggests using cabinets to conceal household items while keeping some open storage for well-styled shelving. That ratio protects the calm look of the room while still letting it feel personal.

A sensible starting split for a living-dining area is around three closed units to one open one. It is a rule of thumb, not a measurement, but it works because closed doors absorb the daily mess that open shelves cannot.

Closed storage: where the clutter goes

  • Sideboards and low cabinets for the dining zone and for the wall opposite the sofa.
  • Storage ottomans and benches for blankets, children’s toys and games.
  • A TV unit with doors or drawers for consoles, boxes and cables.
  • Tall cabinets where you have an alcove or a spare corner and need height without width.

If you like the idea of a mirrored front that hides what is behind it, a mirrored cabinet with hidden storage shows the principle well: a clean, uncluttered face with practical space behind it. The same logic applies to a solid oak cabinet door in the living room.

Open storage: how to keep it from looking messy

Open shelves are unforgiving, but a few habits keep them tidy. The Seattle Times recommends using containers, limiting what you display and grouping similar items together. In practice:

  • Put loose small items into lidded boxes or baskets, then display the baskets.
  • Group by type or colour: books together, ceramics together.
  • Leave a third of each shelf empty. Space is what makes a display look deliberate.
  • Keep the open shelf at eye level or above, and put the closed doors below, where the heavy and untidy things go.

Furniture that stores things without looking like storage

The easiest storage to live with is the kind you do not notice. Here are the pieces that earn their place in an open plan living room.

Coffee tables with drawers or shelves

In small living rooms, multifunctional pieces such as storage ottomans, coffee tables with drawers and nested tables help you avoid overcrowding the space. A coffee table sits in the middle of your seating zone, so the storage it offers is exactly where you need it. Take a look at our light oak 2 drawer coffee table or the oak coffee table with shelf: the drawers take remotes and coasters, and the shelf holds a basket of magazines or throws.

Light Oak 2 Drawer Coffee Table

Nesting tables

Nesting tables give you extra surfaces when guests arrive and tuck away when they leave, which suits a room that has to be a lounge, a dining space and sometimes an office. We explain how to choose them in our practical guide to nesting tables for small living rooms.

Sofas, ottomans and side tables

House & Garden notes that a sofa with storage in the chaise, an ottoman or a side table can hide remotes and other necessities. A side table with a drawer next to the sofa is the simplest version: it takes the chargers, glasses and notebooks that otherwise end up on the arm of the sofa. If you are furnishing a small room with a growing family, the same multifunctional thinking applies to a small-space storage setup with ottomans, coffee tables and side tables.

The TV unit

The television is often the biggest visual problem in an open plan room. House & Garden suggests that a TV can be hidden in a bespoke cabinet or a housekeeper’s cupboard, with the shelves adjusted and a generous section of the back panel removed to allow for cables and to prevent overheating. That tip is worth following with any enclosed unit: never shut a hot set-top box inside a sealed cupboard.

If you do not want to hide the screen completely, a low, wide unit keeps the room feeling open. Our London oak TV unit and the compact grey TV unit both give you closed space for the equipment and a clean top surface, in sizes that suit smaller rooms.

Sideboards and bookcases

Sideboards are the workhorses of an open plan home. They can hold dining items on one side of the room and living room clutter on the other, depending on where they stand. Bookcases do the same job vertically, which matters when floor space is limited. You can browse both on our oak furniture collection.

Storage ideas for smaller open plan homes

A compact open plan flat has all of the problems above with less room to solve them. Four ideas help most.

Four storage ideas for compact open-plan homes

Go for light-looking furniture. Livingetc points out that leggy, visually light furniture lets more light pass through, helping a small living room feel lighter and airier. Raised legs on a sideboard or TV unit mean you can see the floor beneath, which makes the room look bigger.

Build up, not out. Tall cabinets and bookcases use wall height you are not otherwise using. Put the things you rarely need on the top shelves and the daily items at hand height.

Consider tailored cabinetry. Ideal Home says bespoke cabinetry can provide tailored storage for small living rooms, hide potential clutter and blend with the room’s design, and that it is often a worthwhile investment. A made-to-order piece can fill an awkward alcove to the centimetre, which is hard to achieve with off-the-shelf sizes.

Layer the space. Designer Claire Sá says layers of joinery, screens and thresholds can help a compact flat unfold gradually and feel larger. A low cabinet, a bookcase and a console, placed at different points, create that sense of stages without a single wall.

For more small-room ideas, our guide to small living room storage goes through the options in more detail.

Plan the sockets as well as the shelves

Storage furniture is only useful if you can arrange it without extension leads trailing across the floor. The homeowners behind one Ideal Home open plan project recommend designing around how you use the home and thinking about plug placement so furniture can be rearranged freely. They installed floor sockets under their island and wall sockets in the lounge for flexibility.

You may not be able to rewire, but you can plan around it: place the TV unit and a side table near existing sockets, choose units with cable holes or removable back panels, and keep a power strip inside a closed cabinet instead of on the carpet.

What to look for in ready-to-use furniture

Many readers over 40 tell us the same thing: they want good furniture without a day of assembly. Whatever you buy, check these points before you order.

  1. Assembly. Ask whether the piece arrives built or flat-packed. Large sideboards and bookcases are heavy, and putting them together alone is awkward. If you want to skip this, choose a made-to-order piece where assembly is an option you select.
  2. Material. Solid oak and oak with veneer both last well, but they differ in weight and price. Check which one you are buying and whether the finish suits the other timber in the room.
  3. Dimensions. Measure the space, the doorways and the stairs the piece will pass through. Depth matters more than width in a walkway.
  4. Internal layout. Adjustable shelves are more useful than fixed ones. Look for cable access in TV units.
  5. Finish. A lighter oak keeps a small room bright, while a darker finish gives a dining zone more presence.
  6. Delivery. Confirm the delivery window and whether the courier will carry the item into the room you want.

Perspective: why we build storage around the room, not the other way round

We make solid oak and oak and veneer furniture for living spaces, and the pattern we see most often is that people buy the sofa first and think about storage last. In an open plan room that order costs you. The sideboard, TV unit or bookcase is what turns an undefined space into a room with a purpose, so we suggest choosing it early and letting it set the layout.

We also think open plan storage should look calm from every angle. That is why our pieces are customisable in finish, material and assembly, and why we can make a unit to suit an awkward alcove or a particular wall length. Oak is hard-wearing, it looks good in a room that is seen from the kitchen and from the sofa, and it sits comfortably next to other timbers and painted units. If you are unsure which size or finish will suit your room, start with the measurements and the list of what you need to store, and work from there.

— Baby Love

Find oak storage that fits your open plan room

If you have a list of what needs a home and a rough floor plan, you are ready to choose. We make bespoke and ready-made oak living room furniture, including TV units, coffee tables, side tables, console tables, sideboards, cabinets, storage units and bookcases, with finish, material and assembly options to suit your room, for homes and commercial spaces alike.

London Oak Tv Unit

Start with our living room oak furniture for coffee tables and storage pieces, or browse the full oak furniture range for sideboards, bookcases and dining furniture. You can also see our living room storage collection.

A simple plan to follow this weekend

  1. List what is currently out on surfaces and sort it into daily, occasional and rare.
  2. Measure the room, mark the walkways with masking tape and keep them at 90 cm or more.
  3. Choose one anchor piece for each zone: a console behind the sofa, a sideboard in the dining area, a TV unit opposite the seating.
  4. Add one multifunctional table to the seating group.
  5. Decide on one open shelf to style and put everything else behind doors.
  6. Check sockets and cable access before the furniture arrives.

The result is a room where each zone has its own storage, nothing blocks the way through, and the only things on show are the ones you chose to show.

FAQ

How do I add storage to an open plan room without making it look cluttered?

Keep most storage closed, using sideboards, cabinets and ottomans, and allow only a few open shelves. On those shelves, group similar items, use baskets or boxes and leave some space empty so the display looks deliberate.

Can storage furniture be used to divide an open plan room?

Yes. An open bookcase, a console behind the sofa or a sideboard at the edge of the dining area can all mark a boundary without blocking light. Keep walkways clear, at around 90 to 107 cm, so the divider does not interrupt movement.

What is the best storage for a small open plan living room?

Multifunctional pieces work best: coffee tables with drawers, nesting tables, storage ottomans and a TV unit with closed compartments. Furniture on raised legs lets light pass underneath and helps the room feel larger.

Should I hide my TV in an open plan room?

It depends on how much the screen dominates the room. If you hide it in a cabinet, leave room behind for ventilation and cables. If you leave it on show, a low unit with closed storage below keeps the equipment tidy.

What should I check if I do not want to assemble furniture?

Ask before you order whether the piece arrives built, flat-packed or with assembly as an option. Check the dimensions of doorways and stairs so a built piece can reach the room.

Sources

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