Great Room Floor Plans:

Typically located beside the kitchen, great rooms have become essential for "casual living" new home floor plans.

Great rooms serve a variety of functions, combining the uses of traditional rooms like the family room, living room, and study into one central location.

See all the ways you can use your great room, in the floor plan layouts below.

Or go straight to the great room photo gallery, here.

Great Rooms Are...

Learn about great room floor plans, with example photos, here:

1. Flexible Spaces

Great rooms are large, open, and ready for anything. Study time. Meals. Storage with custom built-ins.

The great room photo above shows a set of built-ins designed to fit a piano in the center, for at-home practice time.

2. Large Spaces

Great rooms can take up to 15% of the total square footage of a home. Remember, this one room often accounts for the square footage of at least two others.

3. Spacious

Many great rooms feature specialty ceilings, such as vaulted rooflines (pictured above) or cathedral ceilings.

The foyer often leads directly into the great room -- with the opportunity for grand two story spaces.

4. Shared Spaces

Great rooms are also commonly adjoined to the kitchen with only a half wall, counter, or island separating the two.

In the Stanton Home pictured above, an expanded island welcomes shared kitchen and great room traffic.

5. Useful

Great rooms make fantastic gathering spaces with: entertainment centers, fireplaces, and study areas all contained in the same space - making cooking, entertaining, informal dining, and family interaction easier than many traditional floor plans that encase the kitchen or kitchen/breakfast space. 

6. Open with Overlooks

In addition to featuring vaulted or cathedral ceilings, great rooms often feature second story overlooks -- for an even more open concept appeal.

7. Filled with Windows

Windows will add expense to any room of your home. Great rooms -- and connected kitchens -- are the most used rooms of your home, making them highly-valued spaces to splurge on windows.

Adding full walls of windows -- or even carefully placed pairs of windows -- can make an incredible difference in your great room design.

Raleigh Custom Homes:

Floor plans with a great room continue to be a top home buyer request in the Raleigh, North Carolina area.

What do you like best about the great room photos above? Tell us what matters most in your custom home design, and we'll show you what it takes to build custom in North Carolina.