Eliminating walls and merging small, separate rooms into one large multi-functional living space has dominated home renovations and new builds for decades now. These bright, airy, light-filled spaces are far more sociable, allowing families to cook, eat and relax together.

But months of lockdown – when those spaces also had to function as offices, classrooms, and recreation areas – highlighted some of the shortcomings of open-plan living. As a result, we’ve fallen a little out of love with the open plan concept, and a new interpretation is emerging: broken plan living.

The broken plan concept maintains the advantages of open plan designs – light, spacious, sociable spaces – while defining zones, creating distinct areas for different activities, and returning a degree of privacy.

Open plan designs can be ‘broken’ with structural elements or simply through clever use
of colour, floor treatments and furniture.

With pandemic uncertainty keeping large-scale social events on the back burner for the time being, many are rethinking their homes with entertaining in mind.

Essential for preventing stains in the kitchen, backsplashes are also a key decorative feature, often setting the tone of a kitchen or breathing new life into a tired one.

Whether you’re customising a brand new sofa or reupholstering a much-loved easy chair, choosing the right fabric goes beyond gorgeous colours.

Floored by the options? Today’s range of floor treatments is vast, but choosing the right material is about more than aesthetics.

With the sudden switch to working from home, many of us have set up a laptop on the kitchen table and carried on, as the family ebbs and flows around us and the dirty dishes vie for our attention. But with remote working set to continue, this is not a long-term solution.

In an age when staying in is the new going out and our homes are having to meet more needs than ever before, once-neglected outdoor spaces are becoming prized real estate.

Usually tucked away in small spaces, powder rooms can suffer from design neglect. Yet it is precisely because we don’t spend much time in them that guest bathrooms are places we can take some design risks. Turn a utilitarian space into something far more dramatic with bold wall colours, stylish lighting and well-chosen accessories.

Thanks to the creativity and constant innovation of designers, chandeliers and pendant lights – meaning any lights that hang from the ceiling – now come in a dizzying array of shapes, sizes, styles and materials. But choosing the right one is as much about function as form. So what do you need to consider when choosing the right light to hang?

When every piece of footwear, jewellery and clothing sits in its rightful place and you can casually cast your eye over your entire wardrobe, getting ready becomes a calming ritual.

Cayman interior decor and design items

Cayman interior decor and design items

Design Den - high design items for the home

Design den - innovative design items for the home, REAL LIFE magazine Cayman Islands

Your walls, your way. That’s the idea behind innovative interiors company Detroit Wallpaper. Providing clients with the opportunity to create customised wallpaper in pattern, colourway and material, they make it simple to colour on the walls. www.detroitwallpaper.com

Combining handmade joinery with Danish cord weaving and Shaker technique, the Fireside Stool burns bright. Former sculptor, Kate Casey crafts the solid oak seats made-to-order and is able to customise colour, pattern and size. www.pegwoodworking.com

Light up the home with the sleek Grasil candleholder. Crafted from marble and brass, the refined candelabra comes in two sizes and adds elegant appeal to any interior. www.aytm.dk
Handmade in San Francisco, this set of four felt coasters adds a playful pattern to tabletops. With tactile appeal and available in a natural colour palette, they charm from the bottom up. www.koromiko.com

Luxury vinyl flooring? No longer an oxymoron thanks to Karndean Design Flooring’s LooseLay. The quick-and-easy-to-install tiles are waterproof, low maintenance, offer acoustic qualities and dustless installation. With a lifetime warranty, and 38 realistic designs, vinyl is here to stay. Available in Cayman at www.staffordflooring.com

Catini collection captures the purity of contemporary design and the timeless elegance of traditional Italian form. Enhancing the economy of design with bold colour options, as well as size and shape options, the freestanding sinks wash away the competition. www.ceramicacielo.com

Home decor ideas

Design inspiration

Now with the Kobo Aura H2O you can soak up a good book worry-free whilst in the pool or bath. Water-resistant for up to 30 minutes at a depth of one metre, its high-resolution, no-glare screen means reading in direct sunlight is painless, while its chunkier body proves easy to handle. With excellent battery life – two-months use based on 30 minutes a day – and up to 32GB of storage, it makes reading a splash.

Design Den, Spring 2015