Modern Floor Plans

“Restaurants started the open kitchen concept probably 20 years ago,” Juedes says. “Today it’s growing and growing, and these open kitchens then kind of translated into our homes. And then these open spaces I think just evolved from the open kitchen.”

The features of these free-flowing floorplans are always evolving, too. That’s why the team at Meritage Homes keeps an eye out for trends in all kinds of places, some as exciting as hip restaurants and year-round, cutting-edge home design expos, and others as strategic as reports about consumers’ tastes, of which there’s no short supply.

“We’re always looking for innovative floorplan ideas,” Juedes says. “We have opportunities, probably on a monthly basis, to design new products across our wide range of 17 divisions and nine states. There’s always a need somewhere with somebody looking at a new land purchase and wanting some new product. If it’s not a brand-new product design, we can tweak existing products.” In fact, Meritage made plan refinements across all of their regions in 2018.

Particular points of pride for Meritage include their innovative kitchens, great rooms and dining areas, all of which are designed with consumers’ desires in mind. But there’s also something that’s hard to see or point to, yet is easily felt: ambient comfort. That’s because Meritage homes are designed to be energy efficient and quiet. It’s also easier to heat or cool the homes because of the open floorplan, not in spite of it. “Having fewer partitions inside the home provides better air movement throughout the space as well,” says Juedes.

This efficiency is also achieved, in part, by energy-efficient windows and doors, even when using large glass doors to bring a sense of the outdoors in — another desire Meritage caters to. “Integrating outdoor spaces into our designs is something consumers want more and more of,” says Juedes. “People appreciate outdoor decks, covered patios and front porches. This is reflected in the multi-slide, large-opening doors people are looking at today, with larger windows and floor-to-ceiling glass, just to try to create more connection between inside and outside environments.”

This flow between worlds isn’t just about connecting with the outdoors from the kitchen counter. It’s a factor in the ways that boundaries between work and play are blurring as well. Technology keeps people connected to work even after they’ve left the office, and for some, home is the office.

As working from home became commonplace, Meritage responded by offering the pocket office — a small office, typically with a sliding pocket door, usually just off of a high-traffic area — as a floorplan feature. “As more and more people work from home, even with a laptop or a phone, they don’t need the desk for the computer, but they need a space to go work,” says Juedes. While some people prefer to work from their couch or kitchen counter, others prefer to have some type of office, so Meritage continues to offer dens and pocket offices on their floorplans.