ᐅ Floor plan of a 160 sqm urban villa, without a basement – what are your thoughts?
Created on: 10 May 2018 02:46
P
Patkia
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 626 sqm (6730 sq ft)
Slope: none
Site coverage ratio: 0.35 + 50% for ancillary structures
Floor area ratio:
Building window, building line, and boundary: 3 m (10 ft), no special requirements
Edge development: permitted
Number of parking spaces: no requirement
Number of floors: 3
Roof type: -
Architectural style: -
Orientation: -
Maximum heights / limits: 12 m (39 ft)
Additional requirements: 1 tree per every 300 sqm (3200 sq ft) started
Homeowners’ Requirements
City villa style, hip / pyramid roof
2 full stories
Residents: 2 adults, around 30 years old, 1-2 children planned
Room requirements:
Ground floor: kitchen / dining / living / pantry / guest room (office) / utility room / guest WC
Upper floor: 3 bedrooms / walk-in closet / storage / bathroom
Office: on ground floor, also to be used as guest room
Occasional overnight guests
Open or closed layout: partly open / partly closed
Traditional or modern construction: modern
Open kitchen, cooking island, possibly a small pantry
Minimum seating at dining table: 6
Fireplace: yes
Music / stereo wall: home cinema area
Roof terrace: possibly planned later on garage
Garage: yes, double garage with workshop / storage area: 9 m × 6.5 m (30 ft × 21 ft) with access to the house, planned as self-built, driveway large enough for 2 cars
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Additional wishes / special features / daily routine, including reasons why certain things are preferred or avoided:
Primarily for aesthetic reasons, a small bay window should be included. Not deeper than 50 cm (20 inches) due to roof overhang. There will be a canopy over the front door as a visual relief, so the bay window should face the garden.
Ground Floor (GF):
Bright hallway,
Large kitchen with island (including seating, e.g., stools) and preferably a small pantry (possibly accessible via a "fake" kitchen cabinet), plus a small “bench” made from low cabinets by the window, double-leaf sliding door guided inside the wall to separate dining / living area,
Bright dining area,
Spacious living area, preferably with a panoramic fireplace as a room divider (not next to the TV),
Guest room / office,
Generous utility room with space for possibly two electrical panels, softener system, ground source heat pump, washing machine (possibly dryer), and drying rack,
Guest WC with shower.
Upper Floor (UF): at least 2 children’s rooms, 1 storage room, bedroom can be fairly small. Instead, a spacious bathroom with 2 washbasins (or 1 long basin with 2 faucets), bathtub up to 2 m (6.5 ft), and shower. WC with privacy screen, e.g., with door T-shaped.
Walk-through dressing room between bedroom and bathroom. Sliding door on the wall between bedroom and dressing room and regular door between dressing room and bathroom. Bathroom should also be accessible from the hallway.
General:
Many windows (included in house price without limitation on number or size), some floor-to-ceiling. Possibly preparation in the bedroom for access to the (planned) roof terrace on the garage,
Lifting sliding door system between living / dining area and terrace,
Doors at least 1 m (39 inches) wide on the ground floor,
Terrace on the left side of the house, i.e., facing south. Depending on kitchen location, possibly also a narrower terrace around the corner at the top.
Ultimately, we think it would almost be nicer if the kitchen were on the left so you can look into the garden from there and have direct access to the large terrace. But this criterion changes with every revision of the floor plan :|
House Design
Who designed the plan:
The house plans mainly come from us with some inspiration from the internet.
So far, there has been no truly professional involvement. The upper floor plan was found directly online. However, there the house width is only 10 m (33 ft) instead of 10.5 m (34 ft). Also, the bay window on the left is obviously not included. It would be great to add a small storage room here.
What do you particularly like? Why?
What do you dislike? Why?
The two above points are not fully answered yet. We have often moved the kitchen from right to left and back without finding an ideal solution.
Similarly, we are not sure whether the garage should be placed far forward with some space behind for storage out of garden view, or moved about 2 m (6.5 ft) further back (3 m / 10 ft from boundary) to gain some visual privacy from the diagonal neighbor. We are open to innovative ideas about garage placement. It must definitely have access to the house.
Estimated cost according to architect / planner: 230,000
Personal budget limit for house including features: 240,000 (excluding garage, but including foundation slab)
Preferred heating technology: ground source heat pump
If you have to give up some features / extensions:
- What can you do without: hard to say, maybe the pantry? Though supplies would then have to be stored in expensive kitchen cabinets that offer less space.
- What can’t you do without: guest room on the ground floor, space for drying rack in the utility room (never want one of those racks visible in a living area again!).
Why is the design the way it is now?
The design came about through lots of freehand drawing on paper and tinkering on computer to get the best results. Unfortunately, we are stuck now.
Which of your wishes have been implemented by the architect?
A mixture of many examples from various magazines...
What do you think works well or poorly?
Poor: the downstairs and upstairs layouts are hard to coordinate, especially because of the staircase.
Pretty good: the upper floor layout, except that fitting a second door into the bathroom will be difficult.
Downstairs we have been constantly swapping kitchen front left and guest room top right or vice versa. We haven’t agreed on what would be easier to furnish.
What is your key fundamental question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
How can we fit all our wishes in the best mix of space, appearance, and usability in the floor plan?
Note: The plan might receive harsh criticism from forum users. Feedback is usually unfiltered—please be prepared. Nobody means to offend; it’s their perspective to help or open your eyes.
Thanks in advance for your help
Plot size: 626 sqm (6730 sq ft)
Slope: none
Site coverage ratio: 0.35 + 50% for ancillary structures
Floor area ratio:
Building window, building line, and boundary: 3 m (10 ft), no special requirements
Edge development: permitted
Number of parking spaces: no requirement
Number of floors: 3
Roof type: -
Architectural style: -
Orientation: -
Maximum heights / limits: 12 m (39 ft)
Additional requirements: 1 tree per every 300 sqm (3200 sq ft) started
Homeowners’ Requirements
City villa style, hip / pyramid roof
2 full stories
Residents: 2 adults, around 30 years old, 1-2 children planned
Room requirements:
Ground floor: kitchen / dining / living / pantry / guest room (office) / utility room / guest WC
Upper floor: 3 bedrooms / walk-in closet / storage / bathroom
Office: on ground floor, also to be used as guest room
Occasional overnight guests
Open or closed layout: partly open / partly closed
Traditional or modern construction: modern
Open kitchen, cooking island, possibly a small pantry
Minimum seating at dining table: 6
Fireplace: yes
Music / stereo wall: home cinema area
Roof terrace: possibly planned later on garage
Garage: yes, double garage with workshop / storage area: 9 m × 6.5 m (30 ft × 21 ft) with access to the house, planned as self-built, driveway large enough for 2 cars
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Additional wishes / special features / daily routine, including reasons why certain things are preferred or avoided:
Primarily for aesthetic reasons, a small bay window should be included. Not deeper than 50 cm (20 inches) due to roof overhang. There will be a canopy over the front door as a visual relief, so the bay window should face the garden.
Ground Floor (GF):
Bright hallway,
Large kitchen with island (including seating, e.g., stools) and preferably a small pantry (possibly accessible via a "fake" kitchen cabinet), plus a small “bench” made from low cabinets by the window, double-leaf sliding door guided inside the wall to separate dining / living area,
Bright dining area,
Spacious living area, preferably with a panoramic fireplace as a room divider (not next to the TV),
Guest room / office,
Generous utility room with space for possibly two electrical panels, softener system, ground source heat pump, washing machine (possibly dryer), and drying rack,
Guest WC with shower.
Upper Floor (UF): at least 2 children’s rooms, 1 storage room, bedroom can be fairly small. Instead, a spacious bathroom with 2 washbasins (or 1 long basin with 2 faucets), bathtub up to 2 m (6.5 ft), and shower. WC with privacy screen, e.g., with door T-shaped.
Walk-through dressing room between bedroom and bathroom. Sliding door on the wall between bedroom and dressing room and regular door between dressing room and bathroom. Bathroom should also be accessible from the hallway.
General:
Many windows (included in house price without limitation on number or size), some floor-to-ceiling. Possibly preparation in the bedroom for access to the (planned) roof terrace on the garage,
Lifting sliding door system between living / dining area and terrace,
Doors at least 1 m (39 inches) wide on the ground floor,
Terrace on the left side of the house, i.e., facing south. Depending on kitchen location, possibly also a narrower terrace around the corner at the top.
Ultimately, we think it would almost be nicer if the kitchen were on the left so you can look into the garden from there and have direct access to the large terrace. But this criterion changes with every revision of the floor plan :|
House Design
Who designed the plan:
The house plans mainly come from us with some inspiration from the internet.
So far, there has been no truly professional involvement. The upper floor plan was found directly online. However, there the house width is only 10 m (33 ft) instead of 10.5 m (34 ft). Also, the bay window on the left is obviously not included. It would be great to add a small storage room here.
What do you particularly like? Why?
What do you dislike? Why?
The two above points are not fully answered yet. We have often moved the kitchen from right to left and back without finding an ideal solution.
Similarly, we are not sure whether the garage should be placed far forward with some space behind for storage out of garden view, or moved about 2 m (6.5 ft) further back (3 m / 10 ft from boundary) to gain some visual privacy from the diagonal neighbor. We are open to innovative ideas about garage placement. It must definitely have access to the house.
Estimated cost according to architect / planner: 230,000
Personal budget limit for house including features: 240,000 (excluding garage, but including foundation slab)
Preferred heating technology: ground source heat pump
If you have to give up some features / extensions:
- What can you do without: hard to say, maybe the pantry? Though supplies would then have to be stored in expensive kitchen cabinets that offer less space.
- What can’t you do without: guest room on the ground floor, space for drying rack in the utility room (never want one of those racks visible in a living area again!).
Why is the design the way it is now?
The design came about through lots of freehand drawing on paper and tinkering on computer to get the best results. Unfortunately, we are stuck now.
Which of your wishes have been implemented by the architect?
A mixture of many examples from various magazines...
What do you think works well or poorly?
Poor: the downstairs and upstairs layouts are hard to coordinate, especially because of the staircase.
Pretty good: the upper floor layout, except that fitting a second door into the bathroom will be difficult.
Downstairs we have been constantly swapping kitchen front left and guest room top right or vice versa. We haven’t agreed on what would be easier to furnish.
What is your key fundamental question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
How can we fit all our wishes in the best mix of space, appearance, and usability in the floor plan?
Note: The plan might receive harsh criticism from forum users. Feedback is usually unfiltered—please be prepared. Nobody means to offend; it’s their perspective to help or open your eyes.
Thanks in advance for your help
Could someone perhaps provide input regarding the question about water connections? Unfortunately, I have no idea whether my upper floor plan makes sense or is even feasible without knowing how the pipe routing will work.
@11ant
Haha, yes, there seems to be a kind of dogma about this. But even if the entrance were located more to the side, it wouldn’t change the overall dimensions of the house.
@Schnurrbart “Pass-through rooms” are only such for two reasons. First, we want the walk-in closet to be accessible from the bedroom; second, not every room deserves its own entrance if the hallway doesn’t allow for it.
I always wanted the bedroom to be quite small since you don’t really spend much time there, and to me, it would be a waste of space to make it larger. But yes, 50 cm (20 inches) is indeed tight. You won’t hit your head though, since we have two full stories.
@ypg
The drawing was made with pencil. I usually like to check afterwards whether it’s even doable.
2.11 m (7 feet) is ambitious, that’s true. But where do you see sinks along a 1.10 m (3.6 feet) wall? That’s actually 1.40 m (4.6 feet).
Why do you consider the stairs a space issue? Below is the pantry, which is not a fully usable room but just a space-saving storage option. I ultimately adopted the stair type from Katja because it seemed like a better alternative than a straight staircase.
The wardrobe is the niche between the toilet and the utility room. Then you can still place closets on both sides of the front door. For anything beyond that, we would use some space in the utility room, which we pass through often anyway.
@kbt09
I constantly compare the sun position chart, and the TV location receives the least and shortest sunlight. If the living room were along the long side, it would get sun on the TV at least from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Why is opening the side-by-side refrigerator inconvenient? The door is under the stairs, see above.
Of course, it’s warm by the fireplace, but with normal table dimensions, there is even more distance, and we plan to have a small fireplace that emits less heat.
The sofa can be extended. I entered the dimensions of my sofa as a test, and there is still space. It can be a bit tighter since no one sleeps there that often.
The windows, as I said, are not yet fully planned. But I do think the one at the bathtub should stay as it is.
Regarding the corridor window: first, it is the only natural light source in the hallway, which is very important to us; second, we currently have a similar window seat there that is used almost daily.
Yes, I know everyone likes Katja’s design best. But that’s not how we want it or see it as suitable for us. That’s why I’m still using the basic version as a starting point, because we really like the layout’s center.
We have now found a home construction company we still trust, even though working with an architect for various reasons has not been successful so far.
We are saving our reserve finances for things that will come up. There is simply no room to bring another architect on board, but we certainly won’t be the first to do things this way.
So yes, I knew the upper floor would attract many comments, but personally, I don’t see anything wrong with the ground floor. Honestly, I don’t quite understand that.
@11ant
Haha, yes, there seems to be a kind of dogma about this. But even if the entrance were located more to the side, it wouldn’t change the overall dimensions of the house.
@Schnurrbart “Pass-through rooms” are only such for two reasons. First, we want the walk-in closet to be accessible from the bedroom; second, not every room deserves its own entrance if the hallway doesn’t allow for it.
I always wanted the bedroom to be quite small since you don’t really spend much time there, and to me, it would be a waste of space to make it larger. But yes, 50 cm (20 inches) is indeed tight. You won’t hit your head though, since we have two full stories.
@ypg
The drawing was made with pencil. I usually like to check afterwards whether it’s even doable.
2.11 m (7 feet) is ambitious, that’s true. But where do you see sinks along a 1.10 m (3.6 feet) wall? That’s actually 1.40 m (4.6 feet).
Why do you consider the stairs a space issue? Below is the pantry, which is not a fully usable room but just a space-saving storage option. I ultimately adopted the stair type from Katja because it seemed like a better alternative than a straight staircase.
The wardrobe is the niche between the toilet and the utility room. Then you can still place closets on both sides of the front door. For anything beyond that, we would use some space in the utility room, which we pass through often anyway.
@kbt09
I constantly compare the sun position chart, and the TV location receives the least and shortest sunlight. If the living room were along the long side, it would get sun on the TV at least from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Why is opening the side-by-side refrigerator inconvenient? The door is under the stairs, see above.
Of course, it’s warm by the fireplace, but with normal table dimensions, there is even more distance, and we plan to have a small fireplace that emits less heat.
The sofa can be extended. I entered the dimensions of my sofa as a test, and there is still space. It can be a bit tighter since no one sleeps there that often.
The windows, as I said, are not yet fully planned. But I do think the one at the bathtub should stay as it is.
Regarding the corridor window: first, it is the only natural light source in the hallway, which is very important to us; second, we currently have a similar window seat there that is used almost daily.
Yes, I know everyone likes Katja’s design best. But that’s not how we want it or see it as suitable for us. That’s why I’m still using the basic version as a starting point, because we really like the layout’s center.
We have now found a home construction company we still trust, even though working with an architect for various reasons has not been successful so far.
We are saving our reserve finances for things that will come up. There is simply no room to bring another architect on board, but we certainly won’t be the first to do things this way.
So yes, I knew the upper floor would attract many comments, but personally, I don’t see anything wrong with the ground floor. Honestly, I don’t quite understand that.
S
Schnurrbart25 Aug 2018 20:52Well planned, every room gets what it deserves. Poorly planned, you end up with walk-through rooms, TV niches, and a cramped cabin-like feel in the bedroom.
As I said... use a catalog floor plan – they often work at least to some extent.
As I said... use a catalog floor plan – they often work at least to some extent.
Patkia schrieb:
You still don’t bump your head because we have two full floors.Yes, on the walls though. You also sometimes sit on the edge when getting up.
In 10 years, this will only get worse. You won’t be able to pass by the bed. Try a 50cm (20 inches) corridor with a wall on one side—you’ll be scraping your shoulder against it.
Patkia schrieb:
But where do you see the sinks on a 1.10m (43 inches) wall? It’s actually 1.40m (55 inches). 2.11m (83 inches) minus 90cm (35 inches)… okay, your measurement isn’t accurate. Still, 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) (plaster and tiles deducted) minus 70cm (28 inches) leaves only 1.30m (51 inches)… that’s really tight with a wall at shoulder height.
Especially when you have to assist kids while washing.
The space in front of the bathtub is purely a traffic area, not a place to stay.
Patkia schrieb:
And I only adopted that stair type from Katja because it is clearly a better option than a straight staircase.Katja positioned it somewhere completely different. The problem lies in the details.
Patkia schrieb:
The coat closet is the niche between the toilet and utility room. Then you can also place coat storage to the right and left of the entrance door. For everything else, we would use some space in the utility room, since we often go through there anyway.That’s not even enough space in the hallway for two people. Count all your shoes and jackets… where will you hang the kids’ coats? People usually have more than just two jackets and pairs of shoes in use. In the utility room, you can hang garden jackets and dry boots, but definitely not your wife’s handbags… that space is already taken up with other things.
Patkia schrieb:
The windows are, as mentioned, not properly planned yet. But I think there should be one by the bathtub.… so your wife casts shadows on herself while doing makeup?
Patkia schrieb:
I know that everyone thinks Katja’s design is the best. But that’s not how we want it or see it as suitable for us.Yours is not suitable at all.
This idea completely misses the mark and just doesn’t work.
You can explain as much as you want.
Sorry, but this had to be said!
@kaho674 regarding the garage driveway (we simply don’t want to move the garage back another 1.50 meters (5 feet) due to space constraints, and it’s also difficult to implement from a design perspective) and because we personally don’t like the orientation this way.
When I overlay the sun path on your floor plan, we simply prefer the sunlight coming from the opposite direction.
We have another approach and will try again. The night is still young =|
@ypg
Okay, I hadn’t really considered that people also get older living in the house. Now the 50 centimeters (20 inches) don’t bother me. But in 10 to 20 years... who knows. Thanks for the tip.
Yes, sorry, the 90 centimeters (35 inches) in the bathroom are out of place. But it’s tight anyway, my partner just pointed that out too. Freestanding 1.30 meters (4 feet 3 inches) is okay, but against the wall...
Meanwhile, I have already deleted the entire upper floor.
I don’t know what’s wrong with the staircase, but I left the staircase and its surroundings as Katja originally designed them.
Window by the bathtub... as mentioned, it should stay like that, but that doesn’t mean it will be the only one.
Anyway... starting over for now.
When I overlay the sun path on your floor plan, we simply prefer the sunlight coming from the opposite direction.
We have another approach and will try again. The night is still young =|
@ypg
Okay, I hadn’t really considered that people also get older living in the house. Now the 50 centimeters (20 inches) don’t bother me. But in 10 to 20 years... who knows. Thanks for the tip.
Yes, sorry, the 90 centimeters (35 inches) in the bathroom are out of place. But it’s tight anyway, my partner just pointed that out too. Freestanding 1.30 meters (4 feet 3 inches) is okay, but against the wall...
Meanwhile, I have already deleted the entire upper floor.
I don’t know what’s wrong with the staircase, but I left the staircase and its surroundings as Katja originally designed them.
Window by the bathtub... as mentioned, it should stay like that, but that doesn’t mean it will be the only one.
Anyway... starting over for now.
S
Schnurrbart25 Aug 2018 23:04The usual process for a DIY planner... you create something, are convinced of it, defend it, gradually understand the criticism (which is certainly deliberately blunt in the forum to speed things up a bit), and start over.
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