ᐅ Floor Plan Design for a 175 m² Single-Family Home with Three Children

Hello everyone,
Currently, my wife and I are planning a single-family house on a 600m² (approximately 6,458 sq ft) plot and are working with the architect to finalize a design for a building permit / planning permission application.

Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: roughly 600m² (approximately 6,458 sq ft)
Slope: No
Floor area ratio (FAR): 0.3
Site occupancy index: 0.4
Building zone, building line, and boundary: detached construction, building boundary
Edge development: -
Number of parking spaces: -
Number of floors: -
Roof style: -
Architectural style: -
Orientation: -
Maximum heights / limits: -
Additional requirements: -

Client Requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type: modern, bright and open, gabled roof with flat roof tiles, no eaves, slightly rectangular shape
Basement, floors: no basement, 1.5 floors with higher knee walls (we originally wanted full floors, but the development plan restricts this)
Number of residents, ages: 2 adults, planning for 3 children
Room requirements on ground and upper floors:
Office: currently home office, more a workspace than a family room
Guest bedrooms per year: unpredictable, average use
Open or closed architecture: open architecture
Conservative or modern building style: modern building style
Open kitchen, kitchen island: kitchen island about 3 meters (10 feet)
Number of dining seats: open dining area
Fireplace: fireplace wall planned
Music / stereo wall: -
Balcony, roof terrace: -
Garage, carport: double garage with storage room
Utility garden, greenhouse: -
Additional wishes / special features / daily routine, also reasons why some things should or shouldn’t be included: The house should be fully equipped with a home automation system, a geothermal system is desired (feasibility to be checked), and the garage should have a high-voltage connection installed for future electric vehicles.

House Design
Who designed the plan: Architect
What do you particularly like? Why?

• The staircase in the living area was a special request, with the idea that you enter the upper floor directly from one living area to another. In traditional layouts, you have to leave the living area and go into a hallway to reach the upper floor.
• We really like the access from the garage into the utility room and from there into the kitchen and hallway, because the utility room will be one of the most frequently used rooms and is centrally accessible. Especially the direct access from the kitchen to the pantry under the stairs is appreciated.
• We hope our plan works out and that we manage to incorporate laundry chutes from both bathrooms on the upper floor to the utility room on the ground floor.
• We like the separate parents’ area with its own bathroom very much, so we don’t have to share one bathroom among five people. We still need to figure out how to best accommodate the walk-in closet / wardrobes.
• In the living/dining area, a 5-meter (16 feet) window wall with sliding doors is planned, which is very important to my wife as it will provide plenty of natural light, especially since the kitchen wall will be fully lined with cabinets.
• The partition wall to the living room should be a bit longer, but we really like the fireplace planned there because it can be enjoyed from both the dining area and the living room.
• With 20m² (215 sq ft), the living room is modest in size, but a media wall with a large TV and surround sound system is planned on the wall facing the office, so the distance to the wall shouldn’t be too large.
• At the entrance, the plan is for the coat rack to be on the right directly adjacent to the WC wall, and the WC door should be moved from the top wall (the WC should be a maximum of 2.5m² (27 sq ft) without a shower, since we already have two bathrooms and the children’s bathroom could be used by guests).

What don’t you like? Why?
We particularly like the open staircase but have heard differing opinions about it, which makes us a bit uncertain.
The parents’ bathroom is currently not quite how we want it. The bathtub should be placed in front of the window, and we have not yet finalized the placement of the toilet, shower, and sink.
Estimated budget according to architect/planner: n/a
Personal price limit for the house including fittings: 390,000€
Preferred heating technology: geothermal energy with deep drilling

If you had to give up something, which details / extensions
- could you do without: -
- absolutely must keep: The 5-meter (16 feet) panoramic window wall must stay according to my wife.

Why is the design the way it is now?
Standard design from the planner? No
Which requests were implemented by the architect?

• We prepared our ideas with a technical draftsman (mostly based on Pinterest, magazines, Instagram, etc.) as a draft, which the architect adapted to comply with the development plan. We are currently adjusting some details.
• The window elements are not finalized yet and still need to be agreed upon.
• The same applies to the front door; a side and top window panel is currently planned as an idea.

What do you think makes the design especially good or bad?
We put a lot of thought into making the house as practical as possible, saving us walking distance and combining that with a modern design.

What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
What do you think of our ideas, and what experiences do you have with aspects like windows, home automation, heating, garage size, or kitchen/utility room flow? Any suggestions for the parents’ area on the upper floor? How would you design the room to accommodate a walk-in closet or wardrobes?

In brief:

Ruksson schrieb:

to the right directly at the WC wall and the WC door should be moved from the upper wall

That's exactly how I would do it too – I just thought of that and now I’m reading it. Great.

Ruksson schrieb:

Here we need to figure out how to sensibly accommodate the dressing area/wardrobes

I would place the partition wall along the slant and install a passage door at the top of the plan. That way, you can fit wardrobes nicely on the 150mm (6 inch) calcium silicate wall and it won’t disturb the sleeper when getting ready. Underneath the calcium silicate wall, place a chest of drawers.

Ruksson schrieb:

Especially from the kitchen directly into the pantry under the stairs.

You should mentally consider in which direction the kitchen door should open. My parents have it just like that, but their utility room door opens in the opposite direction, towards the storage closet. Behind their door is the freezer. However, from a practical point of view, they even removed the storage closet door. They go there several times a day because cleaning supplies are stored there as well.

Ruksson schrieb:

The staircase from the living area was a special request with the idea of going from one living area into another living area upstairs and entering it.

We have something similar: a staircase from the living/dining area going upstairs. We don’t have children. With children, especially three of them!!!, I definitely wouldn’t do this.
Without children, I also wouldn’t position a staircase next to the sofa. Well, you mention the TV will be on the bottom wall of the plan. But how do you ever want to watch TV in peace? Have privacy on the sofa? The kids will grow older and usually become more annoying...

Ruksson schrieb:

What do you think makes it particularly good or bad?

Exactly that circumstance, but the latter.

I won’t go through the development plan. You’ll have to share it with us and fill in the questions!

Thank you for the feedback, YPG. 🙂

ypg schrieb:

I won’t read through the development plan. You’ll have to provide it to us and fill in the questions!

Regarding the development plan, as far as I can read, the following information applies:
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: approximately 600m² (6460 sq ft)
Slope: No
Floor Area Ratio (FAR): 0.3
Floor Space Index (FSI): 0.4
Building envelope, building line, and boundary: detached building style, building boundary
Edge development: No requirements
Number of parking spaces: No requirements
Number of stories: 1 full story
Roof style: Roof surfaces must be covered with non-reflective roofing materials. This does not apply to solar energy systems.
Architectural style: No requirements
Orientation: No requirements
Maximum heights / limits: None
Other requirements: Maximum of 2 apartments per residential building

I don’t like the situation at the entrance to the open-plan living area, especially because the door opens right against the staircase. In addition, you immediately run into the room divider/TV or, if you turn right, against the lower edge of the stair tread. In my opinion, this setup is not very smooth.
If you hired an architect, why didn’t you let them design freely at first, instead of just presenting your textual ideas? I would see that as a missed opportunity and a shame, because they have the training and can think differently.
The utility room has three doors, which makes things more complicated. The small hallway ends up crowded with doors.
Probably also due to the staircase’s position, I don’t like the dining/living area layout that much. Large windows are great, but my dining table would need to be placed directly in front of the window. Also, despite the large windows, I would prefer a “normal” door to the outside as well, not just lift-and-slide doors, since in my experience these tend to be harder to operate. From a movement perspective, it’s easier to open a regular door. I do like the overall house style, but as often mentioned, I would make it a bit more rectangular because that would surely offer more options.
Upstairs, the staircase again causes unnecessary hallway space; does this tiny storage room really have to exist? If another door is added there, I don’t think it will be very useful, right?
From the bed you look directly at the bathroom door. The bathroom itself still needs planning, as the sink located directly behind the door isn’t ideal. Also, the door collides with the shower door.
We have a similar layout on the ground floor and have gone back and forth endlessly. Therefore, I think a bit more width would suit you better than more depth in the room. Our staircase also ended up not being completely straight as intended, because it had to adapt to other conditions.

Ruksson schrieb:

The 5-meter panorama window wall must stay according to my wife.

Large windows, absolutely yes, but insisting on a specific size brings unnecessary restrictions. Both in the kitchen and the living room, you have “unnecessary” depth and empty spaces that could be better used elsewhere.

I see some initial parallels to a design whose drawings were unfortunately removed by its original poster here (though its implementation can still be seen in the house photos thread, and the main thread is also available here, just mostly cleared of drawings) – perhaps @spochtsfreund could kindly provide some comments here as a substitute?

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@11ant
As far as I know, the drawings were deleted at his request (if not the entire thread). So let’s leave the mentioning of old threads aside. Everyone has a right to be forgotten.

I would try to better define the living room (LR).
I’m wondering, as @pagoni2020 mentions, about planning 5 meters (16.4 feet) as two elements. Do you know how heavy 5 square meters (54 square feet) of glass are? Does that even exist? I don’t see why the dining table must be exactly centered, but the kitchen island and table should be coordinated with the windows so it looks intentional.
I would also give the kitchen a simple patio door.
Outside, the patio door should align with the window above. The facades look somewhat unbalanced with the windows as they are.
I would probably separate the LR by a wall toward the exterior wall, with the fireplace at the end of that wall, and then a passage between the exterior wall and the fireplace without a door frame. Possibly a sliding door.
I would avoid any partition wall or door at the passage between hallway/dining/stairs at the staircase start. Unlike @pagoni2020, I see the floor plan as rather narrower: the table placed sideways, the kitchen less than 5 meters (16.4 feet) wide, and removing the offset between office and LR.
Both changes, whether wider or narrower, promise improvements.
Basically, I would consider rotating the house counterclockwise and then mirroring it so that the kitchen and utility room are at the front. At least give it a try. But then you wouldn’t have access to the garage, which you definitely want...