ᐅ Opinions and Tips on Our Floor Plan

You have a window in the attic. How do you access the attic? The stairs end at the first floor, right? If not, is the passage to the upper floor a bit narrow?
Is the first floor entirely over 2 meters (6.6 feet) high? The sloped ceiling looks like the bed in the bedroom is placed below the 1 meter (3.3 feet) mark?

The walk-in closet has the most valuable space in the house (or at least on the upper floor). Yet it only stores clothes, and a person spends about 5 minutes there per day. Can’t you at least give one of the children’s rooms a dormer window?

Hello, I would also suggest reconsidering the entrance area. Having a shower on the ground floor doesn’t really make sense; it might be better to have a guest room with a shower in the basement. Use the space you gain on the ground floor for a slightly larger wardrobe or entrance area.

What I really appreciate on the first floor in our new house is that I have a very small storage room for towels, bed linen, shower gel, etc. I can put everything there and don’t have to go down to the basement first.

I like the storage room in the kitchen, but not the two tall cabinets. The era of tall cabinets is pretty much over now, especially in open-plan kitchens.

I also don’t find the irregular windows very successful.

Regarding the large bathroom: you have some wasted space next to the toilet. If you’re “shower people,” move the shower and make it bigger. I get annoyed every day about the wasted space around the toilet that I would have preferred in the shower instead. Maybe think about placing the toilet where the shower is now, putting the bathtub on the opposite side, and moving the shower to where the bathtub is currently located. Make it a walk-in shower with a glass partition, no door or wall.

Looking forward to seeing what comes next...

Oh, and what do you think about some sort of “roof terrace” on top of the garage?

Wastl schrieb:
You have a window in the attic. How do you access the attic? The stairs end on the first floor, right? If not, is the passage upstairs a bit narrow?
Is the first floor completely over 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches) in height? The slope looks like the bed in the bedroom is positioned below the 1 meter (3 feet 3 inches) limit?

I’m guessing it’s a fold-down attic ladder, but you’re right, it’s not yet shown on the plans. Attached is the cross-section...

klblb schrieb:
The walk-in closet has the most valuable space in the house (or at least on the first floor). Yet only clothes are stored there, and a person spends about 5 minutes per day inside. Couldn’t you at least give one of the children’s rooms the dormer window?

And then there’s the inevitable fight among the kids over who gets the nicer room...

Gloriosa schrieb:
Hello, I would also consider changing the entrance area. A shower on the ground floor doesn’t really make sense; maybe a guest room with a shower in the basement would be better. Use the space you gain on the ground floor for a slightly larger wardrobe/entrance area.

Interesting idea, but we actually wanted to avoid having three bathrooms. And having only a shower, for example, in the utility room would feel uncomfortable.

Gloriosa schrieb:

I like the storage room in the kitchen, but not the two tall cabinets. The era of tall cabinets is basically over now, especially in open-plan kitchens.

As mentioned earlier, the kitchen already exists and will simply be expanded.

Gloriosa schrieb:

Regarding the large bathroom: you have some unusable space next to the toilet. If you’re “shower people,” move the shower and make it larger. I get annoyed every day because there’s a lot of space around the toilet that I would have preferred to have in the shower. Consider moving the toilet where the shower currently is, placing the bathtub on the opposite side, and putting the shower where the bathtub is now. Floor-level with a glass screen as a divider, no door or wall.

That sounds interesting. But wouldn’t the slope create unusable dead space in the shower? We had thought about filling the “dead” corner behind the toilet with shelving, for storing towels, etc.

Gloriosa schrieb:

Oh, and what do you think about some kind of “roof terrace” on the garage?

First, it’s not allowed by the development plan, and second, it probably wouldn’t be used anyway.

MissFilou schrieb:
Why unfortunately? Too standard? Too problematic?

A design is always the result of all requirements (homeowner preferences, legal aspects, site specifics, budget, etc.) and how these are implemented. The presented floor plan has been seen many times before. That’s not necessarily bad, but it has weaknesses that cannot be explained by the need for the floor plan to fit every situation, which is not ideal.

MissFilou schrieb:
Yes, that’s basically what we plan to do anyway.

Also regarding the kitchen and planning:

Then plan it like that from the beginning!
Your pantry has a rough structural dimension of 1.01 m (3.3 feet), minus plaster and space for the sliding door leaves just over 90 cm (35 inches). How deep is the shelving? In a pantry, it’s often 40 cm (16 inches) rather than 30 cm (12 inches), leaving a maximum of about 60 cm (24 inches)—a bit tight...
But you can also plan the entrance area together with the kitchen. Then you’d have a niche in the hallway for a wardrobe, depth 0.65 m (26 inches), then the wall, 0.24 m (9.5 inches), then a kitchen unit 0.6 m (24 inches), then a walkway 1.1 m (43 inches), a kitchen island 0.9 m (35 inches), another walkway 0.9 m (35 inches), then the exterior wall. That works, otherwise plan it differently. The structural engineering should be feasible, etc. At the same time, plan sightlines, e.g., where the main prep area should be so that at a window in position X you have a view of Z.

None of this can be offered by a catalog floor plan; but you need to know in advance what kind of kitchen you want, and so on.

MissFilou schrieb:
An open dressing room with possible clutter would bother me more than a closed one in a separate room. Are there options to change the doors?

That’s not the main choice to make.
You can design dressing rooms so that the bedroom is only for sleeping, and the person dressing does not disturb the sleeper.

WD

MissFilou schrieb:



And then there’s fighting among the kids over who gets the nicer room...

Well, for me personally, that’s still not a reason to give the best room to the kids.

For my two siblings and me, there were three very different rooms in our parents’ house. Every two to three years, we would rearrange or swap rooms depending on our changing needs as we grew up. For example, the oldest got the somewhat secluded room in the attic. It was never a big deal and actually brought some variety.