ᐅ Single-family house floor plan, approximately 200 sqm without a basement – assessment

And regarding the staircase and hallway on the upper floor... yes, they also take up quite a few square meters (square feet), but this way I don’t need a second staircase, which would also occupy a considerable amount of space.

Again, it’s your house, and you have to be happy with it. You’ve heard my concerns. Now you should simply focus on the cost planning. Perhaps that will make you reconsider one thing or another.

Oh man, this kind of thing just keeps bothering me.

Have you considered who is going to clean and maintain all of this? For example, water points:
- Kitchen
- Ground floor cloakroom
- Ground floor guest bathroom
- Garage toilet
- Upper floor bathroom
- Upper floor utility room

Then the storage areas in the garage and on the ground floor, and based on your recent comments, partly also in the party room. I usually pay close attention to sufficient storage space in floor plans, but I think this storage requirement should be reviewed, especially regarding how it’s distributed.

And again, regarding the pantry... you plan to have a freezer cabinet there and definitely a window, so make sure the room is at least about 140 cm (55 inches) wide, otherwise the freezer door won’t be able to open.

Second Attempt
Well, the thing is really huge. Are you sure you can afford it?
I didn’t pay attention to the centimeters since these are just sketches anyway. Many walls can still be moved to benefit the neighboring room, etc.
I don’t mind that the hallway is large at all – but I’m probably the only one. I love it when you enter and immediately have plenty of space. You can undress in any direction, throw your things down, and so on. It’s a matter of personal taste.
Some of the upper rooms have roof windows – I haven’t drawn those in; you’ll have to imagine them yourselves.
By the way, guests will appreciate being able to go downstairs to use the toilet instead of having to “hold their meeting” right next to the party couch. That’s why the toilet stays downstairs.
Maybe you’ll enjoy it.

It might be possible to push everything together a bit so it doesn’t look too bloated. Don’t forget, when calculating square meters you always have to subtract about 10–15% because the software isn’t very accurate.

Slammer0909 schrieb:
If I were to show a new, almost finished plan from another architect here now, there probably wouldn’t be much praise either, just because of the “atmosphere” here.

Just as a side note: criticism can sometimes be unwarranted, for example due to personal taste or because certain conditions are not known or clear to the forum members.
However, this is not the case with the current design.

If you review the posts again, it becomes clear how you approached the planning process. And there lies your problem.

You spent a year trying a lot yourselves and working with a builder (BU), then received pushback in the forum and support from acquaintances, later consulted an architect recommended by a colleague whose first draft you did not like, and now you are completely “dizzy.”

I think you don’t fully realize that your demands and the planning task are not simple. Your space program with its requirements is ambitious, taking into account future use as a two-family house increases complexity, and the client side situation is also somewhat complicated...

In my opinion, you should critically assess the time invested so far, the drafts, and the feedback. Write down everything important to you regarding your planned living arrangements, and then hire an independent architect. It is normal that the first draft will be discarded. By the second or third draft, you can get a sense of whether the collaboration is worthwhile. This does not cost a fortune with a phased contract and will help you move forward.

If you fail to convince someone, are they then labeled as resistant to advice, unwilling, and accused of having no sense of space?
I will think carefully about what I share in this forum from now on.

kbt09 schrieb:
You say the kitchen is at the top of the plan because you don’t want to look at the wooden fence to the east while working in the kitchen. But if I mention that you do end up looking at that fence when sitting on the sofa, and then you say you don’t see the wooden fence to the north... do you see the contradiction?

Yes, I do see it! Because I know my situation, requirements, and wishes well. If the kitchen window faces exactly north, then I would be looking through that window at the wooden fence. But the living room does not have a window facing north, so I can’t see the fence from there. I can only look south into the garden. Of course, I can see the wooden fence around my property from there. But again, please don’t interpret every word too literally — try to understand what I meant. This isn’t about finding loopholes or minor flaws just to criticize the floor plan.

kbt09 schrieb:
And again about the pantry... you plan to have a freezer cabinet in there and definitely a window, so make sure the room is at least about 140 cm wide, otherwise the freezer door won’t open.

We have already simulated this pantry exactly. We manage with 1.35 m (4 ft 5 in). The door can still open easily and there’s space behind it.

In general: If long, narrow rooms are acceptable and 2.8 m (9 ft 2 in) is enough to fit a bed, then what exactly is wrong with the floor plan? I haven’t seen any major improvements suggested so far.

Honestly, the secondary rooms are of lower priority to me. What bothers me is that despite having over 200 sqm (2,150 sq ft), my living room is quite small. That would be one point. But I also don’t want the house to be any larger. So to make the living room bigger, something else has to be smaller. But it can’t be the kitchen.

The water connections in the ground floor bathroom, kitchen, and upstairs bathroom I consider standard. Many houses also have an additional kids’ bathroom upstairs, so that’s +1.

Having a water tap in the utility room is something I like; we’ve seen that with friends and they manage well with it.

An extra bathroom for the party room in the basement is something many others also have. That would certainly be acceptable in a basement. Anyone with a laundry room in the basement will have water connections there. Since my laundry room is upstairs, it should have water connections as well.

So the number of water connections seems reasonable for such a large house. The tap in the utility room could be debated; the rest is “standard.”

I think I have a pretty clear understanding of the requirements. At first, some wrote “it’s nothing special” or “it should be easy” (loosely paraphrased, not literally).

That’s why outsiders don’t really make progress against my points, and why it’s difficult to convince me otherwise. But believe me, if I thought another option was better, I would adopt it. I just don’t see any major improvements right now. So what’s really so bad about my design?

I WANT the second staircase. I think you just have to deal with that. I WANT a hallway as a passage room for coats, etc. I WOULD LIKE to have a kitchen island. If the passageway gets too narrow, the kitchen island will simply be 20 cm (8 inches) narrower.

I critically review my design, and so do you — make counterproposals. But for me, nothing dramatically better has come up. Some ideas are certainly thought through differently and aren’t bad. But when I review everything here again, my design isn’t so wrong. You might not like the angled walls — that’s fine.

I presented a design with a straight corridor and other changes. I wanted feedback on that. But there wasn’t much response. Nobody really discussed the pros and cons of the new corridor layout, always referring back to the old plan. So this keeps going in circles.

We’ve been planning for one year, at least half of that based on having a basement, so that could be discarded anyway. Then we got married and put the planning on hold. Then came the honeymoon, and when we were ready to restart, most free time went into caring for my mother-in-law and her family, who was battling cancer. Sadly, she passed away on December 2, 2014. During that time, we couldn’t plan intensively.

Now we want to finish planning and eventually start building.

As I said, if I add just 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) on one side, many problems would be solved. But then I’d have 250 sqm (2,690 sq ft) or more. I would like to stay around 200 sqm (2,150 sq ft) for cost and maintenance reasons — while keeping the same requirements.

PS: What does a design from an architect typically cost? If it’s 2 or 3 versions, surely several thousand dollars, right? Where would I stand here?