ᐅ Floor Plan for an Urban Villa – What Are Your Thoughts?

Hello everyone,

I need your help with the architectural planning for our planned townhouse. I will skip the fully completed checklist since the planning is already quite advanced, but I will keep the relevant questions.

Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: >1,000 m² (1,200 sq. yards)
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2, single-story extension on the ground floor
Roof type: hipped roof, single-story extension on the ground floor
Style: townhouse
Orientation: north/south
Basement, floors: none
Number of occupants, ages: 3 (2x 30; 1x 2 years) – designed for 4
Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor: approx. 110 m² (1,184 sq. ft), approx. 75 m² (807 sq. ft)
Office: family use
Guests per year: very rarely
Open or closed architecture: closed
Conservative or modern construction: conservative, but without ornamentation
Open kitchen, kitchen island: no, kitchen island
Number of dining seats: 4
Fireplace: yes
Balcony, roof terrace: balcony, mostly to cover the entrance area
Garage, carport: garage
Planning done by: do-it-yourself then architect
What do you especially like?: appearance, the extension, the large ground floor
What don’t you like?: living room depth of 4.14 m (13.6 ft), due to the staircase; room width <3.5 m (11.5 ft) upstairs
Preferred heating technology: ground-source heat pump, KfW 55 standard

Attached is our floor plan. Currently, I see two main issues: first, we are bothered by the 4.14 m (13.6 ft) depth of the living room; second, we had planned the upstairs living spaces to be 3.50 m (11.5 ft) wide each in the contract drawing. Now that the architect has finalized the design, they have become narrower because of the real concrete staircase.

Is my concern about the insufficient living room depth and the room width justified?
Do you have any ideas on how to solve both problems?

For the living room depth, I see only the following options:
- Staircase: add one more step at the landing. However, this means a wall would come in about 1.20 m (3.9 ft) at the landing. If I increase the room width upstairs, the corridor at the landing might become too narrow. Perhaps some optimization is possible by reducing the gap between the balustrade and the railing.
- Extend the living room outer wall by 0.3 m (1 ft) – but this costs around 5,500 EUR and gains only 30 cm (1 ft). I don’t see a good cost/benefit balance, especially as the total area is already quite large at 185 m² (1,991 sq. ft).
- Reduce the ground floor ceiling height from 2.70 m (8 ft 10 in) back down to 2.55 m (8 ft 4 in) – this saves about three-quarters of a step; the only question is whether it still looks good with a 40 m² (430 sq. ft) living room.

Any other comments? Looking forward to your feedback.
Good luck, Redsonic

What would personally bother me is the more than 33sqm (355 sq ft) entrance hall/corridor. It can be done and does look spacious, but essentially it is space purchased at a high cost. On the other hand, I find the wardrobe a bit small and squeezed into the narrow hallway.

Redsonic schrieb:
Among other things, we planned the living spaces on the upper floor to be 3.50 m (11.5 feet) wide each in the construction contract drawings.

Hmm, our upper floor has a similar layout, with the children's rooms almost identical. Here, the children's rooms are 3.34 m (11 feet) wide and each has 15.2 m² (163.6 sq ft). These are very nice rooms (especially with the corner windows making them very bright), and they are large enough.

On the bedroom side, you only have about 3.20 m (10.5 feet). You should try to recreate that in your current bedroom. Is the space in front of the bed still sufficient? There should be no issues in the bathroom.

I would reconsider the walk-in closet. Is that a narrow door? You’ll be going through there twice a day, right? If you have wardrobe rows on both sides, you should be able to open the closet doors fully and step back to see the contents clearly. Just double-check this carefully, or even recreate the situation at home if possible.

Redsonic schrieb:
On the one hand, we are bothered by the depth of the living room of 4.14 m

I would try to recreate the planned furnishings. You can also measure at furniture stores how much space seating groups and dining tables take up (including chairs and, most importantly, enough room to walk around them).

I wouldn't know how to place a dining table in the living room, or is none planned there? The bay window is far too narrow for that. Your hallway area is almost as large as the entire living room, which seems too much in relation to the size of the house. In the living room, I would plan at least 4.5m (15 feet) distance to the TV wall, if possible.

Regards
Sabine

180m2 (1938 sq ft) house but only 11m2 (118 sq ft) bathroom.

Thanks, that sums up the issues well. The ratio of hallways to living space doesn’t work, the staircase is intrusive, and the living areas are too small. It’s a huge house but there’s no space per room. But what does the solution look like? I’m planning to add an external staircase soon.

We’ll solve the dressing room/bedroom issue by moving the wall 20cm (8 inches) to the left. The dressing room will probably have closets on only one side. The room is actually a “leftover” from the upper floor, so if necessary, I can allocate it to the bedroom.

The dining area will be placed to the right of the study. It’s 2.80m (9 feet) wide, and the bay window isn’t deep enough to cause any problems.