ᐅ Floor Plan Design for a Single-Family House (190 sqm) with Garage

Hello everyone,

We are currently planning a new construction project in Bornhöved and would like to gather your unfiltered opinions. Attached is the completed questionnaire.

Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 723 m² (7,784 sq ft)
Slope: No
Site coverage ratio: 0.25
Floor area ratio:
Building window, building line, and boundary: see drawing
Edge development: With ancillary facilities yes, max. 9 m (30 ft)
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: Open design
Roof shape: Open design
Style: Open design
Orientation: Open design
Maximum height/limits: 9 m (30 ft)
Other requirements

Client Requirements
Style, roof shape, building type: Gable roof with captain’s gable
Basement, floors:
Number of people, ages: 4 people, 2 adults (32) and 2 children (0 and 3 years)
Space requirements on ground floor, upper floor: 3 bedrooms on the upper floor
Office: Family use or home office? No office planned at the moment
Guest stays per year: 1–2, no guest room required
Open or closed architecture: Semi-open → Planned double sliding door between kitchen and living/dining area
Conservative or modern design: Conservative
Open kitchen, kitchen island: Yes
Number of dining places: Dining room, breakfast bar at kitchen island
Fireplace: Yes
Music/sound wall: No
Balcony, rooftop terrace: No
Garage, carport: Double garage
Utility garden, greenhouse: No
Other wishes/particulars/daily routine, reasons for or against certain features: Sliding door from kitchen to dining room to close off the kitchen if needed (e.g., at Christmas) while eating.

House Design
Who designed the plan:
- Do-it-Yourself
What do you particularly like? Why? Gallery in the stairwell, which creates more space and brightness in the hallway below. Tiled walk-in showers, no more cleaning windows
What do you dislike? Why? Position of the chimney flue in the hallway downstairs
Price estimate according to architect/planner:
Personal price limit for the house including fittings:
Preferred heating system: Gas with solar thermal for domestic hot water, underfloor heating

If you had to give up details/extensions:
- Can you give up:
- Cannot give up: The gallery has already become quite fixed

Why is the design the way it is now?
A mix of many examples
What do you think makes it particularly good or bad?
Pleasant size of utility room, garage, and bedrooms. We also like that there is always another room between the children’s rooms and the master bedroom.

Improvement needed is the orientation, since the garage is located in the southeast and sunlight reaches the living area relatively late.

What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan summarized in 130 characters?
How can the floor plan be optimized in terms of sun orientation and placement of the chimney flue?

The photo of the plot is oriented north, right? Then I think the house orientation is almost as good as it can be. The sun is in the south around 12 or 1 o’clock and then shines almost directly into the windows, so you also get sunlight in the morning. With windows on two sides, the sun will also shine inside until the evening. I don’t quite understand the problem 😉

From the sunny side, I don’t see any problems.

What immediately catches my attention are the three doors in the utility room. This reduces its usable floor space by several square meters and it seems intended as a passage to the hallway? Experienced readers will know my opinion on using the utility room as a foyer for homeowners or delivery entrance.

Also, 20 square meters for a hallway is quite generous, especially since it is not meant to be used as an entrance.

The cloakroom area will likely not be sufficient either.

I would be interested to know the length of the shorter living room wall. It might be worth considering swapping the kitchen and living room. A missing window won’t be an issue in the living room.

You could also think about moving the house further south – after all, a courtyard with a depth of 6 to 7 meters (20 to 23 feet) is not to be underestimated. The plot is large enough.

Five meters (16 feet) seems too small to me anyway. You can park a car comfortably in front of the garage, but there is hardly any room to walk around it, considering how long cars are nowadays. This also applies to the garage itself. It won’t work the way you imagine.

Unfortunately, the hallway is quite large but still offers little space for your wardrobe. For the utility room, I would suggest installing the door to the kitchen as a sliding door.

I would definitely enlarge the driveway in front of the garage to at least 6m (20 feet). Otherwise, either the rear end of the car will be sticking out onto the street, or the bumper will be blocking the garage door 😉

The hallway on the ground floor wastes too much space, and in my opinion, the guest bathroom is unnecessarily large. The chimney flue is a bit of an issue, as it always seems to get in the way. Otherwise, I wouldn’t change anything regarding the orientation and position within the building plot. The garage’s distance from the street should be fine – it should be about 6m (20 feet).

I find the design and layout quite coherent overall. Many details can only be properly assessed with knowledge of the daily habits, while others are a matter of personal taste. I believe the house will work well in practice if you are disciplined about managing jackets and shoes in the entrance area.

What I like:

• generous children’s rooms
• separation between the master bedroom and children’s rooms through the walk-in closet
• entry from the garage into the house
• workshop at the end of the garage
• one family bathroom upstairs instead of several smaller ones
• enough space in the living/dining room to turn the dining table sideways when there are many people

Not ideal for my living preferences would be:

• limited space and light in the kitchen
• too much circulation area (entrance hall, corridor)

But I think it’s definitely buildable as is.