ᐅ Floor Plan Design for a Single-Family Home of Approximately 160 sqm

Hello everyone,

We have been working on the floor plan for our future home for several months now. We have been long-time silent readers of this forum and have finally decided to ask for your opinion.

The more we work on the planning and refine it, the more doubts arise :/ Therefore, we kindly ask you for honest and constructive (!) feedback here.

Development Plan/Restrictions
Plot size: 840 sqm (9,042 sq ft)
Slope: no
Adjacent buildings: garage/outbuilding, carport possible
Number of parking spaces: 2

Homeowners’ Requirements
Style, roof type, building type: hipped roof, urban villa
Basement, floors: no basement, 2 full stories
Number of people, age: currently 2 (30 years)
Room needs Ground Floor: living/dining/kitchen, office/guest room, guest bathroom with shower, utility/technical room
Room needs Upper Floor: bathroom, separate toilet, master bedroom, 2 children’s rooms, storage room (utility room?)
Office: home office, guest room
Occasional overnight guests: few
Open kitchen, kitchen island: originally planned as a separable kitchen (sliding door), but this is no longer so important
Number of dining seats: extendable table
Fireplace: yes
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Garage, carport: double carport in front of the house, garage (outbuilding) next to the house. The 2 parking spaces should be side by side

House Design
Who designed it: planner from a construction company / DIY
What do you like most? Why? roughly equal-sized children’s rooms, clean lines, room sizes, room layout (children’s rooms facing south)
What do you dislike? Why? hallway from entrance too narrow? upper floor layout could be improved?
Preferred heating technology: air-to-water heat pump with underfloor heating

What details/features could you do without
-can you do without: the large utility room on the upper floor
-can’t do without: separate toilet on the upper floor, office in basement

Why is the design as it is now? e.g.
several discussions with the planner

What is the main/fundamental question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
Our concerns:
Furniture arrangement in the living room?
Overall orientation of the house towards the south building setback – that’s why there is about 6.5 m (21 ft) distance to the neighbor (who hasn’t built yet) – is this too little?
Would an L-shaped layout of kitchen/dining/living be better than the current linear form? The main garden is located to the west. The office would then have to be moved to the front (currently where the kitchen is)
Window placement is still not fully developed.

Where is the terrace supposed to go? Around the corner?

At first glance, I notice that you could swap the living area and the kitchen. That way, the path with dishes, etc., to the outdoor dining area wouldn’t be so far. You’ll just need to check if your kitchen layout will still work. Then you could omit the door from the hallway into the current kitchen and plan the hallway to be continuously wider. That would create more space for a wardrobe.

Have you already checked if furniture fits in all rooms as you envision?

The main terrace is planned to face west, with a smaller secondary terrace possibly facing south.

We have always felt that the short route from the entrance to the kitchen is a big advantage. In our opinion, it also does not make sense to swap the living area with the kitchen, since the street is located on the east side.

We tried arranging the furniture in a different sketch plan, which is generally not a problem. When it comes to furnishing, we only see one issue with the living room, as there is not really enough space for cabinets. A walk-in closet in the bedroom would be nice, but somehow we can’t make it work, or it only allows space for a single row of cabinets.

d.düsentrieb schrieb:
We always felt that having a short path from the entrance to the kitchen was a big advantage.

Of course, a short distance to the kitchen is convenient when bringing in groceries, but that only happens a few times a week, while the terrace is actually used several times a day by many family members (less so in winter, but still).
Ultimately, this is just a suggestion... think about barbecuing—some residents do it daily.
Otherwise, a good start: straighten the hallway wall so that a properly straight wardrobe fits there, combine the separate toilet with the bathroom that has a window...
What kind of street is this supposed to be that is apparently noisy?
And where is a boundary setback of over 12 meters (about 39 feet) or 9 meters (about 30 feet) allowed? At least here in Germany, it definitely isn’t.

By the way, it’s easier if the house’s main entrance is accessed from the long side of the building.

Just a quick note: the large window area by the dining table will actually be a sliding door, serving as our access from the living/dining area to the garden. The street on the east side is not very busy, but we prefer to have the view from the living room facing the garden (west) rather than the street or the “front yard.”

Regarding boundary construction, there are no restrictions for us, except the outbuilding/garage can be a maximum of 3 meters (10 feet) high and cannot exceed 100 square meters (1,076 square feet).

We have tried several times to arrange the access along the long side, but somehow we can’t fit the bathroom and utility room on the ground floor.

You really need to think carefully about what counts as convenient walking distances from the kitchen and how the table will be positioned to avoid impractical arrangements.

The question is, when do you usually sit on the sofa (what view do you still have then, and do you need to lower the blinds because of the west-facing sun when you want to watch TV), and how often do you eat, drink, or grill in summer on the terrace or garden near the dining/cooking/kids' area?