ᐅ Floor Plan, Living Area Too Small, Ideas / Suggestions

Thank you for your feedback, DerDa,

you’re right about the hallway upstairs, and it hadn’t really stood out to us as a downside before, but when looking at your floor plan, it’s clear it could be more optimized. There seems to be a lot of contradictory advice about the utility room size. Some say 5m² (54ft²) is enough, while others recommend at least 12m² (129ft²). In the end, it mainly houses the washer and dryer (stacked), the heating system, and the ventilation unit (both wall-mounted), plus the hot water tank. What else do you have in there?

Thanks for sharing the floor plans, especially the basement—really like it :-)

Oh, then I’ll include our floor plans as well. Although we have one more room upstairs, the total number of rooms is roughly the same. However, the layout downstairs is a bit more spacious (kitchen, dining, living area).

UnexpectedGuest schrieb:
What do you have stored in there?

We have planned additional storage space there. We have over 12sqm (130 square feet), and my husband is still worried it won’t be enough to fit everything. We simply don’t have a basement.

We once viewed a house that had a 5sqm (54 square feet) utility room and no basement either. Due to lack of space, the beverage crates had to be stored under the stairs—not really ideal...

We have already pointed out to the architect that the walk-in closet is too large compared to the other rooms. Do you really think the two children's bedrooms are too small? At the moment, we don’t have any children yet, so perhaps that’s why we saved a bit there :-)

The bathroom really gave us a headache. On one hand, we wanted a bathroom that can be accessed directly from the bedroom through the walk-in closet. But if there is only one door and the children need to use it, then there is one bathroom too few upstairs. Having two bathrooms upstairs is quite a luxury, although we have already considered that option in our minds.

UnexpectedGuest schrieb:
We already pointed out to the architect that the walk-in closet is too large compared to the other rooms. Do you really think the two children’s bedrooms are too small? At the moment, we don’t have any children yet, so maybe that’s why we saved a bit there :-)

Our children’s bedrooms aren’t bigger either, admittedly, but if I had needed one less room, it would have been around 14–15 sqm (150–160 sq ft). I only use the master bedroom for sleeping – the kids play, relax, listen to music, and do homework in their rooms.

UnexpectedGuest schrieb:
The bathroom really gave us a headache. On the one hand, we wanted a bathroom that can be accessed directly from the bedroom through the walk-in closet. But if there is only one door and the kids come in, then there’s one bathroom too few upstairs. And having two bathrooms upstairs is quite a luxury, although we had considered that option in our minds as well.

Okay, what exactly do you hope to gain by accessing the bathroom through the walk-in closet instead of via the hallway?

A bathroom en suite is usually more suitable for a luxury villa where you might want to avoid encountering the staff in the hallway 😉 The hallway isn’t that large anyway, is it?

I’m also not a fan of walk-in closets or separate bathrooms for the kids ... 🙄 They just waste space. And clothes collect dust in a walk-in closet if there aren’t any closed wardrobes inside.

Here I am standing at the entrance; the wall appears immediately on the right edge of the picture. The dryer is located directly opposite the water tanks, and the door opens exactly there. Maybe this gives a better impression.

On the plans, it looks like we could place the washing machine and dryer right against the exterior wall, but that’s not possible because gas pipes have been installed there.