ᐅ Floor Plan Feedback Single-Family Home 140 sqm Two Full Stories
Created on: 4 Jul 2025 16:06
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Milka0105
Hello everyone, following my last post about costs and so on, Ant11 suggested that I start with a floor plan here for evaluation. This plan has now existed for quite some time with a few minor adjustments, so the ideas have not changed. I’m looking forward to some feedback.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size 654 sqm (7040 sq ft)
Slope no
Site occupancy index 0.4
Floor area ratio 0.8
Building setback, building line and boundary 3 m (10 ft)
Edge development only garages or carport
Number of parking spaces 2
Number of floors max 2
Roof pitch 0–48 degrees
Style single-family house
Orientation any
Maximum heights / limits 6 m (20 ft) wall and 9 m (30 ft) total
Other requirements cistern
Client Requirements
Style, roof type, building type gable roof
Basement, floors 2
Number of people, age 2 adults and potentially 2 children, currently 1
Space requirements ground floor, upper floor
Office: family use or home office? Both
Guest sleeping per year, if so guests sleep in the children’s rooms
Open kitchen, kitchen island open kitchen
Number of dining seats 1
Fireplace no
Music / stereo wall no
Balcony, roof terrace no
Garage, carport yes
Utility garden, greenhouse possible
Other wishes / special features / daily routine, also reasons why this or that should or should not be included
House Design
Who designed it:
- Initial draft by architect then adjustments with builder/architect
What do you particularly like? Why? Utility room with separate door (mudroom), large pantry
What do you dislike? Why?
Price estimate according to architect/planner: 433k
Personal price limit for the house, including fixtures: 500k
Preferred heating technology: air heat pump and central ventilation system
If you had to give up, which details / extensions
- Could you give up: if push comes to shove, the separate door for the utility room or the pantry could be omitted
- Could you not give up: guest WC with shower
Why did the design turn out the way it did? For example:
Build as small as possible but as large as necessary. The plot becomes wider toward the back.
So, this is a draft after a consultation appointment with the architect. It was then revised again with the builder.
We want a functional home that works for 2 adults and potentially 2 children (1 currently). In addition, we have a dog, but that obviously adapts too (the mudroom is also designed for this).
Home office is generally possible and planned. First, we have one child’s room reserved and intended for this purpose. Afterwards, the office niche or the bedroom upstairs. We don’t need much except a quiet place to work.
If all else fails, the pantry will become the office (possibly then accessible from the hallway).
The upstairs bathroom is somewhat elongated due to the narrow building footprint and straight staircase. The washing machine and dryer are shown upstairs and are planned to be there. There are also connections in the utility room. Otherwise, the space upstairs or downstairs will be used for storage.
I look forward to your opinions.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size 654 sqm (7040 sq ft)
Slope no
Site occupancy index 0.4
Floor area ratio 0.8
Building setback, building line and boundary 3 m (10 ft)
Edge development only garages or carport
Number of parking spaces 2
Number of floors max 2
Roof pitch 0–48 degrees
Style single-family house
Orientation any
Maximum heights / limits 6 m (20 ft) wall and 9 m (30 ft) total
Other requirements cistern
Client Requirements
Style, roof type, building type gable roof
Basement, floors 2
Number of people, age 2 adults and potentially 2 children, currently 1
Space requirements ground floor, upper floor
Office: family use or home office? Both
Guest sleeping per year, if so guests sleep in the children’s rooms
Open kitchen, kitchen island open kitchen
Number of dining seats 1
Fireplace no
Music / stereo wall no
Balcony, roof terrace no
Garage, carport yes
Utility garden, greenhouse possible
Other wishes / special features / daily routine, also reasons why this or that should or should not be included
House Design
Who designed it:
- Initial draft by architect then adjustments with builder/architect
What do you particularly like? Why? Utility room with separate door (mudroom), large pantry
What do you dislike? Why?
Price estimate according to architect/planner: 433k
Personal price limit for the house, including fixtures: 500k
Preferred heating technology: air heat pump and central ventilation system
If you had to give up, which details / extensions
- Could you give up: if push comes to shove, the separate door for the utility room or the pantry could be omitted
- Could you not give up: guest WC with shower
Why did the design turn out the way it did? For example:
Build as small as possible but as large as necessary. The plot becomes wider toward the back.
So, this is a draft after a consultation appointment with the architect. It was then revised again with the builder.
We want a functional home that works for 2 adults and potentially 2 children (1 currently). In addition, we have a dog, but that obviously adapts too (the mudroom is also designed for this).
Home office is generally possible and planned. First, we have one child’s room reserved and intended for this purpose. Afterwards, the office niche or the bedroom upstairs. We don’t need much except a quiet place to work.
If all else fails, the pantry will become the office (possibly then accessible from the hallway).
The upstairs bathroom is somewhat elongated due to the narrow building footprint and straight staircase. The washing machine and dryer are shown upstairs and are planned to be there. There are also connections in the utility room. Otherwise, the space upstairs or downstairs will be used for storage.
I look forward to your opinions.
Papierturm schrieb:
The smaller the house is intended to be, [...] (Not that I consider 140m² (1507 sq ft) to be small. 140m² (1507 sq ft) is a nice size.)One that comfortably allows for a third child or a full-fledged home office.Papierturm schrieb:
And these are often a big pitfall, as they are frequently designed too small.Standard utility rooms are usually around 9 m² (97 sq ft) in size.Papierturm schrieb:
Personally, I would place a half-turn staircase along the exterior wall with the pantry underneath.By staircase, do you mean a straight two-flight stair with a winder instead of a landing (?)https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
M
Milka010510 Jul 2025 18:01Milka0105 schrieb:
I spent my evening drawing.
Don’t stone me. But I tried to improve the current floor plan. I will draw the others tomorrow to see which one I prefer.
So, about the floor plan I drew.
What did I do? I swapped the kitchen and living room.
The staircase stays the same, attached. The upper floor layout remains unchanged here, so only the ground floor image is included. The staircase could also be placed on the other side, in which case the upper floor would look like plan 3. In this plan, basically only the kitchen and living room have been switched. There’s a huge cloakroom, a shower/WC, and a nice kitchen with space for the dining table. The living room feels a bit narrow and the hallway is quite tight. Otherwise, the utility room is bigger and includes a niche for the washing machine.
Now to floor plan 2. Staircase to the left. Living room and kitchen have a similar layout. The WC is located behind the living room on the left. This creates a pantry upstairs with access from both the kitchen and the utility room. There is also a small cloakroom.
The narrow hallway and somewhat narrow living room are still negatives.
However, the upper floor is much more spacious and gained an open kitchen as well as an office. Nearly square children's rooms, a master bedroom with the possibility of direct bathroom access, although I didn’t include that. The bathroom feels more airy. I really like this upper floor.
Looking forward to your opinions. Tomorrow I will draw the other floor plans so I can get a good overall impression. I went to the kitchen planning meeting this morning.
First of all, it was a relief. Even in the original floor plan, a kitchen of sufficient size is possible. Everyone has different preferences, but the kitchen is bigger than in some restaurants (exaggerating a bit).
Still, the planner suggested a few improvements like the ones I proposed in my floor plan, which would improve the kitchen even more.
We have now removed the wall and placed the fridge only on one side. This reduces the kitchen width to 2.60m (8.5 feet), and the hallway is practically included in the circulation path. So, 28cm (11 inches) gained plus hallway space.
It might even be possible to build pull-out drawers under the staircase.
This could eliminate the need for a pantry, but I do find a use for that storage space. If not, the pantry wall could be removed to enlarge the cloakroom. So, very flexible.
For now, the staircase will remain open to keep the hallway feeling wider.
The narrower kitchen allowed me to move the staircase 20cm (8 inches) more towards the center, which relieves the utility room and bathroom on the upper floor. The utility room will still have two doors, and I will have this precisely planned by the developer. The guest WC is now just a toilet.
By shifting the staircase, the bathroom became more functional. I swapped the children’s room and master bedroom and completely removed the corridor. The bathroom now extends to the back. With clever planning, a doorway could be made from the master bedroom (I will commission this). A small office was also created.
The children’s rooms, especially one, have a somewhat awkward shape. I could extend the dividing line, which would give both rooms 13.6m² (146 square feet) and add a storage room at the end of the hallway. As it is now, both children’s rooms are about 14m² (150 square feet) each.
As I said, I was out all day and for now have only explored the original floor plan because we liked it. Attached are the images.
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Milka010512 Jul 2025 16:00ypg schrieb:
No, not really, if you leave out the standard elements—kitchen, bathroom, living area, stairs—in a single-family house. The difference in this segment always lies in the details. Here you can see a dressing room, an open space, and a fourth room, which enlarge the house. But you don’t want that. Also, the plot is oriented differently.
Here, the staircase has a very different layout, requiring more space upstairs.
By the way, internal links are allowed here.
You had the two ducts in your original draft on page 1, if I may remind you.
I posted two designs on page 5 or 6. Also, for you, the rough floor plans of the following gable-roof houses fit well—if you raise the knee wall accordingly, you get roughly 140 sqm (1,507 sq ft).
- Almost all smaller Viebrockhaus Maxime and V- houses,
- From Scanhaus Marlow, most variants of the SH 122 slightly enlarged,
- The SH 116 about one meter (3 feet) wider,
- The SH 142 D
(With the SH 145 knee wall, you have the same problematic situation as in your draft, resulting in two narrow areas)
- Weberhaus with its Sunshine series,
- Town & Country with the Landhaus 142 and the smaller ones (noting they then have a higher knee wall).
Heinz von Heiden has declined in their series, so I won’t mention those.
- And many others.
In principle, any standard floor plan will work for you if you adjust the house dimensions accordingly. And it’s easy to stay around ±140 sqm (±1,507 sq ft). The problem arises when a pantry is squeezed into the furthest corner, making the kitchen no longer furnishable and therefore unusable, or when attached to a side entrance. But all that has already been mentioned.So today I worked on the other floor plan. Either I made a mistake, or it’s simply not feasible based on the rough calculations with the other data.
Milka0105 schrieb:
So today, I worked on the other floor plan. Either I made a mistake or it simply can’t be represented correctly based on the rough calculation with the other data.What is your drawing supposed to show us: You want to take a building proposal with the original dimensions of 9.88 x 7.78 meters (32.4 x 25.5 feet) as inspiration but implement it at 10.49 x 8.61 meters (34.4 x 28.2 feet)? And you’re starting again with the ground floor?
(I just can’t follow the first part, the second sounds like a negative learning curve)
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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Milka010512 Jul 2025 20:5111ant schrieb:
What is your drawing supposed to show us: You want to use a construction proposal with the original size of 9.88 x 7.78 meters (32.4 x 25.5 feet) as inspiration, but implement it at the size of 10.49 x 8.61 meters (34.4 x 28.3 feet)?
And again, you start with the ground floor?
(I just can’t follow the first part, the second sounds like a negative learning curve) Yes, that’s correct, that was my plan.
I actually tried starting with the upper floor.
Once I had a staircase that was more like a ladder or a staircase that exited in the middle of the house. I couldn’t use that at all on the lower floor. Well, anyway.
Milka0105 schrieb:
I actually tried starting with the upper floor.
I once had a staircase that was more like a ladder, or a staircase that came out in the middle of the house. Downstairs, I couldn’t use that at all. You will experience the same but in reverse with the upper floor when you start with the ground floor: the extra space gained by enlarging the ground floor is used up on the upper floor (and even more so if it is an attic level) to make the rooms there “work” anyway. I’m not saying to start with the upper floor just to make self-planning beginners (for whom this may feel unusual) struggle. On the contrary, it’s meant to help them avoid frustration, tears, and hair-pulling when the calculations don’t add up (or they have to spend on expensive additional square meters to fix it).
Or, to say it in simple terms as you requested: if you find it easier to start with the ground floor, that will be an illusion. Either you will struggle when deriving the upper floor from that ground floor, or it might seem relaxed, but unfortunately only at the cost of the building being larger than necessary with good planning.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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