Floor plan conversion from two-family house to single-family house - improvement suggestions

If there are already connections on the lower side of the plan, the question is where exactly.

My suggestion would be: leave the old children's room where the kitchen is now and use it as a guest/office; then have the kitchen and dining area adjacent to it; living room where the guest/office is in the new plan.
Kitchen as two rows with a freestanding island, not a U-shape. This way you have direct access to the terrace and the living area is nice and cozy, out of the traffic zone.

Does the short wall in the middle have to remain, or could the statics also be managed with a beam? If so, I would do it that way.
Also remove the opposite short wall from the exterior wall.
Should the windows stay as they are? How are they currently anyway?

Thanks already for your feedback.

How is the house oriented? Will the terrace stay there?
Is the entrance really through the garage? Is that supposed to stay that way?
A site plan of the property with the rest (driveway, garage, garden) would be good.

First, I would like to provide a few more details. You can now see the position of the house on the property as well as the orientation and location of the terrace. The terrace is definitely going to stay there because it is on the south side and most of the garden is also located there.
In the attached floor plan (of this post) I have marked the position of the existing kitchen connections with an orange circle.

I quite like the first solution. The hallway is not too big – rather the guest bathroom. In my opinion, the open hallway here is uncomfortable. I would separate the entrance area + hallway from the living area with drywall.

I don’t like your changes. They turn the study into a narrow room that doesn’t need the space. The wardrobe is much more important.

We also tend emotionally towards the first solution. One possibility for the guest bathroom in variant 1 would be to integrate the shower into the larger left part of the bathroom and then plan a storage room instead of the shower. The hallway could be separated from the dining room with drywall and a glass door.

What have you planned for the staircase? At the moment, it does not belong to the living area, is probably unheated, and has the charm of a corridor in a medical office, right? If I were planning to connect the upper and ground floors, I would include the staircase in the design and possibly make it open to the wardrobe. Is anything planned there?

Exactly, the staircase is unheated but is supposed to get a radiator in the basement and new flooring everywhere (wood or tiles). There were also architect drafts to move the staircase more to the center of the house, but that would be too expensive, and the upper floor would have to be completely redesigned as well. Possibly planned is to widen the passage between the staircase and the hallway from 0.9 m to about 1.2 m so that it, together with the hallway, feels more like one room.

My suggestion would be: leave the old children's room as is where the kitchen is now and use it as guest/office; then have kitchen and dining adjacent; and put the living room where the guest/office is in the new plan.
Kitchen as two rows with a freestanding island, no U-shape. That way you have direct access to the terrace and the living room is nicely cozy away from the walking zone.

Does the short wall in the middle have to stay, or could the static requirements also be met by a beam? Then I would do it that way. Also remove the opposite short wall from the exterior wall.

Should the windows stay as they are? What condition are they currently in anyway?

The short wall in the middle already resulted from a previous breakthrough. There is already a beam above the 2.00 m opening. The wall was closed before, as in the old upper floor plan. If one were to remove the short wall in addition to the planned breakthrough of the large wall, there would be hardly any load-bearing walls left on the ground floor. And in the current variant, we like it if the living room is half separated from the dining room.

The living room should definitely stay in the south (for example bottom left on the plan). The room is very bright with large windows and terrace access.

My wife likes the kitchen by the terrace, hence the study in the north (top left on the plan). We don’t have guests often. 1-2 nights per month. That would be okay if they go through the dining room to get to the bathroom. There would also be a possibility for guests to stay overnight on the upper floor (old upper floor children’s room).

Individual windows could be moved if it brings a big advantage.

The stove connection is often also a cable that isn’t routed multiple times through the house.

The electrical wiring throughout the ground floor will be newly installed. It’s heading towards a full renovation. A floor heating will also be installed.

Is the entrance really through the garage? Is that supposed to stay that way?

You can see now in the picture in the previous post that the entrance goes from the yard into the covered windbreak and then into the house.

I would open the wall opposite the stairs near the kitchen to a width of one meter and close the door by the living room.

Overnight guests per year: 20

We don't have guests very often.

I would prefer the wall as suggested by YPG.
Overall, I would prefer the guest room at the front by the children's room. But that is a matter of taste.

With a complete renovation, you can do a lot with the connections, and the heavy-duty cable is then not a problem either.

I would open the wall opposite the stairs near the kitchen to one meter wide and close the door at the living room.

I have added your suggestion to my plan. I hope that is what you meant.
Could you explain why you think this passage between the kitchen and the stairwell is a good idea?

The passage would then be almost next to the front door, and the area for taking off shoes would move further inside the hallway. This would also make the dirt zone larger.

As a variant, I have also slightly reduced the guest bathroom, integrated the shower into the left part, and planned a storage room for that space (see new plan with the initial post). Otherwise, I wouldn’t know what to do with the space except making it another hallway.
What do you think about that?

20 guests per year (maximum) means someone comes roughly every 2-3 weeks, which I don’t find very often. I prefer the kitchen in the south by the terrace because you use it daily. But I agree: it’s a matter of taste.