Floor plan discussion and improvement suggestions

Hello everyone,

We are starting to plan an alternative to the costly renovation of our house. Therefore, we have now spoken/worked for the first time with a general contractor of our choice.
I ask for honest criticism so that things we have not considered now come to light and not only during construction.

Profile:

Development plan available, few restrictions, maximum eaves height of 8m could cause us problems

Size of the plot: 710m²
Slope: No
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2
Roof type: hipped roof
Style: town house / city villa
Orientation: plot with northwest orientation, see attachment
Maximum heights/limits: 8m eaves height, 5 meters distance to the northern and western plot boundary for buildings, as plantings are desired

Requirements of the builders
Style, roof type, building type: We are flexible, the overall package must appeal
No basement, two full floors
Number of people: 6 people, 38, 37, 8, 6, 2, 2
Space requirements: 5 bedrooms on the upper floor, living room, dining room, kitchen, 2 offices on the ground floor, at least 2 showers
Office: Both offices necessary, 1 x 100% home office, regardless of pandemic, 1 x teacher’s workspace
Guests per year: 6, can also sleep elsewhere or in one of the offices
Open or closed architecture: flexible
Conservative or modern construction method: flexible
Kitchen: preferably open with island (for preparing, not for cooking at)
Number of dining seats: 6
Fireplace: preparation for wood stove, so chimney
2 carports, no garage

Special features: Mud room desired in utility room because our children are little dirt sponges. Children’s rooms approximately the same size (+/-)

House design
Who is responsible for the planning:
- planner from a construction company

Especially liked:
- simple floor plan
- 2 offices
- 5 bedrooms on one level
- bedrooms roughly the same size
- kitchen well furnished
- not larger than 200m² (cleaning, construction costs)
- fits very well to the plot
- short way for groceries (directly into kitchen)

Dislikes:
- path to living room goes through kitchen
- relatively large traffic area
- no pantry

Price estimate according to architect/planner: ~€440,000 without painting and flooring (except tiles, which are included for kitchen, entrance hall, ground floor hallway and bathrooms)
Personal price limit for the house, including equipment: €540,000 including equipment and ancillary construction costs, land additionally. Can be increased to €640,000 if needed
Preferred heating technology: heat pump or gas

If you have to give up something, which details/extensions
- you can do without: 1 office, if a bedroom is 3 m² larger (desk corner)

Why is the design the way it is now?
Standard design found, which we could adapt to our needs with relatively few changes.

What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan summarized in 130 characters?
What stumbling blocks do you see in everyday life with 4 children that we have overlooked? What have we not considered?

The house is to be planned on the corner plot top left (circled).
The floor plans are unfortunately still manually changed, therefore my revisions regarding room names. The guest room is actually office 2... The sizes of the revised rooms are approximate.

Many thanks and best regards
SoL

I basically like the floor plan, possibly a bay window by the kitchen could create more space for a nicer passage to the living area and a pantry. That would also benefit the space on the upper floor, as I personally find only 9m2 bathroom for 6 people critical, especially when the children get older ;)

Hello, where is north on the site plan?

I find the bathroom size problematic for 6 people.

I would remove the gallery, make a large bathroom for the children with a bathtub, and then a small ensuite bathroom in the parents' bedroom.

What is also worth considering is placing the utility room (even including the technology?) on the upper floor. Then the laundry is washed where it mostly occurs. That saves walking distances. But that will be tricky in terms of space.

I like the large entrance area, you will need the space, but you probably already know that... ;)

Unfortunately, I don't really like it. I have the feeling that with a different staircase design a lot of traffic space on the upper floor could be saved... You also have the unwanted access to the living room through the kitchen.

I don't find the missing pantry critical, rather a large fridge integrated into the kitchen and a storage cabinet, that holds enough. Rarely used items go into the utility room. I am always amazed how much supplies we fit into our storage cabinet. I attached a picture once, ours is not even head-high.

€: And a skylight above the stairs would probably not be wrong for the ground floor either. I could imagine it getting rather dark in the hallway.

First of all, thank you for your assessments. I share the concerns regarding the bathroom size; possibly, Child 3 can be replanned and the unnecessary air space utilized so that the bathroom benefits from it. Thanks also for the picture, it alleviates my concerns about the pantry, and we still have the kitchen island for storage. Regarding the north orientation: In the upper part of the plan you can find the plot number of the adjacent field (132/4), which is oriented north. So north is at the top right.

A few suggestions from me, since we were six ourselves:
- I understand your concerns regarding the path to the living room through the kitchen, I would feel the same. We had an entrance to the kitchen (more like a dining area) and one to the living room. Like the next point, I believe it brought peace to our house if the person going in or out of the living room does not have to pass through the eating and kitchen area.
- At that time, we could separate the kitchen/dining room from the living room with a sliding door. That was really something we enjoyed very much. There was always a lot of hustle and bustle with us, so this could ease things a bit.
- We had two showers, the one on the ground floor was never used, so I think one bathroom can be enough for six people, though we were all girls, and during puberty you might be more tolerant than with "mixed genders." As already mentioned, something a bit bigger would probably not be bad.
- What I really like is that all bedrooms are on one level (that's a childhood dream speaking :D)

I don’t see a practical kitchen there yet... what is visible is not suitably furnished, nor dimensioned, but if I assume the outer dimension of 10.66 m, the kitchen there is barely 3 m wide and is also a passage area.

Basically, it would make sense to dimension the site plan, add a true north arrow, and also include a north arrow on the floor plans.

The advantage of the staircase in the middle of the house is that you can really arrange the rooms all around upstairs. Because 5 bedrooms and at least 1 bathroom should all somehow have an exterior wall and be accessible via the hallway. However, I would also do without the void.