Floor Plan Ideas Single-Family House 140 m²

Kniestock may be a maximum of 1.10 m, so an upper floor like at Jaydee is rather not feasible for us, we thought - although we also like it a lot. But the bathroom and the hallway on the ground floor might also be too small for us with 5 permanent residents plus frequent guests.

Are you at the maximum with the footprint of the house? Or is there maybe a bit more possible?

Purely in terms of the building envelope, a bit more would still be possible, but financially rather not. And actually, I also think that a simple house of that size should be feasible; a floor plan like the Richter Satteldach 140 seems quite harmonious to me. The only thing we want more compared to that is a shower on the ground floor and a slightly larger utility room...

From the utility room, I wouldn't go any smaller. We have just under 13 sqm and it's practically full. The utilities (electricity, water) take up more space than expected. Our hot water storage tank and the buffer are not exactly small either. Then there's the controlled residential ventilation (okay, it hangs high, but right underneath, the washing machine and dryer fit). So we really don't have much space left for other stuff.

In your hallway, you also don't have much more wall space than in our hallway. It's only bigger because the corridor goes around the corner to the WC and the utility room. Maybe you'll get along better with a different staircase, perhaps one with two 1/4 turns or a 1/2 turn. That takes up less space.

How wide is the living room? It really looks very narrow. It should be at least 3.5 m, preferably 4 m. Otherwise, it feels very tunnel-like.

Friends of ours have a similar floor plan as we do and also arranged living, dining, and kitchen along the entire length. The floor plan of my friends looks somewhat like this (just quickly put on paper):


Okay, their stairs go up from the living area. You have to like that. Also, this of course changes the entire upper floor plan.

Downstairs, there would be a bit more space because the hallway could be used relatively well, the utility room is close to the kitchen, and there isn't an extra corridor (traffic area). I indicated the dimensions similar to yours with 10x9.

Hello,

From the building envelope alone, a bit more would be possible, but financially rather not. And actually, I also think that a simple house of this size should work;

The problem is not the simple floor plan; this is definitely possible. In my opinion, your architect has made the best out of your specifications. In my opinion, the fourth room on the ground floor remains the sticking point, hence also the bay window – it somewhat loosens up the living situation. The entire floor plan is built around it and leads to the users' comments.

You rightly mention the cost of building the house. Has your architect given you a cost estimate for the design? What speaks against asking him for another plan, in which the regular standard staircase is relocated and already extended into the attic (attic)? So far, you have planned a spiral staircase in the house for later access to the attic. This not only brings a lot of dirt into the house again but also costs money and takes up more floor space and additionally wastes a lot of space with a roof pitch of 45° and a protruding bay window. Besides, moving furniture of any size is no pleasure on this spiral staircase. When both cost estimates are compared, in my opinion, there should be no significant price difference, but you will have a more relaxed situation on the ground floor ... even if the currently planned bay window is omitted.

For clarification, I have attached the attic of a recently created plan. The corresponding design is a single-family house 9.00 x 10.00, knee wall 1.20 m, gable roof 42°; so quite comparable. On the ground floor, we planned an open kitchen of 10 sqm, a living room with 34 sqm, a utility room of just under 12 sqm with an additional airlock to the garage, as well as the classic cloakroom with a shower toilet behind it. On the upper floor, there are 3 bedrooms plus a dressing room and a 12 sqm bathroom with the possibility – by shifting a few walls – to create an office/guest room out of the dressing room. You can see the attic for yourself. On one side, a nice gallery window is planned as a triangular window; of course, not exactly cheap. However, it can easily be replaced by a sufficiently large BRF; as in the opposite room, which is designed purely as storage space. Overall, in my opinion, our architect has succeeded in designing an appealing plan for a larger family on a comparatively small area and still managing not to be boring. I am confident your architect can do this too ... affordable for you.

Rhenish greetings

Thank you very much for the additional feedback. We are definitely open to a different, whatever kind of staircase design, and I will pass the idea on to the architect right away, along with the other points we have gathered.

However, I still can’t quite imagine how the main staircase runs overall (that is, including the ground floor & attic) if it continues up to the attic space, and where exactly space would be saved. I also can hardly find any example pictures for this on Tintiweb at first glance. Could someone perhaps help with this?

At the moment, I am still reluctant to banish the 5th room to the attic. That is actually supposed to be storage space and room for a 6th room that we can then use for guests/work/hobby. In addition, I believe there are certain restrictions regarding how the attic can be used as full-fledged living space (?) – at least our planners said it should not be classified as such...

We will follow up on this and continue to think about the allocation of this room on the ground floor & attic. However, I would be very glad to receive further opinions, ideas, and tips on how we might still accommodate the room in one of the main floors without immediately relegating a family member to a cat’s litter box or having an unusable utility room...

Are there also any positive experiences here on how to manage well without a basement with a smaller utility room?

Best regards,

Kazazi