Floor plan of a newly built semi-detached house with a small plot

Hello everyone,

my fiancé and I are currently planning our future house and are interested in a semi-detached house offered by a home builder as a complete package (plot + solid house). We have made some adjustments to the floor plan based on the builder's plan, but we are unsure whether this makes sense. Therefore, we would like to hear your opinion. We look forward to your comments!

Development plan/restrictions
Plot size: 290m²
Slope: no
Dormer windows are already maximized

Requirements of the builders
Basement, floors: basement + ground floor + upper floor + attic
Number of people, age: 2, mid-thirties
Room requirements on GF, UF:
GF: living-dining-cooking area, (guest) WC, hall;
UF & attic: bathtub bath, shower bath, bedroom, dressing room, 2x children's rooms, 1x home office/guest room;
Office: family use or home office? -> Home office
Overnight guests per year: several times a year, sometimes for two to three weeks
Open or closed architecture: open architecture
Conservative or modern style: modern/minimalistic
Open kitchen, cooking island: open kitchen with peninsula
Number of dining seats: 4-8
Fireplace: yes
Music/stereo wall: no
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Garage, carport: double carport
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Other wishes/special features/daily routine, including reasons why this or that should or should not be

House design
Who created the plan:
The architect of the project manager with our wishes

What do you especially like? Why?

[*]Large living-dining-cooking area with big kitchen, as we are often at home and cook twice a day
[*]Large windows on the ground floor and in the bedroom
[*]Space for home office (we work about 60-80% from home)
[*]Dressing room with vanity table, since one is an early bird and the other a night owl

What do you dislike? Why?

[*]South orientation of the bedroom maybe unnecessary
[*]Northern room in the attic very small, also niche behind the stairs in this room rather unusable

Why does the design look the way it does now? E.g.
Standard design from the planner?
Which wishes were implemented by the architect?
A mix of many examples from various magazines...
What makes it particularly good or bad in your eyes?

Based on a suggestion from the project manager, we have made various changes:

[*]planned the bay window on the ground floor
[*]chosen a longer but narrower staircase to make room for the kitchen peninsula
[*]enlarged the bathroom on the upper floor to fit a bigger shower
[*]added a shower bathroom on the upper floor
[*]enlarged the northern dormer window

What is the most important/fundamental question about the floor plan summarized in 130 characters?
Is a more sensible layout of the upper and attic floors possible? Is the shower in the attic necessary if two children's rooms are planned there?
Attachment: floor plans (right: our half; left: original plan mirrored)

Hello, could you please also show the house on the property? Or the site plan? Where was north again? And: is the other side basically the developer’s suggestion?

Floor plans (right: our half; left: original plan mirrored)

Those who can read are clearly at an advantage. Of course, you can arrange the attic overall with two nice rooms, but they simply won’t be adequate beautiful rooms that invite dancing, but rather quite small rooms under the roof that score more with coziness than with play space or spaciousness. Of course, a children’s room does not necessarily need to be spacious, but it should still be pleasantly roomy with a desk area, sleeping nook, closet, and some floor space so that a child can develop their personality in this room for at least 18 years. Without knee walls and with the dimensions given, I see barely 9 sqm of space for the child. Developers like to list the floor area as sqm; in this case, they probably take half of the space between 1 and 2 meters height. That can be done and works if the room has compensating space or is large enough. I already thought when looking at the upper floor that it’s clear you don’t have children yet and found the children’s room there not great, especially compared to the parents’ area. You only sleep in the parents’ room, the child lives in the children’s room and does everything there. The attic children’s room is of course the absolute worst-case scenario… I’ll give a tip, a) use the attic as the parents’ area for the next 30 years. How to generate closet space under sloping roofs can be told or shown to you by – he also landed under the roof in favor of the children. If you leave out the bathroom (the upper floor is quickly accessible), then you have two rooms for work and sleep. The guest room and two children’s rooms and the bathroom would then be on the upper floor – although that might also be tight with the luxury of planning guest and office separately. Or b) put the two children’s rooms in the attic, but also without a bathroom (as originally planned by the developer). Otherwise, the space won’t be sufficient. The basic rule is: children in the brightest rooms, bathrooms stacked above each other. Anyone, young or old, can climb stairs for the toilet. A children’s bathroom is not necessary. In the end, it will be you who has to clean it as well as make beds in a bent posture under roof slopes or help with homework. Since I see no added value for a dining area in a 2.50 m wide bay window, one could consider placing the bay window on the upper floor. That would also instantly create a terrace roof. Statics would naturally be somewhat more complex. I find the entrance area well done, but it could cause difficulties with a stroller/buggy. Doors in the hallway are a problem, even if the planner thought it through. Terrace doors are certainly at the bottom of the plan? They are obstructed. Floor-to-ceiling window behind the bathtub is certainly a mistake. Terrace(s) have light wells – that’s not so nice.

We have two kids and therefore, on the 1st floor, two children's rooms, the main bathroom, as well as our office, and we have now been living in our townhouse for almost four years. I am attaching the floor plans of the 1st and attic floors.

Having both children's rooms on one floor is absolutely great with two kids and also logistically easier for the parents. Both play on the same floor, then if one needs the toilet and the other needs help getting dressed, you end up running up and down with your floor plan. It’s also really inconvenient when it comes to bedtime or getting ready for bed on different floors. Since the kids are now a bit older, they play more often in their rooms and one of us is in the office.

Additionally, it was important to us that the sleeping area is separated from the children's area. When guests come over, it's clear that the kids have no business in the attic and therefore no mess accumulates there either. Also, in the evening, when you of course go to bed later, you can move around much more freely and don’t have to whisper or tiptoe if you are tidying up something upstairs or, as in our case, doing laundry.

And one more thing: a walk-in closet might be nice to have – but in a small townhouse/semi-detached house it’s wasted space that I would use more sensibly.

We have made some adjustments to the floor plan based on the builder's plan,

I think that can be done that way. I find the children's room less attractively laid out than in the original.

And one more thing: a walk-in closet is maybe nice to have - but in a small terraced/semi-detached house wasted space that I would use more sensibly.

You are probably saying that as a non-makeup-wearing early riser.

The children's room upstairs is, in my opinion, not really usable, at least if you plan to accommodate a child >10 years old here. A normally grown person can only stand up to the middle of the room.

A parent area in the attic including a dressing room with a small parent bathroom and sleeping area would be preferable and probably feasible in terms of space. Children's room, office/guest room, and smaller bathroom on the upper floor. Bathtub in the bathroom in the attic under the slope.

Otherwise, I would reconsider whether the luxury of "Wellness" + workshop in the basement in this size is dispensable; otherwise, you could relieve some pressure upstairs and possibly accommodate the office/guest room here?

I see the danger here of trying to fit too many wishes into too small a space, whereby certain rooms then become hardly - or only very difficultly - usable.