Floor plan. Opinions, ideas and constructive critiques.

We wanted to turn the stairs so that: 1.) in winter not everyone has to walk through potentially wet areas when going upstairs, and because it is simply more communicative to have the stairs run up from the ground floor. Even just because of the stair opening.

Do you already have children? Because what you now call "communicative" can very quickly turn into "noise disturbance" with children. And for both sides.

Children play in the playroom, you want to watch TV or have conversations or read in peace – so I am glad that we still have a living room door in between – especially when visiting children are there, the noise level can increase a lot. And vice versa, the children want to sleep, but you have guests or are watching TV. That then disturbs the children while sleeping. Not to mention the clattering of dishes. You don’t really get a sense of privacy because everyone hears/can hear/could hear everything.

And regarding "walking through wet areas": Your stairs are far enough from the entrance so you don’t have to go through the main dirt right at the door. I assume you will also put down a doormat ;-) And as long as you don’t have to cross it, I find that okay.

Manu1976 has actually already mentioned the crux of the matter. When the children are small and want to sleep, it is too loud. And do you really want your children to constantly run through the living room with their friends to get upstairs or downstairs?

So, either I have a knot in my brain right now, but I can't quite grasp the basic floor plan concerning the staircase yet. How do you want to handle the staircase if it goes upstairs from the living room? Should everything remain open, since the wall at the staircase then disappears? Or should the wall be moved directly after the entrance to the wardrobe, and you access the office from the living room?

Yep, we already have kids. And exactly what you describe is actually what we wanted to avoid, that there are basically two strictly separate floors. Although we have of course discussed all the points and also gave up the gallery to contain the noise a bit, but the point that then everyone always has to go through the living room is really a sticking point. Especially when they get bigger and are not home anymore every evening by 6 o'clock.

The wall would then be removed and everything would basically remain open.

The stairs are far from the front door, but I fear that everyone will first head to the cloakroom at the back to take off their things, so they will still end up walking past the stairs :-/

The main reason, however, is that in old age the office might possibly serve as a bedroom and we can then live on one floor.

The office, at about 7 m², is likely far too small as a bedroom (for 2 people in old age) and the access through the cloakroom to the bathroom downstairs is also not exactly barrier-free (too many corners to go around; I am thinking, for example, of access to the shower with a wheelchair). If that is actually the main reason, I would reconsider the layout of the area.

Frank, you are right, the plan was to make the living room a bit smaller since this area doesn't seem that important once the kids have left the house, but you are absolutely right about the corners to the bathroom, we didn't think of that.

The corner in the great! and spacious! wardrobe can be omitted if the staircase is actually to be rotated. We also rotated the staircase (similar to how it is here now), open to the hallway and everything open in general. We enjoy going directly upstairs from the living area and not the detour from the living room to the front door and then only to the sleeping area :) and enjoy the view into the garden when going down from above. However, we don’t have children! I would also keep the utility room/garage door: what are a few meters through the front door? Actually nothing. Also, the way from the sofa to the toilet is not long at all? I don’t quite understand that objection. Upstairs, I would also change the entrance to the bedroom, so that you don’t have to go through the bedroom again when coming from the dressing room. Maybe the room arrangement upstairs can be changed fundamentally?! I would also be interested in the views :D