House design - Single-family home - Can be separated into a two-family home in the future

Again: how do you imagine the separation of the stairwell if the house is used as a two-family house? Why don't you at least move the stairs 1 meter downward on the plan into a bay window? That way you could separate much more easily.

I also don't understand that you are still planning 2 complete dining areas. The kitchen will be cramped, both for cooking and sitting around the table, and the living/dining room will also become very tight.

Why don't you plan either a kitchen with 2 snack seats, OR a large eat-in kitchen and therefore have the living room separated and quiet.

The second plan is the better one.

There won’t be much space left for a 'utility room' in the technical room. I would omit the guest room upstairs and instead set up your utility room there – that’s also where most of the laundry is done.

The upper apartment will also be very tight for a young family with small children.

If I look again (I have said above that it works), I must say, however, that it is still not a good design. The room in the northwest corner is poorly connected to the hallway on both floors. This can certainly be done better. There is ample hallway space, but on the other hand, we are dealing with a large house here, where more is certainly possible. There are double dining areas next to each other, and why the guest room and office have to be separate is also in question. Why must both bathrooms each have a bathtub? Why must they be completely identical when the space requirements on the ground floor and upper floor are different? Why is the bedroom located in the south, while the living area, which could benefit from the south side, is in the west, where hardly any sunlight reaches in winter? I would start again from scratch and also consult an architect regarding the issue of apartment separation. Edit: and why is the conservatory, nowadays fully-fledged living space, not considered in the planning? Regards

I would still be bothered by having to go at night from the bedroom through the hallway (which is walked on with street shoes and is accordingly dirty) to the bathroom. That would be too dirty and too public for me. I consider this more than suboptimal planning. If the floor plan ABSOLUTELY has to stay like this, I would take the guest/living area upstairs as a sleeping area. Although I still don’t understand the separation of guest/office. Two fully functional dining areas don’t make sense; decide where you want to eat as a family, in the kitchen or in the living room, and if in the living room, then only a small snack area in the kitchen. The bathrooms still don’t make sense as they are. I find the entire design very much in need of improvement. I dare to say: you won’t really be happy that way. Build a house now that meets your demands TODAY, so a house for a family with three children. For me, for example, a children’s bathroom would be important. I would never want to have my sleeping area as public as in this area here. If you want to divide the house into two living areas later, you can possibly still add a stairwell to the outside of the house. A good architect keeps such a possibility in mind and plans accordingly. But currently, you should build a house for your PRESENT situation and not for a distant future (which no one knows what it will be like anyway).

I completely agree with Climbee (except for 1...2 things)

I have already seen and discussed several floor plans here where the privacy of the shower bathroom and guest/bedroom on the ground floor was ensured, the hallway was as narrow as possible, and a separate kitchen with practical furnishing was present.
I can remember @BeJaElJa's design... however, without a protruding staircase.
In the end, it doesn't matter how you name the rooms, as long as you pay attention to cupboard space for now and later.

If you post the site plan sometime, sketches can be used to convey how the proposals are meant and can be implemented.

Regards

Thank you for the food for thought. We will sit down as a family and discuss your points of criticism, then I will get back to the topic.

We made a few changes, new pictures with a primitive site plan are attached. We probably won't need a garage, but certainly a ready garden shed for bicycles and gardening tools. The location for that is not yet known.

- About the bedroom: We agreed at home on a bedroom upstairs. Due to recurring health problems, it may be that the bedroom will have to be moved downstairs mid-term. For this, the room currently called "office" is quite large, and for this purpose the second bathtub downstairs, which is not being installed now but whose space is reserved.

- The children really like to have breakfast in the kitchen before school in the morning. So the dining area in the kitchen is indeed somewhat smaller. We enlarged it a bit on the floor plan to possibly gain more flexibility – if necessary – for the living room.

- The winter garden will be heated but probably not a living winter garden for all seasons.

- The guest room is intended for grandma or aunt and uncle, who visit us 2-3 months a year.