Newly built single-family house, approx. 180 m², for 4 people, without basement, RLP, KfW 55

You don't need to be afraid of too little parking space. Yes, a kitchen and utility room door to the outside is also not my thing.

Keyword: mudroom, access to the garden area, etc.).

A mudroom should generally lead via a short path into a hallway – but it does not here. The door is also unusable as such if a car is parked there.

The hallway actually worries us as well. We deliberately did not want to install a door to the living area for this reason.

I would radically shorten the load-bearing wall to the kitchen and arrange the kitchen furniture a bit more loosely and distributed with an island.

A full cabinet under the stairs takes away its charm and makes it bulky, clumsy, and not decorative. Therefore, I would – attention: use the utility room hallway door exactly there as a closet passage for the wardrobe in the utility room and place the internal access to the utility room under the stairs. Possibly mediate walls (kitchen e.g.) a bit. Basically, be careful that everything does not become too big (the diagonally positioned table serves here as a filler). I would plan the window in the open living area asymmetrically and more generously in the dining area than in the living room.
Upstairs, I would place the access to the dressing room forward, i.e., change sides and add 30 cm from the bathroom to the dressing room. I consider an RBM of 80 as an intermediate corridor uncomfortable for a dressing room – counterproductive.

My parents have a staircase around the corner. That makes the hallway a bit rounder and it already feels different. If the door to the living area has glass, that should be enough. You don’t have to follow the doctrine of equally sized children's rooms either. The oldest gets the biggest one and that’s fine. Most children really manage well with that. Often it’s just 1 to 2 sqm difference, which seems huge to us adults but doesn’t bother small children at all. Our two (5 and 1 year old) have about 11 and 12 sqm, for example. The older one thinks his room is huge. I just have to rearrange it from time to time, depending on how he plays. When he’s over 12, they don’t need big rooms either. My husband’s older son (now 18) pulls all the furniture up to the bed so he doesn’t have to walk a single extra meter. Conclusion: focus on your needs first, then the children come. Then the kids have 14 sqm rooms, but you get a welcoming hallway and later downstairs the possibility to park a walker without constantly tripping over it.

Thank you very much for your comments.

: We really like the idea of shortening the hallway wall towards the kitchen and are pursuing it further! We do think it makes sense to get from the garage into the utility room and want to keep it that way (but we have also grown up with this "workflow" and may be a bit rigid in our thinking ).

: With equally sized rooms, it's more that my "inner Monk" wants to be satisfied in terms of symmetry But we are now trying to place the master bedroom opposite the bathroom. A corner staircase could actually be interesting. We'll take a look!

Two general questions in case the kitchen becomes more open:
1. Could this cause structural problems?
2. Is an open living-dining area without a door to the hallway advisable with regard to sleeping children upstairs and noise (visitors, TV, etc.) downstairs? Or is it better to plan doors?

Thanks in advance.

2. Is an open living-dining area without a door to the hallway advisable regarding sleeping children upstairs and noise (visitors, TV, etc.) downstairs? Or is it more sensible to plan for doors?

Thanks in advance.

You can definitely hear the TV clearly upstairs if there is no door in between, and similarly, you can hear the children's music in the living room. For me, with children and pets, it is simply more comfortable if you can close a door.

Best regards
Sabine

I also like the floor plan. Whether the kitchen size is sufficient depends on your own priorities. In any case, I would not arrange it as shown in the plan. You can take a look at the [Weiss Musterhaus Ulm]. It is a variation and the "more open version" of the kitchen. There they solved it structurally by leaving a wall section standing. You could, for example, also attach a kitchen island to it.

Is it a structural problem? Well, not a problem in the sense of being unsolvable. A problem in the sense that the structural engineer has to use a bit more steel or concrete, yes. It costs a few extra euros. How much exactly your builder has to answer.

Noise level... well, opinions differ here too. Of course, the more open, the more "noise" travels upstairs. In the [Musterhaus Weiss Ulm] there is even an "air space" included. Whether you need that is another question.

Could that cause static problems?

No, just different.

There they solved it statically by leaving a wall panel standing. For example, you could also "dock" a kitchen island to it.

Wall panel for example or a column. I would do it with a wall panel. You could also equip the stairs with a wall panel and separate it from the kitchen. I would still try my idea with the wardrobe airlock.