Opinions and help on floor plans

Hello,

first of all, thank you very much for your opinion and your tips. We have read them calmly and have thought again about this and that.

Regarding the toilet on the ground floor: we have very few guests, so the guest/office should rather serve as an office. And I think it is okay if we have guests, they can go upstairs to the children's bathroom.

The storage room has now been omitted; space will be found by the garage. However, the cloakroom now appears much too large to me, so I am considering reintroducing the storage room and placing the cloakroom between the office and the storage room.

Since you will have offices everywhere now, I don't understand what the reading room is for. First, it is not a room, but the hallway. Secondly, when there are children, you will hardly be able to sit there quietly to read

Well, I might want to sit comfortably once and look outside, or for the children it is a play area where they can also be undisturbed by the parents (this works very well with acquaintances). Also, this space makes the house bigger. We would like to keep it, even if it is not to everyone’s taste.

If the children are around 10 or older, then a shower bathroom would be sufficient. If the children are still in the early years of life (I read in planning), then the family bathroom would definitely be "too far away" from the children -> accessible bathtub for children (toddlers have different needs than adolescents/adults) Walls in the living room not visible... could be a hall effect -> no feeling of retreat, no coziness. Guest bathroom I see the same way: no shower, very small (reminds of a townhouse toilet)

We have now changed that, you are certainly right that a bathtub is better.

We have also changed the layout of the master bedroom, walk-in closet and bathroom. I think it fits quite well now (bathroom fittings are not yet complete).

Windows will still be installed in the staircase, EC, and cloakroom.
And the windows currently placed are also not all in their correct positions yet, since we are focusing on the floor plan and the layout at the moment.

We have also omitted the offsets on the upper floor to make it simpler.

Best regards
abetterway

[*]The kink in the outer wall at the dining room and the cloakroom caught my attention. What are they good for?
[*]13 sqm cloakroom is way too big for 4 people
[*]the entrance area is not covered by the upper floor at all, it takes light away from the stairs and the small WC.

[*]the path to the kitchen would be too long for me

[*]the office has no door
[*]the steps into the living room would personally annoy me (we only have one and our 4-year-old still stumbles on it).
[*]the living room is also arranged oddly, every time you have to walk around the couch when coming up the stairs. There isn’t much space there either.
[*]you can’t even look at the fireplace from the couch
[*]space between dining table and window is a bit tight?

[*]the WC on the ground floor is quite narrow
[*]the classic: the parents get an 11 sqm bathroom and the two kids only 4 sqm? And then also a bathtub?

[*]bedroom facing south, so the place gets nicely warm in summer
[*]15 sqm for the bedroom ... when do you actually sit at the table with the two chairs in the bedroom? You could use the living space better, right?

[*]with so many windows the static load becomes interesting I don’t see any load transfers either ... but as a layman I hold back from judging that
[*]Where is the garage located?

hmm, if this design is from the architect ... is he really an architect??? I would expect something better somehow.

Hello Tichu78,

thank you for your comments.

- The corners in the exterior wall are purely optical but will probably be removed.
- We have already noted that the wardrobe will be reduced in size again.
- The canopy is only over the entrance area; with skylights and windows, it should be manageable.
- The furnishings can be changed, the couch is certainly not the one that will be placed (but which one it will be is still up in the air).
- Is the WC really too narrow at 110 cm inside?
- What is wrong with the children having a bathtub?
Regarding the size of the children's bathroom, I don’t find it too small. Right now, two of us have to get by in less than 4 m² and it works. Besides, I don’t expect children to stay in the house forever, and what am I supposed to do with a large bathroom then?
And before the argument comes up that we could just make a large one accessible to all, I think everyone should have their own retreat. And during puberty, it’s certainly not bad to have two bathrooms.
- Bedroom, there doesn’t have to be a table there; a dresser could just as well be placed... the furnishings don’t have to be like that.

The garage will be in the northwest – in front of the pantry, since the driveway is there as well. That way, you can go covered directly into the covered entrance area.

Regarding the statics, I don’t see any real problems...

Best regards
abetterway

Has a structural engineer already looked at it, if you don’t see any problem there? I hardly see any load-bearing walls on the ground floor. I find the master bedroom and the gallery too big. I would rather give the children (children’s bathroom) more space. And later, when the children have left home, everyone has their own bathroom, that’s nice. I don’t like the steps to the living room.

1.) You don’t have a single shower in the house 2.) I find the platform in the living room problematic, especially when I think about later, when climbing stairs becomes more difficult. 3.) How big exactly is the bathtub in the children’s bathroom? The room is 1.70m deep, if I subtract 10cm shelf space on each side, that leaves 1.50m, which might be enough in toddler age, but from the teenage years on the bathtub will no longer be sufficient for bathing. 4.) Sure, your children will definitely move out at some point, but that will only be in young adulthood. And until then, needs will certainly change... 5.) How do you get to the office / guest room? 6.) Personally, I find the ratio of pure parents’ area / children’s area on the upper floor not appropriate. You allow yourselves 35 sqm and the children have about 30 sqm available. Unlike you, the children will spend most of their day in their rooms later on. 7.) There is practically no possibility for both children to wash themselves at the same time. 8.) Child 2 has only 13.3 sqm and not 14 sqm. Are these floor-to-ceiling windows? If yes, there is no sensible way to place a 140cm bed in Child 2. PS: The square meter figures are interestingly rounded, the parents’ rooms are basically rounded down and the children’s rooms rounded up.

I still think that the space-to-use ratio simply doesn't add up.

- The dining area is planned far too small
- the toilet as well (still has the character of a rental toilet) Ours is 1.40m wide inside and I already find that quite borderline. Even if you don’t spend much time there, you have to consider that maybe two people need to go in there together, as long as the child is still small and you might also want to store a spare pair of underwear or a diaper.
- the living room is large, but somehow hardly really usable. Take a sheet of paper in your hand and draw in the furniture you want to put there
- you will curse those 2 little steps into the living room at the latest after you’ve stumbled over them 3 times or your children have fallen down them 3 times
- the children’s bathroom is not fully thought through. More than one person cannot fit in there at the same time – what a joy when bathing children. Either make the master bathroom accessible from the hallway, or plan for a tub AND shower in the children’s bathroom.
- the space upstairs in the hallway is still wasted space. You won’t have time to read up there, and the living room will be cozier. Also as a playroom the space won’t be that suitable, or only for a short time. Eventually the "mess" that kids tend to make while playing will just annoy you if you can’t close a door – not to mention the noise level when the kids are playing with friends upstairs in the hallway and you perhaps want to read or watch TV in peace.
- Where is the chimney on the upper floor, actually?

So I think that with this house size, more can be made out of it than these mini rooms upstairs.

I would possibly move the staircase towards the wardrobe, where the dressing room is on the upper floor. Then the bathroom could become the bedroom and the bedroom could become a bathroom and dressing room – possibly also include part of the play hallway. Then you would have space next to the stairs on the upper floor for a nice children’s bathroom and 2 equally sized children’s rooms. Only on the ground floor you would still have to find a solution for the office and the wardrobe.