Our floor plan - suggestions for improvement?

If the staircase is open, I wouldn’t put a wardrobe underneath: from the dining area, you’ll always be looking at a pile of messy shoes and random clothes. Surely, there will always be a family member who is a bit lazier and won’t necessarily open a closet for every jacket.

Regarding the utility room: we have a similar layout, but all the technology fits in the niche, and the door is offset so that you have the entire length of the wall behind the door for cabinets. Opposite the door is a patio door, so there is also light in the room.

Doors: I can completely understand the argument about the widths of the doors and their openings. However, space also plays a role. If you don’t have much space, a wider door leaf in the open position takes up room, not to mention the frame. We didn’t pay attention to this and a) made the door to the WC narrower and b) had the door to the wardrobe open outwards. I am very visually oriented and the hallway in our house is just as open to the rest. But I have to say: it doesn’t bother at all. You don’t notice it. What’s more important is having space in front, beside, and behind to move around and store things. In a hallway, you tend to look more diagonally or down the corridor, but not perpendicular to the walls towards the doors. However, if you optimize the rooms by, for example, investing part of the pantry into a wardrobe room and converting the rest of the pantry into a utility room, you will have enough space to get everything you want. A pantry isn’t necessary if the door to the utility room can be quickly reached from the kitchen. The utility room can then be well zoned. Still, a smaller pantry can remain. If you use the left area for a wardrobe, you can install tall cabinets there and then have a door to the kitchen counter (if you really want the pantry). That would have to be sketched out.

We have almost the same room layout downstairs – you can find it in my building blog (in the profile).

The bay window cannot be used to access the terrace because it is too narrow.

With narrow floor-to-ceiling windows, less light penetrates the room’s width, i.e., also under the slope.

Here is a quick idea on how you could design it: The wardrobe niche could also be a bit wider. This way, you could also fit a shower in (brown area).

No matter how you twist and turn it: the bay window is and remains useless. Make it bigger, then you can use it. Right now, it’s just a cost driver. I would extend the whole house by that area (so not a bay window, but make the entire house longer by that meter), you’ll get more out of it. I know it’s trendy right now to build such a bulge onto the house, but that’s really just zeitgeist.

I still remember with horror the time when everyone built a round bay window on a corner of the house and then had a round dining corner installed there. That was considered incredibly chic for a long time! Until people realized that such a round dining corner is just nonsense (only the person sitting at the front single chair can get out) and otherwise it’s useless. Now, you make a corner facing forward because it’s fashionable. In very few cases it makes sense. You can be clever in one out of 30 cases, but usually not. Here, we currently don’t have that one case, but rather one of the other 30... Think carefully about whether you want to owe it only to the zeitgeist. You have a house for a long time.

I agree with and regarding the bay window. I just wanted to present the situation of the utility room / pantry / guest WC in an optimized way.

Picking up on the proposal from Climbee and the issue raised by ypg:
Making the entire house wider by the width of the bay window would have several advantages.
On the top right of the plan, a rectangular shower room. Adjacent to it a square utility room with a large wardrobe niche. Extend the utility room by the depth of the kitchen counter. The kitchen then has space "downwards".
Also enlarge the office.

Hi, so we definitely don't need a bigger office. That would be nonsense and unnecessary. The house simply expanded by the size of the bay window would cost significantly more than the bay window itself, I think. And we can't afford that. We didn't have the bay window because everyone does it, but because we simply like the way it looks, otherwise it would just be a boring house. We wanted a bay window of 3m. But didn't know that those are the external dimensions. Wider would really be better, the only question is whether that would lead to a lack of money. Since the house already costs 5 thousand more than we actually wanted. A 1m longer bathroom wouldn't be bad. But otherwise, as I said, I just find the bay window simply nice. Without it, I actually don't want to be in the otherwise so lackluster house. Oh, we would also have less garden then.