Planning single-family house, distribution of rooms, opinion on the floor plan

Hello everyone,

first a quick introduction about us.
We are a family of four. 2 adults + 2 toddlers.

Most important key facts about our building project:

[*]Solid house 10x10m
[*]Ground floor: kitchen, shower toilet, living room, dining room
[*]Upper floor: bedroom, child-1, child-2, bathroom
[*]1-1U (knee wall 1.5m)
[*]35° gable roof / orientation N/S
[*]fully basemented
[*]garage in the basement with terrace on top
[*]carport on the east side

We are currently planning our building project. At the moment we are trying to find the optimal floor plan for our ground floor and I hope you can give me some good tips / suggestions / criticism here.

There is still uncertainty at the moment regarding the guest room / playroom.
We imagine using the guest room initially as a playroom for the children, where they can keep all their toys. When the children are older, we want to use it as a guest room or utility room. When the children are over 18 or we want everything on one floor, we could move the parents' bedroom from the upper floor to the basement.

Attached are 2 floor plan examples that I sketched:

In floor plan 2, the playroom would be adjacent and open to the living room.
If you then wanted to use it as a guest room, you would have to add a wall afterwards.

Advantage: larger living room when it is no longer used as a playroom.

What do you think of the two floor plans?? Pros and cons? Or totally different.

PS: The kitchen should remain as it is.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Best regards
November2012

Does no one have an opinion on that?

I'll start:

Planning just the ground floor alone doesn't work.
Windows and views are, of course, still missing.
And I assume you are planning with a basement.
If you should plan a chimney, then include it right away, as it affects both or all three floors.

The slanted garage in the east will probably not be possible as a prefabricated garage, right?

Now to the floor plans themselves:

Variant 1:
I would guess that this is a slightly modified standard floor plan.
But:
The guest room will later be too small as a bedroom.
The door is already hitting the closet. Also, you still have the bathroom upstairs.
The guest toilet looks like it’s supposed to have a shower. I think 3.5 m² will be too tight. Don’t forget the pre-wall installations.
I’m not yet sure if the squeezed-in pantry is a good idea.

Variant 2:

No way.
You divide the spacious living room by the couch and completely constrict the living room.
The living room door opens directly onto a wall.
The pantry has a depth of 60 cm minus 10 cm wall thickness = 50 cm. You want to put shelves in there and still walk inside?
If you plan the upper floor as well and then look at the exterior views, you will probably have a poor view to the west, since you have the TV in the living room where there should actually be a window. Therefore, once again the note to plan all floors.

Regards
Musketier

Hello Musketeer,

thank you for your helpful comments that help me a lot!

You are of course right that everything must be planned together. The house is supposed to have a full basement, a fireplace, and towards the east, as I mentioned in the opening post, a carport.

Once again for better understanding: Since the house with a footprint of 10x10 is not exactly spacious, we of course try to use the space as well as possible. I am grateful for any helpful tips here. Maybe someone has an even better idea!?

Regarding Floor Plan 1: What exactly do you mean by cramped? We took the dimensions of the pantry from our current apartment and are actually very satisfied with them. We deliberately kept the kitchen this narrow because we once had such a narrow kitchen and found it very practical. Yes, the toilet is supposed to have a shower. Isn't this room size sufficient?

Regarding Floor Plan 2: The idea was to enlarge the living room as a result. You are absolutely right about the house view from the west! I did not consider that. But wouldn't this room layout basically make sense if you arranged the furniture differently if that is possible?

As I said, we are simply trying to get the optimum out of the floor plan.

Hello November2012,

we are building significantly smaller than you, also without a basement, and we have to try to fit everything in. But we are currently two people and only planning for one child. I somehow overlooked the carport. I thought it would be a garage.

Floor plan 1
In terms of size, the pantry fits. I just think it takes a piece from the hallway, a piece from the kitchen, and creates many corners. Feasible, but visually... rather meh. Our kitchen will also be that narrow. We have it like that now and it fits. I suspect the guest WC needs at least half a square meter more if you want to install a small shower.

Floor plan 2

I am aware of what you want to achieve. I still find the solution impractical.

Just planning the ground floor alone is not enough. We also played around with our floor plan forever. Either it fits downstairs, or it fits upstairs, or it fits both downstairs and upstairs, but then the chimney doesn’t work, etc. And the exterior views are important.

Also, you should be clear about what you want to do with the room on the ground floor.
- Playroom is okay,
- Guest room works,
- Bedroom doesn't work
- If it’s meant as a living room extension, you have to furnish it to see if it’s enough.
If it’s supposed to be used as a TV area, it also depends on the size of the desired / existing TV, etc.
With large TVs, you need a certain distance.

Hello Musketeer,

I think we will have to give it some more thought, but I believe we will not pursue floor plan 2 any further. Thank you for your help.

We currently have a few offers, all around €270,000 turnkey (without carport) + additional costs. Do you think this is realistic or rather too expensive/too cheap?