Single-family house floor plan - Evaluation

Hello everyone,

I am providing here our architect's draft for discussion. I would appreciate your assessments, specifically what is not so good and what should be done differently.

First, regarding the plot: NE orientation with a slope towards the back in the NE direction (650 m²), therefore a terrace behind and in front of the house due to the north orientation. The floor plan consists of basically 2 building structures: the left part, which is two stories and follows the slope of the plot, meaning it is situated lower. The front right part is single-story and sits higher than building structure 2. You go down six steps from building structure 1 to building structure 2 and back up the other way, so it is a so-called split-level house. Discussion about it not being age-appropriate due to the steps does not need to be addressed; we are aware of that. Both building structures have a shed roof. My main concern is the layout of the rooms and their sizes. The whole house has a footprint of 175 m² including utility areas. The storage room on the right side of the building is optional at the moment; given the current situation, we want to include it as well. Don't be confused by the staircase; it was drawn by hand, the program did not print it :)

We already like the floor plan quite a bit. What I personally don’t like is the bathroom upstairs; I find it too small for a main bathroom. Our architect suggested enlarging it at the expense of the adjacent children's room. Disadvantage: the children's rooms would become too small, right? Question regarding the kitchen: we would like a cooking island, is the kitchen sufficiently sized for that?

It was important to us to have visual contact from the dining area to the living room, just as info upfront.

And now it’s your turn, thank you in advance for your feedback.

Best regards
Thomas

The utility room is too far away from the kitchen for me. The bathroom on the upper floor is too far from the bedroom and too small. I find the ground floor too convoluted and the distances too long: living room - kitchen, kitchen - WC or utility room, I don't find the access to the office/guest room sensible. There is no window in the guest WC. I also find the children's rooms being so close to the stairway leading to the dining area not optimal. Keyword: privacy and noise level. When you have a party, every sound reaches upstairs, and at the same time, you (and your guests) can watch your child from the dining table when they go to the bathroom. That might be okay when they are young, but when they become teenagers, kids will surely find it very uncomfortable to show themselves in their pajamas to the adults.

I can only agree with Manu1976, personally the ground floor would be too convoluted for me and the utility room, which apparently is also supposed to house the heating, is too small (where should the ironing board, decorations, seasonal clothing, washing machine, supplies, etc. all go). Also, consider whether the size of the wardrobe for four people including guests is really sufficient for you.

Hmm, so northeast is at the top of the plan - right?

I agree with Manus's objections and would like to add that the kitchen room is very difficult to furnish. What about the refrigerator, built-in oven, possibly also dishwasher, etc. Additionally, the kitchen work is banished to the darkest corner of the room.

The dining area is relatively tight with a depth of 300 cm, plus a sideboard and the terrace exit, especially since the drawn table is probably only about 75 cm deep.

The sleeping/dressing room takes up relatively much floor space but offers relatively little storage space.

I like it, despite the functional (small) flaws.

Hello, thank you very much in advance for the previous answers.

So the floor plan has an open design, which we also wanted that way, so of course it’s logical that it can get louder upstairs for the children, but you still have doors in front of the rooms ;)
The washing machine and dryer are located in the lower WC, which relieves the utility room. Additionally, there is storage space above the kitchen and hallway under the shed roof, accessible via a pull-out staircase, which is about 21m².
I don’t understand the thing about the kitchen and dark room, because it is the southwest orientation. The top of the plan is northeast.
I also didn’t find the dining / gallery area that small, but of course you have to measure the table and then see if it even fits with the door to the outside. It was important to us that we can extend the table.
I agree with you that the master bedroom is relatively large and offers little space. It’s just the question how else you should arrange everything.
Question: How big should a children's room be at least? And how big a bathroom (upstairs)? From your experience or perception.