Single-family house – new construction project from day one - and the planning begins

I quite like the plan. You just need to know where life takes place in your home. If you tend to spend a lot of time in the living room, it would be a bit too small for me. But if you often stay in the kitchen/dining area, that is totally sufficient. I don't see any dead space here either. However, because of the many windows, I would miss the opportunity to place dressers or shelves.

You just need to know where life happens for you. If you tend to sit often in the living room, then for me it would be a bit too small.
But if you often stay in the kitchen/dining area, then it’s absolutely enough.

That's exactly the point. We are at most in front of the TV in the evening. Essentially, our life takes place outside (hence the sliding doors to the garden and the terraces) or in the kitchen/dining area. By the way, the living room is exactly the size of our current TV/sofa corner. That is completely sufficient for us in terms of size. There would still be room for children...

However, due to the many windows, I would miss the possibility to place dressers or shelves.

For that, we have planned closet space in the utility room and AZ as well as the wall closet on the upper floor. Additionally, the kitchen will partly be equipped with tall cabinets. Possibly, the small floor-to-ceiling window next to the 3m sliding door will be changed to a wall. Then we would still have space there, although one would certainly not place a large cabinet there but rather a lowboard or similar.

Basically, it was about defining the size of the floor plan first in order to be able to continue planning in terms of calculations. It was important for us to see that we can fit all rooms in the desired size into approximately 180 m². Otherwise, we would have had to start over.

Thanks to you all for the discussion. When we have made further progress, there will of course be an update!

So first of all... it is your (your) house. That means you have to build it the way you like it. That’s why I can only give you my opinion when I look at the floor plan. The opinions you get here are usually quite objective. Because no one knows you and basically no one cares how you build. Maybe a little subjective, if personal experiences and one’s own floor plan mentally influence it. And you see, there are different opinions. At the moment, I just think you are deceiving yourself a little because you have already drawn in an unrealistic furnishing in the living room.

3.8 is okay in depth for a living room. But not more than that. It’s okay when you put an L-sofa on the left side of the plan. The way you have furnished it doesn’t work at all. By the way, I currently have 3.7 m in depth myself, so I can estimate the measurement well.

Mistake 1 that is often made: sofas are placed directly against the wall. Do you do that? Apart from the fact that you shouldn’t do it because of ventilation behind, it also looks weird. So move the sofa 15-20 cm away from the wall.

Mistake 2: the sofa dimensions are unrealistic. I haven’t measured it exactly for you, but it looks very small. Now of course it depends on the sofa, but a sofa is about 90 cm deep. Some centimeters less gladly, but sometimes more if there is some adjustable headrest, etc. included. The same naturally applies for width. Often 2-seaters are drawn as 1.50 m or 3-seaters as 2 m in the plan. With armrests I would calculate about 2 m for a 2-seater.

So now add it up.

Wall distance 0.2
Sofa 1 depth 0.9
Sofa 2 width 2

Sum 3.1 m

Now you have 70 cm left. That’s where your TV bench comes. If it has a drawer or even doors, depending on the depth of the bench, it can get quite tight.

With a coffee table it also gets tight.

For me 3.8 m in furnishing is not deep enough. Does it work? Maybe just barely.

Furthermore, there is no window in the living room. Yes, a large terrace door at the bottom of the plan. But that is far away and doesn’t really feel like part of the living room anymore. There are floor plans where the dining table would still be there.

Where I now agree with , I don’t know your priorities. If the living room is not important to you, fine by me. But for me, it also doesn’t fit in proportion to the rest. You are building 180 sqm here (I didn’t check exactly) with 59 sqm "all-room" and the living room effectively gets about 12 sqm of that. That would be too little for me.

You have somewhat masked it now with a plant and the armchair in the corner. But I still believe you have empty unused space, which I see differently than .

I had already illustrated this graphically.

Another point, the panoramic fireplace. I’m out price-wise, but with fireplace and installation and spark guard plate (or whatever it’s called) and all, that thing probably costs you 20k, right? That’s why it gets a supposedly "prominent" position. Sure, it’s a panoramic fireplace, nevertheless the main line of sight is "in front" of the fireplace. But there’s nothing there. Only around 4 and 8 o’clock you have the lines of sight to the dining table or armchair in the corner. Where I would have expected one to enjoy the fireplace most, on the sofa, I’m already at 10 o’clock.

That means for me the space between 4 o’clock and 8 o’clock would be the "best". That’s probably 10-15 sqm. But somehow there is nothing.

But maybe I know too little about your usage behavior and you leave that space so the parents can lounge naked on a big bearskin in front of the fireplace when the kids have flown the nest.

As I said, if you feel comfortable with it, that’s great, then do it that way. I just don’t like the proportions in the all-room especially in the living room.

Basically, I also like the plan (haven't read the entire development) but I would also consider placing the fireplace on the exterior wall between the living room/dining room and maybe rather sideways instead of into the room. Depending on the model (which might still change), one could also think about a, in my opinion, sleek external chimney and thus avoid a bulky, interior masonry fireplace. As far as I know, there are also models where you can connect an outdoor fireplace on the outside if you want something like that. In my opinion, 3.80m is really little, especially as it is enclosed by 3 walls. Maybe you could not make the wall to the hallway full height to gain some "air." I feel the same as , that the space between the sofas and the window front feels lost, and you just place a plant there to fill it. If the massive fireplace there were gone, the living room would lose its tightness, which I would like better overall. Also, I could imagine relocating the planned storage room at the garage elsewhere or a modern garden shed or similar, thus creating the option for more windows on this long wall; even if it were just clerestory windows/window stripes.

Here is a suggestion on how you could better utilize the unused space. Fireplace on the exterior wall, living room a bit less deep, kitchen further towards the top of the plan, this gives more space for the dining table. Move the wardrobe where you can also access it from the utility room. Creates a better office.



In our living room, it's done very similarly and we are super happy with it. The TV is not the main focus for us, but the view from the sofa into the garden and onto the fireplace. It’s terrible how some people arrange everything around the TV and prefer to stare at a wall and have the obstructed window behind the sofa (my opinion). In your case, at least it would be on the side, so that’s already better. Watching TV still works well, by the way, we always lie in the corner of our corner sofa and have a direct view of the television. If more than 2 people want to watch, we just pull the TV out further. It’s mounted on a movable arm.

It's terrible how some people arrange everything around the TV and prefer to stare at a wall with the obstructed window behind the sofa (my opinion)

It's terrible how some people don't have a properly arranged home theater and have to suffer not only from suboptimal picture but also poor room acoustics. (my opinion)

No no, it's fine. Different people have different priorities.
I could imagine that the OP is more on your side than mine.