Once you have decided where you want to place your future dream house on the property and have thought about all the important details such as size and roof shape, it’s time to get down to business – planning the floor plan. Think about what is actually important to you when it comes to living: What is family life like? Are there many joint activities that you like to invite guests to, or do you place more value on opportunities to retreat? Do you spend more time in the spacious, well-equipped kitchen or rather on the spacious sofa area next to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves? You should ask yourself these questions before you start planning the floor plan.
the essentials in brief
At the beginning, think about how many floors your future house should have.
When it comes to the room layout, you basically have the choice between an open floor plan or a small-scale room structure.
Think about how the use of individual rooms could change in the future and make appropriate arrangements for merging or dividing rooms.
Aim high when planning the floor plan: How many floors should your house have?
The possibilities for internal room layout are almost limitless, but there are important aspects that should be considered. A fundamental consideration concerns the question of storeys and the connection by stairs . A division of the living space into an upper and a lower floor enables a separation of private and public living areas. The bedrooms and a bathroom are usually arranged on the upper floor, while the kitchen, lounge area and another bathroom are usually located on the ground floor. The question of whether you want a basement must also be clarified at the beginning, as this – in contrast to an attic – cannot be built later.
Open loft character vs. small-scale room structure
The question of whether you prefer an open floor plan or whether you prefer several individual rooms is also crucial. Although a small-scale room layout allows for more privacy, open floor plans, on the other hand, can be used more flexibly in the long term. A possible solution would be to divide it into individual rooms, which can be connected to one another if necessary, for example with large sliding doors. Especially when it comes to open-plan kitchens, many builders are initially skeptical because of the often feared odor nuisance. However, since cooking is usually an important aspect of community life that can involve the entire family, a small kitchen far from the living area would be far from practical. It is therefore advisable to design the kitchen in a spacious and open way so that several people can help to prepare delicious treats at the same time.
It is better to calculate more space today when planning the floor plan than to have too little later
How much space you should allocate for living, sleeping, working and feeling good depends on the one hand on your individual wishes and needs, on the other hand on your wallet and the size of your house (click here for the XXS houses ). As a rule of thumb, the average living space for a family with two children is around 120m² . However, consider from the outset whether you should allow for a little more space, because a subsequent extension (which, for example, used for a granny flat ) is far more expensive than planning a few square meters more from the start. In addition, you need a new building permit for subsequent extensions, in contrast to conversions within the house. It is important to consider where exactly the load-bearing walls should be located, which cannot be moved afterwards.
Don’t forget the storage space when planning the floor plan!
There are also rough parameters for the size of the individual rooms:
a bedroom measures approx. 15-20m²
a children’s room approx. 15m² (at least 12m²)
a living room (kitchen and lounge) approx. 30-40m²
and a bathroom approx. 10–15m²
Sufficient space for storage (wardrobe, storage room, cellar, etc.) should also be taken into account
Ultimately, the division and size of the rooms depend on where the family’s center of life is. Do the family members prefer to be in the living room in front of the fireplace or do they like to spend the evenings at a large kitchen table playing card and board games? The actual size of the sanitary rooms also depends to a large extent on the individual wishes of the family: shower, bathtub or both? Should the laundry be dried in the bathroom or is there room for it in the basement? And where will the long-dreamed sauna be housed? In particular, the necessary storage space is often forgotten or underestimated when planning the floor plan. When you start planning the floor plan, think about where you will put the building services, whether you need a garden shed for tools or a pantry for the jam you have made yourself, whether you would rather have your workbench in the basement or in the garage and where you will find the complete want to store winter sports equipment or fishing equipment. There is definitely no shortage of things to fill the planned storage space with!
Think about later when planning the floor plan…
Also think about the future when planning the floor plan. How would you like to live in a few years? For example, what happens to the rooms when the offspring leave the nest? Approximately how big should the children’s room be in order to be able to use it sensibly later? A 20m² children’s room offers your offspring plenty of space to play and romp around, but such a large room is later only partially suitable as a study, for example. One possibility would be to arrange two children’s rooms of approx. 15m² next to each other, so that the two rooms can later be used separately or, if necessary, connected to each other. Therefore, when planning, make sure that there are no load-bearing walls or supply shafts between the two rooms.
Larger rooms that you may later want to share and use as two smaller, separate rooms should be planned in such a way that two separate entrances are possible and each of the smaller rooms later has enough windows.
2D plans in 3D
Floor plans are usually planned in two dimensions on paper or on the screen. However, it must never be forgotten that house planning is a three-dimensional matter. You should therefore also think about the room height, the connections between the individual floors and the sloping ceilings. The height of the rooms in particular has a significant influence on the feeling of space. Use innovative planning and visualization tools from prefabricated house suppliers to gain a realistic spatial impression for your future dream house.
Sarah Völkl hat Architektur studiert und ist seit Jahren das Gesicht von a better place. Mit ihren Videos ist sie bei YouTube vielen Personen schon länger bekannt. Sarah teilt Ihr Wissen jetzt auch bei den Bautipps von Almondia.
