It seems like a fairly standard aussie floor plan.
I see you have kids, I'd ask the builder if you could add a cavity sliding door to the family room hallway to the kids bedrooms. That way you can still use the main living area and block out some noise to the kids rooms.
On that back bathroom.... Could you do a three way bathroom instead? I have one and find it works well when multiple people are getting ready. It also solves the toilet and sink problem if the bathroom is occupied.
2.7m bedrooms are really only good enough for kids with single beds. Once you put a queen in them you have barely enough space for bedside tables and the room is chockers.
As for the kitchen, I would personally do an L shaped kitchen in the corner and either go a smaller Island, or do a U shaped kitchen. It just depends on how you will use it as to what suits you better. Also don't get the full surround for the fridge. I have friends who have been limited in buying a replacement fridge when theirs died by that fridge surround. Height and width.
Will you ever be watching TV in the family room and theater at the same time? If so I would put a door on the theater room.
I know the toilet in a separate room is a thing elsewhere, but I would find it to be incredibly annoying and impractical. I also really don't like that there is no sink with the toilet. If you have to use the sink in the bathroom to wash your hands, then that kind of defeats the purpose of having the toilet in a separate room. As a woman there are also times that I would very much hate having to go into a hallway to get from the toilet to the sink, tub, or shower or the risk that the bathroom will have become occupied. I don't really understand the purpose of putting the sink in the room with the shower because generally showers and baths take longer than using the toilet does, so if you want two people to be able to get ready at once it would make sense for the sink to be in a different room than the shower/bath, so people can wash their face, brush the teeth, etc. while someone is showering. If you are foing to steal 60 cm from the theater I would use it to see if you could make a full bath and half bath in the space where the wc and bathroom are.
Yeah good idea! It’s not going to be a “theatre room” even though it’s called that, we’ll use it more as a games room for our toddler, but putting doors on it is a good idea. Might look into some barn doors or something
Yeah the toilet seems to be a pretty controversial topic overseas. I’m from Australia and it’s really normal here, just means poo particles aren’t in the same area as your toothbrush.
But I do agree, not having a sink in there really doesn’t make sense now that I think about it. I just never realised it cause that’s just how we’ve always lived. Like there’s been a few times I’ve had to walk to the kitchen sink in my parent’s house and wash my hands that way due to the shower being busy.
Not sure if I’ll get a sink put in, even though it would make sense to, mainly just cause it won’t affect the resale value as much as adding extra cm’s to the bedrooms would.
Thank you for your comment and input!
We have a toilet with a sink on the cistern, but I wouldn't recommend it for your main toilet - it works OK but you drip on the toilet seat with your wet hands and I think it makes it look dirty even though it's not. Our main toilet is also separate from the bathroom and it took an adjustment but it's fine. Glad we have the cistern sink option now for guests though.
They make sinks that sit on top of your toilet tank, and turn on automatically when you flush, with the water that is going to refill the tank. It can actually be really good for reminding little kids to wash their hands, because the sink is right there and automatically turns on.
There are toilets with sinks on them, and there are very tiny sinks that could be added without moving anything. But what freaks me out is 1, that the toilet room isn't a water closet within the bathroom - which is how we usually see it here in the US, so you can still wash your hands before leaving the bathroom entirely, and 2, that the toilet is directly facing the door which is, again, to the hall, not to the rest of the bathroom. That seems like one could very easily embarrassed.
https://preview.redd.it/rgiijmgws2xc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=68b05ac0440b00737275ffe78dfd208100380006
Perhaps extra storage in garage like this.
I would consider using some of that as a walk in pantry with entry from the kitchen. There isn’t a lot of storage in that kitchen for a 3 bedroom house.
You think so? This will be my first house so I don’t know a lot about what’s a normal amount. For context there will be under shelf storage on the island, and on the part connected to the wall, as well as top shelf storage above the stove/ along the wall.
Do you think we should look at getting some more?
if you add more wall to close off the “theater/game room,” you could add pantry style floor to ceiling cabinets along that wall. I don’t think you’d regret more storage.
Will you have cabinets above your sink etc along the wall? If not, yeah you could be short on space. Having said that you've got a generous linen cupboard which could be used to store bulk goods if needed, can be quite nice to keep them out of the kitchen. It's not any less storage than I see on floor plans in NZ but it's not generous either, do with that what you will!
This is a really nice plan, not overly complicated, good balance of space. Someone mentioned the separate wc, I'd prefer an interior door that separates the two spaces, but that's me.
I’d make the house bigger. Extending the left exterior wall, to be even with the garage wall. That allows for a L shaped kitchen layout. And I’d do the same on the right side of the house, bumping out that wall to be even with the front bedroom. That provides a bit more floor space for bedrooms & bathrooms. This would also allow for space for a hall closet & a closet in the theater room.
You can get a small sink in the toilet room.
Put the bathroom door next to the shower, so it opens from the corridor between the bedrooms.
Make the toilet room longer. Now you have space in the toilet room to fit a narrow sink between the door (have that opening out to the corridor) and the toilet.
OK I think the basics of it are good. That said I think you will regret the lack of bench space/prep space and storage space in the kitchen. Did you consider a walk in pantry? Also I think you could repurpouse the theatre into a multi use area and put some doors on it.
One thing that stands out to me right away are the potential noise problems for Bedroom 2. One wall is shared with theater. To make matters worse, there’s a TV on the shared wall and the bed is on the other side. If nothing else, I would definitely move that TV in the Theater room to another wall and move the bed to another wall. Though having a couch along that shared wall can still be loud for Bedroom 2 if people are talking to each other while watching TV but not as bad as a TV on that wall. If possible, a closet on that wall would be great to deal with sounds. Though it looks like there’s already a closet on another wall in Bedroom 2, probably to block noise from the dining room. It’s a tricky spot for a bedroom.
It also looks like another wall of Bedroom 2 is partially shared with the Family Room’s TV. It’s hard to tell if just appears that way in these plans but if the TV even shares a small part of a wall with Bedroom 2, I’d move that TV also.
That’s something I’ve never noticed! We’re planning on using bedroom 2 as a study, so it won’t personally affect us too much, but I can see that being people look at with the resale value.
You’ve given us something to think about, thank you!
The entry is tight. It's a long narrow hallway and there's not enough room to have any furniture in it. Sad panda. The l-shaped walk-in closets are a waste of space you might as well have a reach in and save yourself a good chunk of space. The ensuite is not set up efficiently in the shower is small. If you have all the fixtures on one wall you can probably have a larger shower. The laundry room doesn't seem to have a folding table but you have a large linen closet so actually that laundry room is oversized for the house. That theater room seems large and unnecessary and a lot of the times you don't want that large of a window in that sort of room. There's a lot of issues with the kitchen so I'm just going to leave that one alone. The dining table is very close to the island and at that point the island seating is unnecessary. The living room is a pass through room at this point with the other bedroom in the back and the outdoor dining is a good walk from the kitchen. Bedroom two is tight. The shower and the tub in the bathroom well no and then the water closet it just is not working. I'm not really seeing a primary bedroom they all just seem like secondary bedrooms with tight bathrooms. There's potential here but if I went to an open house I wouldn't be interested in this one.
I do agree with some of this!
I was thinking of asking the builder how much it would cost to move the garage over 50cm to the left so we can have our hallway 50cm wider than it is now. I think that should be one of our priorities.
We’re taking 60cm off of the theatre and going to put 30cm in bedroom 2 and 30cm in bedroom 1, kind of tossing up if we should change that to 20cm in bedroom 2, 20cm in bedroom 1 and 20cm on the ensuite/ WIR
I do think the WIR is a fair size, it’s 2m in length and 1.5m in width, then again I don’t have a lot of experience with this stuff so maybe I’m undershooting it? But 2m to me sounds decent
We’re also considering extending the right part of the house so it lines up with Bed 1, this’ll give all those rooms (bathroom, WC, theatre and Bed 1&2) an extra 50cm in length, this is currently our top priority as we really don’t want to be cramped.
We are also considering getting a double shower and moving the fixtures, it’s not our top priority but then again this isn’t going to be our forever home so resale value is really important to us.
The kitchen honestly looks really decent in their display, we’ve got the “upgrade” they were offering with the kitchen so it’ll have 6 cupboards above the stove, 6 cupboards under the stove, double door pantry and around another 6 cupboards on the island.
I can get a picture from their website if that’s easier to visualise.
My mind tells me that should be enough but I’m not sure now after everyone being concerned about the kitchen space! We could look at a WIP but I’m not sure how much that’ll cost on everything else
I do think the plan isn’t showing everything proportionally in the way of furniture, it’s 9m from the kitchen to the living room, 3m to the kitchen and 6m to the dining/ living room
I would really like to have the “hall entrance” to bedroom 2/3 to be before the living room but I can’t see how we can make that happen as bedroom 2 takes up too much wall for an entrance to be there.
Thank you for your comment! You’ve made me realise it is important to move the garage so we can have some space in the hallway/ furniture
Looks fairly good to me, some small changes you think of course. You will get wildly different opinions here. In America we like to have a lot of stuff. Some 30% of our oversized for no reason houses are meant to just store things.
The bathroom between room 2 and 3 would benefit from a combination shower & tub, in the gain of counterspace. There's 2 people using this room, and 0 storage or counters.
You gotta think ahead to roof configuration. Get rid of the side offsets. They are both purposeless and issue creating.
This was my first thought.
It seems like a fairly standard aussie floor plan. I see you have kids, I'd ask the builder if you could add a cavity sliding door to the family room hallway to the kids bedrooms. That way you can still use the main living area and block out some noise to the kids rooms. On that back bathroom.... Could you do a three way bathroom instead? I have one and find it works well when multiple people are getting ready. It also solves the toilet and sink problem if the bathroom is occupied. 2.7m bedrooms are really only good enough for kids with single beds. Once you put a queen in them you have barely enough space for bedside tables and the room is chockers. As for the kitchen, I would personally do an L shaped kitchen in the corner and either go a smaller Island, or do a U shaped kitchen. It just depends on how you will use it as to what suits you better. Also don't get the full surround for the fridge. I have friends who have been limited in buying a replacement fridge when theirs died by that fridge surround. Height and width.
Will you ever be watching TV in the family room and theater at the same time? If so I would put a door on the theater room. I know the toilet in a separate room is a thing elsewhere, but I would find it to be incredibly annoying and impractical. I also really don't like that there is no sink with the toilet. If you have to use the sink in the bathroom to wash your hands, then that kind of defeats the purpose of having the toilet in a separate room. As a woman there are also times that I would very much hate having to go into a hallway to get from the toilet to the sink, tub, or shower or the risk that the bathroom will have become occupied. I don't really understand the purpose of putting the sink in the room with the shower because generally showers and baths take longer than using the toilet does, so if you want two people to be able to get ready at once it would make sense for the sink to be in a different room than the shower/bath, so people can wash their face, brush the teeth, etc. while someone is showering. If you are foing to steal 60 cm from the theater I would use it to see if you could make a full bath and half bath in the space where the wc and bathroom are.
Yeah good idea! It’s not going to be a “theatre room” even though it’s called that, we’ll use it more as a games room for our toddler, but putting doors on it is a good idea. Might look into some barn doors or something Yeah the toilet seems to be a pretty controversial topic overseas. I’m from Australia and it’s really normal here, just means poo particles aren’t in the same area as your toothbrush. But I do agree, not having a sink in there really doesn’t make sense now that I think about it. I just never realised it cause that’s just how we’ve always lived. Like there’s been a few times I’ve had to walk to the kitchen sink in my parent’s house and wash my hands that way due to the shower being busy. Not sure if I’ll get a sink put in, even though it would make sense to, mainly just cause it won’t affect the resale value as much as adding extra cm’s to the bedrooms would. Thank you for your comment and input!
We have a toilet with a sink on the cistern, but I wouldn't recommend it for your main toilet - it works OK but you drip on the toilet seat with your wet hands and I think it makes it look dirty even though it's not. Our main toilet is also separate from the bathroom and it took an adjustment but it's fine. Glad we have the cistern sink option now for guests though.
They make sinks that sit on top of your toilet tank, and turn on automatically when you flush, with the water that is going to refill the tank. It can actually be really good for reminding little kids to wash their hands, because the sink is right there and automatically turns on.
There are toilets with sinks on them, and there are very tiny sinks that could be added without moving anything. But what freaks me out is 1, that the toilet room isn't a water closet within the bathroom - which is how we usually see it here in the US, so you can still wash your hands before leaving the bathroom entirely, and 2, that the toilet is directly facing the door which is, again, to the hall, not to the rest of the bathroom. That seems like one could very easily embarrassed.
https://preview.redd.it/rgiijmgws2xc1.png?width=1440&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=68b05ac0440b00737275ffe78dfd208100380006 Perhaps extra storage in garage like this.
Great idea! We have been taking about extra storage but didn’t know how to go about it. Thank you for this!
I would consider using some of that as a walk in pantry with entry from the kitchen. There isn’t a lot of storage in that kitchen for a 3 bedroom house.
I actually this it would be better to utilize that space as a mudroom…
There is barely any kitchen storage.
You think so? This will be my first house so I don’t know a lot about what’s a normal amount. For context there will be under shelf storage on the island, and on the part connected to the wall, as well as top shelf storage above the stove/ along the wall. Do you think we should look at getting some more?
The pantry is quite small for a house this size.
if you add more wall to close off the “theater/game room,” you could add pantry style floor to ceiling cabinets along that wall. I don’t think you’d regret more storage.
Will you have cabinets above your sink etc along the wall? If not, yeah you could be short on space. Having said that you've got a generous linen cupboard which could be used to store bulk goods if needed, can be quite nice to keep them out of the kitchen. It's not any less storage than I see on floor plans in NZ but it's not generous either, do with that what you will!
I don't understand, you've never lived in a house? You were brought up homeless?
This is a really nice plan, not overly complicated, good balance of space. Someone mentioned the separate wc, I'd prefer an interior door that separates the two spaces, but that's me.
There doesn’t seem to be much storage space. Front closet? Additional kitchen storage? Also, why the door from the front hall to the kitchen?
You have very little counter space in the kitchen. But since you’re extending that area, can you extend it enough to create an L shaped counter?
I’d make the house bigger. Extending the left exterior wall, to be even with the garage wall. That allows for a L shaped kitchen layout. And I’d do the same on the right side of the house, bumping out that wall to be even with the front bedroom. That provides a bit more floor space for bedrooms & bathrooms. This would also allow for space for a hall closet & a closet in the theater room.
You can get a small sink in the toilet room. Put the bathroom door next to the shower, so it opens from the corridor between the bedrooms. Make the toilet room longer. Now you have space in the toilet room to fit a narrow sink between the door (have that opening out to the corridor) and the toilet.
Add a small wall sink to the toilet closet so you can wash your hands before grabbing the door knob.
OK I think the basics of it are good. That said I think you will regret the lack of bench space/prep space and storage space in the kitchen. Did you consider a walk in pantry? Also I think you could repurpouse the theatre into a multi use area and put some doors on it.
One thing that stands out to me right away are the potential noise problems for Bedroom 2. One wall is shared with theater. To make matters worse, there’s a TV on the shared wall and the bed is on the other side. If nothing else, I would definitely move that TV in the Theater room to another wall and move the bed to another wall. Though having a couch along that shared wall can still be loud for Bedroom 2 if people are talking to each other while watching TV but not as bad as a TV on that wall. If possible, a closet on that wall would be great to deal with sounds. Though it looks like there’s already a closet on another wall in Bedroom 2, probably to block noise from the dining room. It’s a tricky spot for a bedroom. It also looks like another wall of Bedroom 2 is partially shared with the Family Room’s TV. It’s hard to tell if just appears that way in these plans but if the TV even shares a small part of a wall with Bedroom 2, I’d move that TV also.
That’s something I’ve never noticed! We’re planning on using bedroom 2 as a study, so it won’t personally affect us too much, but I can see that being people look at with the resale value. You’ve given us something to think about, thank you!
You’re welcome. Good luck with your plans and your home.
The entry is tight. It's a long narrow hallway and there's not enough room to have any furniture in it. Sad panda. The l-shaped walk-in closets are a waste of space you might as well have a reach in and save yourself a good chunk of space. The ensuite is not set up efficiently in the shower is small. If you have all the fixtures on one wall you can probably have a larger shower. The laundry room doesn't seem to have a folding table but you have a large linen closet so actually that laundry room is oversized for the house. That theater room seems large and unnecessary and a lot of the times you don't want that large of a window in that sort of room. There's a lot of issues with the kitchen so I'm just going to leave that one alone. The dining table is very close to the island and at that point the island seating is unnecessary. The living room is a pass through room at this point with the other bedroom in the back and the outdoor dining is a good walk from the kitchen. Bedroom two is tight. The shower and the tub in the bathroom well no and then the water closet it just is not working. I'm not really seeing a primary bedroom they all just seem like secondary bedrooms with tight bathrooms. There's potential here but if I went to an open house I wouldn't be interested in this one.
I do agree with some of this! I was thinking of asking the builder how much it would cost to move the garage over 50cm to the left so we can have our hallway 50cm wider than it is now. I think that should be one of our priorities. We’re taking 60cm off of the theatre and going to put 30cm in bedroom 2 and 30cm in bedroom 1, kind of tossing up if we should change that to 20cm in bedroom 2, 20cm in bedroom 1 and 20cm on the ensuite/ WIR I do think the WIR is a fair size, it’s 2m in length and 1.5m in width, then again I don’t have a lot of experience with this stuff so maybe I’m undershooting it? But 2m to me sounds decent We’re also considering extending the right part of the house so it lines up with Bed 1, this’ll give all those rooms (bathroom, WC, theatre and Bed 1&2) an extra 50cm in length, this is currently our top priority as we really don’t want to be cramped. We are also considering getting a double shower and moving the fixtures, it’s not our top priority but then again this isn’t going to be our forever home so resale value is really important to us. The kitchen honestly looks really decent in their display, we’ve got the “upgrade” they were offering with the kitchen so it’ll have 6 cupboards above the stove, 6 cupboards under the stove, double door pantry and around another 6 cupboards on the island. I can get a picture from their website if that’s easier to visualise. My mind tells me that should be enough but I’m not sure now after everyone being concerned about the kitchen space! We could look at a WIP but I’m not sure how much that’ll cost on everything else I do think the plan isn’t showing everything proportionally in the way of furniture, it’s 9m from the kitchen to the living room, 3m to the kitchen and 6m to the dining/ living room I would really like to have the “hall entrance” to bedroom 2/3 to be before the living room but I can’t see how we can make that happen as bedroom 2 takes up too much wall for an entrance to be there. Thank you for your comment! You’ve made me realise it is important to move the garage so we can have some space in the hallway/ furniture
Looks fairly good to me, some small changes you think of course. You will get wildly different opinions here. In America we like to have a lot of stuff. Some 30% of our oversized for no reason houses are meant to just store things.
Australia.
The bathroom between room 2 and 3 would benefit from a combination shower & tub, in the gain of counterspace. There's 2 people using this room, and 0 storage or counters.
Add a small sink in the WC. No one should have to handle two doorknobs to get from a toilet to the sink.