New build floor plan - any thoughts? (title edited by MNHQ at request of OP)

[Wel]

DH and have bought a piece of development land to build our dream house.

The land currently has planning permission granted but we hate the designs. Far too open plan for my liking. When the oldest is cooking and blaring music I don’t want to hear it.

Here is the downstairs of a house DH and I saw a few years ago. We loved the proportions and layout.

I find a lot of Mumsnetters are practical and sensible.

Please can you share your thoughts on the floorplan? Do you see any issues we may run into?

The house will be occupied by Dh, myself and 3 children (aged 9-13yo). 3 big dogs.

We see the architect next week and want to be able to jump straight in.

Do you think you’d use the dining room much?

stealth boast

We have one of these. The geese love it.

Can you post what has hot permission to see what you are comparing it with op?

I'd definitely try for a laundry chute, and a plant room that you don't go through the house to, I'd assume a MVHR and GSHP with that size plot, and the manifold for the UFH in there too, plus the equipment needed for solar panels, houses don't just have boilers these days.

I'd go for a walk-in pantry on a north facing kitchen wall if possible with no UFH in there, it keeps things cooler.

Also, there is a lot to be said for having a living area on each side of the house.

Integrate plant room into utility. Downstairs shower if possible gives flexibility. Combine boot room and utility, incorporate dog shower. Dining room too far from kitchen. Query size of hall, can you have cloaks under stairs? Have a big front door with glazed surround to give natural light. Move hob to outside wall so you can vent to exterior.

It looks great, OP, and the rooms are a good size. Personally I'd prefer to be able to walk out of the kitchen and straight into the utility without having to go through the boot room — particularly if it's full of large wet dogs. As you're planning from scratch, I'd consider the possibility of swapping the boot room and the utility, maybe changing the size of each and possibly with two separate back doors. In that case you could come into the boot room from walking the dogs, towel them down, take off your wet gear and leave it and the dogs in the boot room to dry out, then go through the utility to the kitchen and not leave mud and mess on the utility floor. While the dogs are drying in the boot room you could use the back door from the utility room to take rubbish out to bins or whatever without having to disturb them. If you have an outdoorsy kind of life, think about creating a drying cupboard or room in which wet gear can be hung to dry. The plant room may provide that — though if everything is as heavily insulated as it should be, it may not be warm enough for drying.

Lots of larger houses I'm aware of are now developing a second kitchen in what would have been the utility room, because cooking some things in an open plan kitchen can create unwanted smells. As you have a large kitchen/ dining/family area you might want to think about installing an oven and hob in the utility. Then if you want to dry fish or you're slow-cooking something a bit pungent the door can be shut on it. Not everyone wants the background noise of a fan going all the time something is cooking.

I wouldn't have bifolds. Too many people I know have had them replaced because they are draughty in the winter and let water in when it rains. I would have underfloor heating, an air source heat pump (Steibel Eltron are gold standard) and MVHR, which constantly and silently extracts stale air from each room and uses the heat from that stale air to warm fresh air from outside. It means that houses have a fresh feeling, damp bathrooms dry out quickly and smells don't linger. It's a game-changer: makes a real qualitative difference to the atmosphere during the winter.

It goes without saying to insulate and spend money on good glazing and infrastructure. I had double glazing replaced with triple glazing a couple of years ago and my heating bills went down but, better than that, the house felt exceptionally calm and quiet. These are the little luxury touches you can include that a developer wouldn't.

No.
The plan type OP presented is easily doable to her size requirements

The plant room in a modern house will involve an awful lot of unsightly piping and plumbing — literally dozens of pipes coming into a central heating manifold are not a pretty sight and boxing them in will make it much more difficult to get to any leaks or problems that need solving. Inverters, boilers, cylinders etc are not pretty. A dedicated plant room is the way to go in new builds. Bunging all the gear in the utility is what happens in retrofits.

No reason why if you want a downstairs shower for the dogs and any very muddy humans, it couldn't be incorporated into the boot room.

Are you likely to have a gardener or dog-walker, OP? Outside loo, or one accessible from the boot room means that you won't have to have people in muddy boots trailing through the house.

I would have a kitchen diner , snug would be the office for wfh, dining room kids room and drawing room family lounge. I like separate rooms, and being able t9 step away from the kitchen.

Boot room is great as you have 3 dogs

We live in this floorplan. Probably smaller than your 5 bed house - we've got 3 doubles, and a reasonable single upstairs.

The study and diningroom are too small - I think the house would be better a foot or 2 bigger in both dimensions. Anyway, it's not miles off your floorplan - put in a larder where the utility is, and add a dog-wash-bootroom-utility on the other side of the kitchen.

Are you factoring in green living? It's much cheaper to design solar, with battery storage (battery and inverter in the plant room) and heat pumps in at this point. Think about the orientation of the house and which rooms would benefit most from solar gain.

You can’t get to the loo from the boot room, that makes no sense.
I’d have the boiler in the utility and have a bigger downstairs bathroom, maybe with a shower, that you access from the boot room.

With 3 dogs you need the boot room - get a dog bath fitted! The layout looks good.

Holy Moly! Gulp

I am hoping to have the house so the garden is south facing. We spend a lot of time outdoors (gardening, fire pits). But the drive will be a bit random (l shape) to achieve this but I don’t mind.

You really do not want an open plan kitchen and family room. Not healthy , not conducive to good diets, not nice to share family room with food smells, dishes or prep.

Modern homes with good quality extractors and well designed, optimally functioning MVHR systems don't have cooking smells.

@Wel you say you enjoy your garden have you factored in landscaping costs? As they added a chunk to our overall invoice.

I would slightly increase the utility and boot room footprint. Add a WC to utility so there's access straight away when you've been walking the dogs etc and add a dog shower to the boot room. Keep the second WC at front of house.

We just had an extension with open plan kitchen diner family room and it’s brilliant. I would really recommend it.

Op we have had an extension recently and although our layout is not the same as yours, there are some similarities. We have a boot room (much smaller but we only have one dog). Sadly no room for a dog shower but it’s amazing to take off muddy boots in there and towel down the dog before she goes in the clean kitchen/diner/family room bit. We will soon put hooks in there for coats too.

kitchen diner family room for us is great. We also have an office space (yet to be decorated and made into an office) and a lounge downstairs so if anyone wants peace (or sky tv) they have the lounge option but if my daughter wants me to watch a film with her while I’m cooking she comes into the family room with me. We also have an island in there which has been great for entertaining guests.

my kids are 8 and 11 and so far it’s working out well. One thing I wish we had done is put a very tall cupboard in the utility to hide the hoover and mop. But other than that it’s great.

I love the layout. Looks great.

We’re going for a living space in the kitchen as I’m often simmering sauces which just need to be kept an eye on/have temps adjusted. I like the idea of a place to relax whilst cooking.