Which floorpan for a 3-bed new build?

[Catycity]

Helping a friend choose between floorplans. The two without utility room are both 933 sq ft and same price. The one with utility is 1034 sq ft but is also £17k more expensive than the other two.

1. One French doors.

1. Two French doors.

1. With Utility but more expensive.

Friend is querying if the £17k extra for the one with utility is worth it? It would stretch their budget as they need to factor in extras etc.

Between the 3 floorplans, which is better in order of preference?

Definitely number 3. I find myself at least once a week muttering "I need a bloody utility room". Not only that but the bedrooms look much more equal in house 3, all too often the third bedroom is stupidly small. House 3 would easily be worth an extra 17k to me, if I could stretch to it.

This development is so weird. Most the houses have north facing gardens... I always thought that was something people avoided?!

I guess it means the front of house looks nice as it’s south facing. Also the rooms still get light through front window from south facing front.

But still. North facing gardens. The architects and land planners could have been smarter there imo!

OP, we have French doors leading from our kitchen onto the patio and a normal back door leading onto it from the utility room and we use the French doors.
I haven’t personally even got a key for the utility room back door, I think my husband has one on his keyring and I think that there’s a spare in one of the kitchen drawers but the door has rarely been used since we bought the house nearly 10 years ago.

What are the actual sizes of the bedrooms? We've viewed a few new builds where the third 'bedroom' can't actually fit a full length single bed.

@MadisonAvenue that's interesting.

For some reason I associated the French doors with entertainment. Utility room for practicality like the door to use for taking washing and recycling/rubbish out etc. Kids can use utility as room to get shoes clean before entering rest of the house etc.

If 3 is genuinely affordable, I would go for it as it also has a more evenly sized 2nd and 3rd bedrooms so would be better for longer with kids. If that extra 17k is yoo much of a stretch then they would be best to stick to either of the others or avoid a new build entirely as they would almost definitely take a hit on the price if they needed to sell on in a few years.

Each of them has a "problem" for me.

I think I like 2 the most because of the 2 sets of French doors but it has no utility room.
3 has the utility room but no French doors in the kitchen diner and bed 2 is really oddly shaped.
I prefer the kitchen layout of 1 but It lacks the utility and the second set of doors.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

So, in order of original post. With measurements and image of house.

1. 1 French doors, bay window.

1. 2 French doors, bay window.

1. Utility, but no bay window.

@SoupDragon

It's annoying, isn't it?!

If you had to choose though. Which order of preference?

3 is the only one with 3 proper bedrooms imo. The third bedroom in the others is tiny!

I’m discounting 1 because of the cramped entrance.

I prefer the kitchen in 2 so that comes first for me.
If I could put french doors into 3 and rearrange kitchen layout then that would come first. But I’m not a fan of having to go through the utility to get to the garden from the kitchen.

North facing garden - I'm out.

@LadyEloise there are other plots with these house styles that are not North facing. But on the development as a whole a lot of the houses are North facing.

Surely, north facing will make re-saleability in the future much harder?

If amount she can get a S or W facing garden definitely do that.

Are the builders amenable to making small, not expensive changes for her (eg putting a stud wall in a slightly different place or moving a doorway)? As if so there’s a fair few tweaks that could be done to improve any of these floorplans IMO. But changes will mean extra admin and hassle for the builders so she should ask now.

Two for me.

@minipie

It sounds like the builders won't do any tweaks like that. Tweaks would have to be done after completion by buyer themselves.

Oh that’s a shame. would they even be open to mixing floorplans eg ground floor of option 1 and upstairs of option 2 ? That should be very easy as stairs and footprint are same as far as I can see

1. Much better layout generally. Living without a utility in a modern house is a right pain as you have hear the washing machine/dishwasher in your social spaces as they're so much more open plan than older types of house.

[quote Catycity]@SoupDragon

It's annoying, isn't it?!

If you had to choose though. Which order of preference?[/quote]
2 then 1 and 3 with 3 perhaps edging ahead. The utility room isn't big and has 2 doors taking up space which makes it less useful in my mind. (My utility room isn't big, is an odd shape and has 4 doors 😂)

I'd hate a north facing garden so I wouldn't buy it. "I'm out." As in Dragons Den - I wouldn't invest.
They are harder to resell.

3, 1, 2 for me personally.

@minipie "would they even be open to mixing floorplans eg ground floor of option 1 and upstairs of option 2 ?"

Nope...

My friend thinks the landing in 3 is too big and space could have been better designed upstairs.

Yeah. In 3 what lets it down is lack of French doors in kitchen/dining and no bay window in lounge.

But it has like 100 more in square foot overall. So, more wiggle room in terms of space.

Utility room is small, but big enough. Has a sink too which is a bonus.

Tough.

Number 1 has no windows at the back. Why?

I like the bigger landing in 3! Can use as study or reading area.

I prefer no 3 as the 2nd and third bedrooms are more equal in size whereas in 1 & 2 the third bedroom is very small.