Which house would you choose, based on these floorplans?

[Whichhousetochoose]

Please help wise mumsnetters, as trying to decide which of these two houses is making my head hurt! Both new builds on the same development (next door to each other), both have pros and cons. I’ve attached the floor plans for each house.

Current living situation - me, DH and 4 year old DD, hopefully DC2 one day. Both work from home the majority of the time. My parents would come and stay several times a year (hopefully friends would too). Currently living in a tiny 3 bed end of terrace.

House 1 - large kitchen/dining/family area, with a separate lounge and small study. Bedrooms are good size, although beds 3 and 4 smaller (bed 2 is the biggest). No window in landing area.

House 2 - similar size kitchen & the diner area is smaller than house 1, but has a massive living room and a large family/playroom. All bedrooms are really good sizes, plus has large window on the landing so good amount of light.

So really, I cant decide between having a larger kitchen/diner and thus a smaller living room and study, and two smaller bedrooms (house 1). OR have a smaller kitchen/diner but have a huge living room and playroom/study and have all the bedrooms on the large side (house 2).

Both have garages and space to park two cars. House 2 is £15k more expensive.

Ive been looking at them for so long I can no longer see the woods for the trees! Help!!

Without question House 2. I wouldn't even put House 1 in the running.

The Family Room can be mostly used as a study and so can the landing space. I've lived in a house with no natural light on the landing and it wasn't nice. It also impacted on the downstairs hall.

Open plan will be easier to remodel later if you want to put a wall up.

House 2 is much better! The bedrooms are far more sensible. The family room can always be used as a study too

I prefer house 1 downstairs. I don't like the long, thin lounge/ sitting room which you have in house 2 - which is a very important room. I also really like the kitchen/ living area and separate lounge of house 1. It's more open plan but has a separate space still.

I also think house 2.

Definitely house 2

House 2 without a doubt. I like that both the kitchen and the living-room have garden access and the landing area upstairs would be nice to have.

House 2. House 1 is nice with the open planned family area and while this works for small children I think separate space is better as children get older. The bedrooms are better proportioned in house 2. I also think a bigger living room is good for when people visit.

I want to see what each house looks like

House 1, but that is basically the downstairs layout of my house. Works for us.

House 2 is clearly better to me and for just £15k more seems better value. Unless the location is dramatically different?

House 2. Without a doubt. But I would consider partitioning off a small section of the lounge at the front to make a home office/study. This would work especially well if you have the open plan version (but a glass door is a good option too). Then you have Two lounges plus study downstairs. The two sitting rooms is invaluable once the kids get older; mine are 7&9 and we use both sitting rooms all the time.

You need the actual room sizes to know. 2 is a much better layout at first glance, but if that living room is 10 feet wide, that's a large corridor, not a living space. It depends on proportions.

House 2.
Looking at house 1 it looks awkwardly laid out. Things just won't quite fit how you want.
I'm notorious for moving furniture around every 6 months, so house 2 bedrooms have more options than house 1 due to walls.
House 1 looks nice completely open plan but you'd lose a lot of heat or be heating dead space.

The only thing I'd dislike about house 2 is the cupboard tacked on the front of the bathroom.
House 1 feels cluttered just based on the floor plan
House 2 feels more open but the living room room could be limited on layout at 3m wide.

House 2. It's nice having good sized bedrooms.

House 2 - more space and worth an extra £15k for all double bedrooms

Definitely house 2! The added bonus of a slightly bigger kitchen from house 1 doesn’t make up for all the big pluses house 2 has.

Thanks so much for your input everyone. Slightly concerned about the narrow living room on house 2 now, but at least there is scope to add/move walls if we wanted to!

House 2 is definitely better.
I get what some people are saying about the study for WFH but surely you could use the family room for that, or part of the family room or have one of the bedrooms as a study and guest room.
I think house 2 gives you more options with the layout downstairs and I also liek the double doors to the garden in the living room in house 2.

Do they both face the same way or does A cause a shadow over B

Hopefully you get what I mean

Basically we face EAST at front and WEST at back and have one side of our house face south so have loads of light in side windows

Next door are in our shadow on south side and their side windows face north

But the house on our south side is further away and also angled so that it doesn't really cause any shadow on our windows or garden BUT they also have light from their neighbour due to angles etc

So yes we are 3 houses next to each other but totally different amount of light and sunshine depending which way the windows face iyswim

@Whichhousetochoose - lounge width between the two options is just 26cm (not even a length of A4 paper). It’s not necessarily the width that makes house 2’s living room awkward, it’s the length. You’ll end up zoning it anyway, it might make more sense to use one end as home office and still have another separate lounge (hence my suggestion to partition it). We have a lounge that is better proportioned (ie not 2x width for length) but still we have a large sideboard behind the sofa arrangement, so that’s another option. Basically you’ll end up furnishing the lounge towards one end and doing something under the window, or perhaps having another seating area by the French doors. Unavoidable really.

I’d go for living in the space for a while and trying a few different options

@Peekingovertheparapet i actually just compared the width of the both living rooms & was surprised at how little difference there is!

Yes agree would definitely end up using one end of the living room more than the other. Think we will try to go for open plan, then see how we get on with the space & possibly add a stud wall in future to partition the room.

This! I prefer the downstairs layout in House 1. I would put double doors from the dining room to the lounge to give more flexibility to the space. You have a separate room to use as a study or a snug still. The lounge is long and thin in house 2 but has the benefit of doors onto the garden.
Bedrooms are better in house 2, but in House 1 you could use some of the bedroom space and the cupboard to add an en-suite to bedroom 2.
It depends on what works for your family.

What’s the parking situation? Is it side by side or end to end? End to end would be a deal breaker for me

We have several reception rooms and as our children got to later primary and older I was really glad. We don't tend to have friends go upstairs so they take them in the different reception rooms. Open plan is a pain with children, I think. Everyone occupies the same space. Fine when they're tiny but not once they are 7plus.