The trend for three storey new build houses 🏠 - but with very little living space?

[MCBfan]

I’ve noticed a lot of these springing up round here recently and I wondered what people’s thoughts were.

The houses have three storeys but are built on a very small footprint. You have just two rooms downstairs: a kitchen/diner and a small lounge. On the first floor, there are two bedrooms, and a bathroom. In the loft there are either two more en suite bedrooms or a large master bedroom, en suite with walk in wardrobe.

Clearly, these are designed as family homes but the living space downstairs is really small.

I’ve just seen one for sale where the owners have designated one of the first floor bedrooms as ‘the living room,’ and the small original downstairs living room as ‘a study.’ But it seems like it would be a pain having a living room on the first floor?

Just wondered what others thought of this trend! I’ll try to find a floor plan. The gardens tend to be very small too, as the houses aren’t very wide.

Hated it! Sold within 15 months!

Our living room was actually on the first floor it was just a nightmare

We looked at one and rejected it straight away. Very little wardrobe space Abs tiny bathrooms.

Imagine trying to vacuum 3 floors.

We lived very happily in one. It meant we had 3 double bedrooms (top floor was big with a walk in wardrobe and an en-suite. People did love to comment on the small footprint but the kitchen was well laid out and living room was a space we mostly sat in. We did add a conservatory but that was when we’d had 3 dc when we’d only planned 2 (twins were second pg). I think with teens who spend time in their bedrooms it works too. We’d were there 11 years. Happy to just have one set of stairs now though.

Living space is important to me so I would never buy one.

Some friends had one - not a modern one but otherwise exactly the same and their whole lives were spent going up and down stairs.

My friend currently has one with the living room on the first floor. The kitchen diner is hardly used, they don't eat there or spend any time there apart from cooking. It seems a total waste of the available space tbh.

I’ve found a couple of floor plans but interestingly(!) none of them have the dimensions listed…

Yeah, completely agree. I lived in one as a student. Tiny kitchen, big dining/living room. We had 3 bedrooms and a bathroom on the top floor and a bedroom, toilet and garage on the ground floor. As a student house it was OK with that layout but if I lived in one of those houses I'd absolutely have 2 living floors and one bedroom floor.

And for those saying it's good having lots of bedrooms with teenagers, we have a house with as much living space as bedroom space. The 3 teenagers use the living space because it's big enough to get away from the adults (we have a kitchen diner and two sitting rooms, one of which is the 'playroom' so if they have friends over they use one and we use the other) and their bedrooms are for sleeping only, visitors don't go upstairs. Teenagers use their bedrooms all the time when there isn't enough living space, when there is enough living space they use that.

Works very well for us at the moment. The small footprint means we can afford a house with enough rooms for each of the children to have their own space. The compromise is the living room on the first floor but it doesn’t bother me as we could never have bought this much space with a traditional two storey.

Horrible, can’t stand them. Useless for living with small children, for a start I don’t want a bedroom on a different floor to my kids.

I live in a variation on this design.

Kitchen and separate dining room downstairs. Living room and master on first. Four bedrooms and family bath on second.

I have two kids who are finishing uni.

I live in the bottom two floors as if it's a one bedroom house. When they are home they use their bedrooms on the second floor and I have a dedicated room for my mum when she visits.

Works for us.

We live in one.

Downside - the plot size.

Upside - we have older teenagers on the top floor, so can't hear them during the day 😀. This is Obviously a downside if you have younger kids.

Upside: we can afford to live with more floorspace on a smaller plot.

Definite downside - hoovering stairs.

Upside - running up and down the stairs for excercise.

Downside - will probably need to move when we're too old to manage the stairs.

I really dislike them and looked at a fair few when I moved three years ago.

a lot in the city where I live have a garage, toilet, utility room and small living room (or fourth bedroom) on the ground floor. The kitchen is then one floor up. I love having garden access from my kitchen so the layout really doesn’t work for me.

I find them the same as traditional houses that have loft conversions, which also then gives 3 floors...usually still with the same living space downstairs but people now think you can add at least another couple of people sharing this space

I'd prefer more space and bedrooms, even if over more storeys.
DS and family live in the Netherlands in a three storey house where the ground floor is living and kitchen space, and there are two upper storeys for bedrooms, bathrooms, study and laundry room (the Dutch have these upstairs mostly)
They also plan an extra mezzanine floor in the high pitched roof, for storage, as there is ample room.

It works well and feels less cramped that the two storey terraced house we lived in once in the UK.
The only thing is, the fearsome amount of stairs! But these are painted wood and wipe down quickly, plus I guess they add to your daily steps.

We had a tiny 3 bed semi with 4 DC. We now have a 5 bed +study 3 storey house with a similar downsize space to what we had before.

We don't use the upstairs lounge because we like being in cosy together.

For lots of people it's the most suitable for what they can afford.

It sounds like going straight to a loft conversion sort of arrangement from new- there are lots of what the estate agents call ‘artisan cottages’, in fact just rows of small Victorian terraces, around here and they have all had various loft conversions added over the years which result in the living space you describe, some better done than others.

Developers have realised that people will put up with this imbalance on the common living areas to get extra bedrooms and bathrooms.

I have only been in 4 bed new town houses in the S/E.
To be fair the living room was pretty generous, and the kitchen well fitted, not tiny but not spacious enough to eat in easily.
The obvious downsides for me would be starting a family in one and being on a separate floor (1 larger en-suite bedroom on the top floor, 3 bedrooms on the middle floor) and the very small garden, which is normal for about 90% of new builds in the S/E.

Well they are cheaper because of the smaller footprint so for ftb or people with a lower budget they can be a bonus in terms of getting 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms etc.

We had a pokey 2 up 2 down victorian terrace as our first home and if I could go back and have a 3 bed new build townhouse I would but at the time help to buy / shared ownership etc wasn't a thing and we couldn't afford a new build. Now we can obviously afford much more I would avoid 3 floors like the plague.

The UK has a growing population, prefers cars for transportation (=more space has to be given up to cars) and is reluctant to release more land for building on.

If those are the starting conditions, buildings will have to get taller! Either 1) divide the space vertically and have taller houses with lots of stairs, or 2) divide it horizontally and have flats.

Personally, I prefer option 2 (I have friends who live in tall skinny townhouses with multiple floors, and all the stairs would drive me nuts, esp for cleaning, prams, and that stage when kids are too little to let them stay on a separate floor to you; I also don't see the point of tiny overlooked gardens that are too small for kids to play in anyway), but the UK has historically had a bit of an aversion to apartment living. I think we will see more of this going forward.

Certainly, I think a three-storey town house with three floors is preferable to a two-storey house with the same plot size - at least with the extra floor you are getting some extra space.

We have one of these (but shock horror, over FOUR floors) but it's 2400sqf of living space and works brilliantly for our family life. So no, it's not small and I don't hate it

One other thing, but doesn't disability legislation require a toilet to be on the ground floor? Stuff like having to have extra toilets everywhere must use up a lot of extra space.

I've seen these popping up and they are atrocious

One development had built in garages, so from the front door, there was a corridor with a door from the garage, leading to a small living room with French doors out into a rubble strewn 'yard', a flight of stairs to a kitchen and a tiny bathroom and then two bedrooms (one en suite) further up

It felt cardboard-y, cramped, even without furniture and the constant climbing up and down the stairs, as the estate agent showed me round was doing my head in

Not at all practical for young families and retirees, which seem to make up the bulk of residents of our daughter’s new build estate. Lots have up and sold within a year or two.

We have one and I love it so much more room than the 3 bed "traditional" build next door.
Ideally would've loved a big kitchen but that was the compromise to get the teens a double bedroom each and an office for wfh.
The living room is a good size and plenty big enough when the 4 of us are here and not too big for the 50% of the time it's just the 2 of us