Designing the layout of your new home

Planning the layout for your new house

Many houses are poorly laid out. They could even appear like a crazy patchwork quilt, with rooms fitted together with little thought on their connectedness, or the association between adjoining rooms.

The layout of your house depends to a large extent on your life-style.

Many owners prefer an open plan living, dining, family and kitchen area where these rooms are combined into one large common area. This allows for easy flow, it avoids doors and passageways which creates more living space, it lets more light into the spaces, and it allows for the family to interact more freely.

The disadvantages of an open plan system are that in summer the whole area has to be cooled and in winter the whole area has to be heated, even areas which aren’t being used. This results in increased energy bills. It also makes it difficult to separate family areas from where guests are being entertained, and if you’re someone that doesn’t like your visitors to see a mess it means that the whole area has to be tidied and the rest of the family may have to be banished to their bedrooms before visitors arrive. It also means that when there’s a noise in the kitchen, those watching television might not be able to hear their favourite program, while that program could be annoying to others who want to talk.
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Some families design their houses so parents and children live in separate wings, or even levels, possibly providing separate entrances to these areas. This living arrangement can be particularly well suited for older children.

What influences the layout and design of your home

​The layout of your house could also be influenced by:

• The shape and size of your property. Small properties may require the house to go upwards with two or more floors. Narrow properties, or irregular shaped properties could dictate the design of your home.
• The orientation of the property.
• The direction of views. In some cases you may elect to have the living areas on the second level to make the most of the views (sometimes called an upside-down layout) with the bedrooms downstairs.
• Access to your property, which dictates the location of garages and the front door.
• The topography of the property. Sloping properties may require the floor levels inside the house to be stepped.
• The size of your rooms.
• The architecture and style of the home.
• The location of structures on neighbouring properties which could impact privacy.
• Existing features on the property which you want to retain, such as trees.
• The location of sewer pipe (wastewater) connections which could impact the location of bathrooms, kitchens and laundries. Sewer pipes connect from the bathrooms, kitchen and laundry to the town system. These pipes have to flow at a constant slope to the town connection. If the height difference between the outlets of the house and the town system is small then the house waste pipes may have to exit at a point closer to the town connection to reduce the length of pipe, thus increasing the fall or slope of the pipe. See later.
• Noise sources. You may want to place bedrooms away from external noise sources such as busy roads.
• The flow. When visitors enter your house what do they see and where do their eyes go? How do the different parts of the house connect together?
• Privacy. You probably don’t want visitors walking past the kitchen to get to entertainment areas.
• Functionality is important, so kitchens should be close to eating areas. Bathrooms near bedrooms so occupants don’t have to walk past visitors to go from their bedrooms to the bathroom. Living areas should be next to the outdoor living areas.
• You want as little wasted space for passages (corridors) as possible. Anyway long passages can be dark, uninviting and make the house seem like a hotel.
• The relationship of the different sizes of rooms. Ultimately they all have to mesh together without wasted space between them, or awkward nooks and hidden corners in rooms.
• What rooms you want in the front of the house and what you want at the back of the house.
• On multistorey houses, the layout of upstairs areas is influenced to a certain extent by the layout below, as well as the location of the stairs.

In our next article we delve more into planning and designing the layout of your new home. We suggest how you should begin with this important task.

Other useful articles
​Designing your house for pets
​Designing the best house for you and your family
The risks of designing your home yourself

​This is an extract from the author's book  'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses: Volume 2 - Finding Your Ideal Property and Designing Your Dream Home' 
​© 2021 This article is not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission from the author.

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Want to learn more about designing, renovating and building houses?

Paul Netscher has written 2 easy to read books 'An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses - Volumes 1 and 2'. An Introduction to Building and Renovating Houses Volume 1 deals with Hiring Contractors, Managing Construction and Finishing Your Home.  and Designing your ideal home Volume 2 deals with Finding Your Ideal Property and Designing Your Dream Home. 
​("Great for those that DIY. Very helpful in home renovations!" said a Reader on Amazon.com 5*****)
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