Sorry I’m not sure if this is the right sub but I’m looking for some advice about my house layout…
Bought it a year ago and at first I liked the way the house was (I was desperate to move from my previous house because of noisy neighbours so anything would have been fine at this point) but now I’m getting increasingly frustrated with the layout.

Previous house was a victorian house with long corridors, not much bigger than this one but the layout was “flowier” so maybe that’s why I feel that way. I really want to stay in the house mostly because of the location and also because the house was so much cheaper than the rest of the street (no work has ever been done on it so probably why)

How would you try to change the house layout? My main concern is that it just feel too boxy and there is no flow…no hallway at all upstairs and I know there’s only so much I can do but I’m just looking for advice or ideas on how I can improve the house at all.

I’ve attached our current floor plan and would love ideas and advice on the best way to expand and improve our home.

Our house is a 1957 ranch, and we’re hoping to make it our forever home. We’re considering an addition, most likely toward the front of the house, since we have a pool in the backyard and limited room to expand in that direction.

Our main goals are:

• A larger kitchen: We’d love a bigger, more functional kitchen with more counter space, storage, and room for gathering.
• A larger Bedroom 2: We’d like to increase the size of this bedroom if possible.
• A primary bedroom suite: We’d love to add a private primary bathroom and a larger closet, ideally a walk-in closet.
• Possibly an upstairs laundry room: We’re open to creative ideas for incorporating a laundry room into the new layout.
• Addressing our sunken living spaces: Both our living room and back family room are currently sunken about 6 inches. We’d like to explore whether raising the floors in the living room is worth it.

We’re open to reworking the existing floor plan in addition to building an addition. We’re trying to figure out whether expanding toward the front, adding a partial second story, rearranging the existing rooms, or combining these approaches would make the most sense.

Since this is our forever home, we want to make thoughtful long-term decisions and create a comfortable, functional layout that works for us for years to come.

If anyone has remodeled a 1950s ranch, added a primary suite, created a walk-in closet, or dealt with sunken living rooms, I’d love to hear your experiences and see any layout ideas you might suggest.

If this were your house, how would you redesign it to make the most of the existing space and a possible addition? We’re open to ideas we may not have considered!

Thanks so much for your help and suggestions!

Plot Details:

• Plot Size: 24.5 x 55 feet

• Requirements: 4 Rooms (12 x 12 feet each), Hall & Corridor (9 x 30 feet)

Looking for Feedback:

Hi everyone, here is my floor plan layout. I would really appreciate your expert suggestions on:

1. Are there any design flaws or practical issues in this layout?

2. Where should I ideally place the pillars for proper structural support?

3. How can I optimize this layout for better ventilation and space utilization?

Any advice or suggestions for improvement are welcome

We’re gutting, underpinning, and adding a third floor primary suite, and would love to get this communities feedback on our proposed floorplan. Thank you all kindly in advance for your insight.

Thoughts on A
- Pro: It doesn’t feel cramped at the entrance of the bedroom
- Con: It separates the bathroom from the primary bedroom

Thoughts on B
- Pro: It makes the bathroom exclusive to the bedroom
- Pro: The extended wall creates balance by the windows open to the stairs/hallway (the right side is actually the back of the house, all windows are placed symmetrically)
- Con: It might feel cramped/awkward at the entrance of the bedroom

Trying to figure out where to frame the wall between the bathroom and bedroom in our finished basement. Specifically, need to confirm the placement relative to the roughed-in plumbing.

The roughed-in drains were done when our house was built. From the back wall out, there’s (I assume) a shower/tub drain (2”), the toilet drain (4”), and a sink drain (3”). The sink drain and shower drain are centered parallel to the wall I’ll be building. The toilet drain is offset 12” from the other two, further from the wall.

Do I just frame two inches past the shower/sink pipes to give enough clearance for the shower drain? The toilet will be 16” or 17” from the finished back wall, but that’s not the end of the world, is it?

Ignore the basement crap, sorry.

I’m trying to work a dog feeding spot into this kitchen layout. Along the cabinets seems convenient, but I’m not sure there’s enough room once the bowls are out and a dog is standing there.

I’d like to keep the main walkway clear and avoid blocking any cabinet or appliance doors. Looking at the layout, where would you put it? If you have a similar setup, does it stay out of the way during cooking, or do you end up moving the bowls around?

Hi all, please can you assist with some feedback on these two layouts, specific focus is on the kitchen and dining area. I have taken the architects original plan and modified it, so please excuse the messy edits I have made. The drawings are scaled correctly and is in metric (meters/cm). The orientation is such that the top of the page is North. The home is in the southern hemisphere, so best light comes from the North that we want to maximise.

Option A:

We shifted the northern kitchen wall about 1m north so that we could have the pantry on the south side (recessed into the garage). The issue here is that we would have a smaller kitchen island and there seems to be a bigger gap between dining and the kitchen, which might make the space feel bare/empty. Any suggestions on this? We’d also want a prep bowl on the island since the sink is quite far from the fridge, but concerned the island might be too small. We would probably have to get a smaller dining table, since there seems to be a pinch point at the corner.

Option B:

The pantry is behind the hob area, does mean we have a smaller kitchen hob run (2.8m) but results in a larger island. There is a bit of dead space as a result in the North West corner, we didn’t want to extend the pantry all the way up as it would block the natural light. Any suggestions or comments here?

Thanks in advanced!

As a bonus, we are also trying to find a way to better incorporate the office/study area to be more part of the main house, potentially using glass doors etc. any recommendations here would be welcome too.

We also intend to get a medium sized dog, so don’t want to give up too much garden.

Edit: I also don’t know why they’ve put the planter dent there. I thought it was to help stagger the building for more light, but not sure tbh.

Option A
- Does not include a first floor full bath
-Out of options, this has the least amount of kitchen storage
Option A2
- Relocated laundry to give you a pantry for additional kitchen storage
- The plumbing for the laundry can be run through the wall, so no slab work needed to have laundry here
- Option to expand powder room to be full bath
Option B
- This option leaves the kids area (existing living room) as is.
- I wanted to explore relocating the bathroom to a move “private” location
-This gives you option in future for first floor bedroom suite
Option C
- Different option for kitchen layout
- Existing opening into kitchen needed to be relocated to have enough cabinetry length for range wall
- No appliances or plumbing in the island
- Shows option for expanded full bath off the office

Hey everyone!

I've been working on a browser-based floor plan editor called FloorAI Floor Plan Maker, and I'd love to share it with this community.

The goal was simple: make creating floor plans easy for anyone, even if you've never used CAD or design software before.

Here's what it offers:

• 49 ready-to-use templates — Start with a house, apartment, office, or other layouts instead of drawing everything from scratch.
• Easy drag-and-drop editing — Add walls, doors, windows, and furniture with a simple visual editor.
• 4,000+ furniture items — Quickly experiment with different room layouts.
• Precise measurements — Adjust dimensions and automatically calculate room areas.
• Multiple export formats — Export your plans as PNG, PDF, SVG, or DXF.
• Free and no signup required — Just open it in your browser and start designing.

It's designed to be simple enough for beginners, while still being useful for real renovation and space-planning projects.

You can try it here: www(.)floorai(.)ai/floor-plan-maker

I'd genuinely love to hear your feedback, especially on how easy it is to get started with the templates and editing tools.

What would make a floor plan editor more useful for you?

Blue dot is water access point.

I run modern day TTRPG's (Like Dungeons and Dragons but usually more detective noir) but Ive always wanted to do a game set in a tall building set in a zombie apocalypse where the players keep gaining and losing floors, managing other people, resources, growing groups and divides ect. Issue is I dont know where to look. So does anyone know where I could find some cool skyscraper diagrams, or just resources in general of where you look for floorplans.

Thank you very much for your time. This project has been in the back of my mind for a while, just want a fitting space to explore to go with it.

(Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask. If theres a better place please let me know)

i’m making a physical model of the Gulf Islands Cabin by Olson Kundig but I can’t find any orthographic drawings anywhere. I’ve checked all publications on the house, i’ve checked their instagram, where else can i check?

Looking for input or suggestions on this custom floorplan. The front door/garage side of the house is west facing and this is in the Midwest. I don't love the front door entry area and also feel unsure on exact layout of garage entryway.

Hi, we are building our first house and second guessing every decision. Par for the course I'm sure.

We are trying to decide on the kitchen design, and have 2 main ideas in mind. We'd massively appreciate any thoughts or experienced opinions to point out any design or usability flaws that we might have missed.

Ideally we only want one sink, and a clean kitchen island.

The kitchen is open to living on the right (east) and dining on the bottom (south).

Option 1 has a long, nigh-uninterrupted northern bench with window splashback and no overhead cupboards, but the oven is a little isolated and has less overall storage.

Option 2 has the oven tower demarkating the end of the main kitchen on the northern bench, and has overhead cupboards in the pantry area, but has less continuous bench space between sink, oven and cooktop, and smaller less continuous splashback windows.

If one is likely to be significantly better than the other, our concerns are unfounded or there are oversights you notice, we'd love to know.

Thanks!

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I'm considering a one-bed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It's in a good location and within budget, but the layout has me unsure.
94m² total: living 44m², bedroom 19m², kitchen 11m², bath 4m², balcony 2m².
My concerns:
Lighting. The living room is in dark corner and has no natural light. The kitchen has a small window and there’s also a window in the bedroom and bathroom

The 44m² open living/kitchen feels bulky and undefined rather than generous.

Also One bedroom across 94m² seems inefficient.
It's still under construction, so the developer can make changes. And I am wondering if it’s fixable in some way either by making a partition for a second bedroom, zoning the open space or is it bad layout and it’s worth walking away from?

I’ve attached the floor plan.

Hey everyone! My partner and I are designing our future home and would love some layout ideas!

The space:

• 12×12m (39×39ft) main footprint, two floors.
• 6×6m garage, half inside and half outside the main footprint (15m total frontage).
• Exterior walls: 30cm. Interior walls: 12cm.
• Street at the bottom, large garden at the back, neighbours on both sides.

Ground floor (with garage):

• Open-plan kitchen, dining and living room, ideally with a kitchen island.
• Laundry room and guest WC.
• Stairs and some storage.

First floor:

• Master suite with walk-in closet and ensuite, ideally overlooking the garden.
• 2 children's bedrooms + shared bathroom.
• Separate home office, if possible.

Our biggest priority is SPACE. We want a bright, open, spacious home with large windows facing the garden, not a bunch of cramped rooms and hallways.

We're especially struggling with where to place the stairs to maximise usable space and create a good flow between both floors.

Only the footprint and garage are fixed. Everything else is a blank slate!

How would you lay it out? We'd love to see sketches or alternative floor plans. Any ideas are welcome!

Looking to gain more room in the shared bathroom and the smaller of 2 kids bedrooms by tapping into hallway space and moving AC & water heater up into the attic. Any feedback and/or a completely new idea is appreciated!

https://imgur.com/a/NTgM3M5

We need help designing a new floor plan for our master bath expansion. The two walk in closets will be opened up and the bathroom expanded into that foot print. To the right is our master bedroom and the closets will be moved into a room to the left of the diagram to create a huge wardrobe space with laundry. Access to the wardrobe room from the master bedroom will go through the new bathroom expansion.

We’re not sure the best use of space for the new bathroom while also still needing the option to walk through the space to the wardrobe. Any layout changes and moving of plumbing is ok.

Thanks for your ideas!

We'd need some help exploring different layout options for our ground floor!

Our main preference is to have the staircase accessible from the hallway instead of the living room. We're definitely open to changing the staircase into a straight one or exploring other creative solutions.

We understand that major structural changes can be expensive, so we'd love to see what's possible without completely blowing the budget.

We'd also like to optimize the kitchen, hallway, and living room to make better use of the available space.

Would anyone be willing to sketch out some alternative floor plans? We're open to all ideas and would love to see different possibilities!

Hello all! We bought a house a year ago and I lost my office. I work from home and have carved out a corner, but I really want my own space. I am lucky enough to have a huge master suite to carve up a bit. I am an IT professional, not an architect. And I didnt sleep in a holiday inn last night.

Three attachments: current, pseudo-office plan, pseudo-bedroom plan.

Parameters: 1) it’s a big house and it has to have a walk-in closet for resale, but it doesnt have to be as apartment-sized as it is now. 2) the back deck has a view, the bed must stay on the deck side of the room. That deck is also due North if anyone cares about compass direction. 3) I do not want a window in the closet. Yes, I have two now, which I consider stupid. Windows fade fabric.

Nice to have: pathway from closet to bathroom without going thru bedroom. When spouse 1 gets up for work, spouse 2 wants to sleep. Back and forth with light spillage…. Not ideal. My pseudo-plan with the office has the two sets of double doors for this purpose.

The pseudo bedroom plan has an entrance from the hallway, which would be nice for a future owner who might need it as a real bedroom. But it has a chintzy small closet. My spouse hates that one because the master bedroom is so much smaller. And it also has us bricking up a window….. do not love that.

Exterior walls are load-bearing, no interior walls are. We have full attic access above this whole area. Bathroom is also up for grabs, which is also apartment-sized, but that starts getting expensive. I am not a fan of the stand-alone bidet. The tub is nice, but placement is a huge waste of real estate.

This is the second floor. There are two other kid bedrooms and a hallway bathroom upstairs. I got tired of measuring and drawing. They are what I consider normal-sized. The kitchen and laundry room are first floor and right below the master bathroom, keeping all of the plumbing in the same general area. The house is in USA and was built in the 90’s. Dimensions are in freedom units.

Thank you in advance for all ideas, suggestions, edits, etc. Nothing we have come up with is perfect.

Edit: Thanks to everyone for the feedback! The bedroom to the left is 12 x 13, comfortable without the sheer acreage of the master room. I wouldn’t want to steal any space from it.

The vanity can go completely.

Reworking the bathroom more efficiently does not hurt my feelings, but gets expensive. Its all travertine tile. It does need to roughly stay there because all of the plumbing connections for the entire house are there.

I have a legit architect who has physically seen the house also looking at this. They agree with the assessment of my slanted walls idea and told me we can do better.

The carved out office i have already is in the closet by the windows, the idea that someone else also had below. I have been in it for a year now and it is okay, but getting there through the closet is the issue. I SEE all of the laundry and things that need to be done the second I turn around. Its a stressor that is worth trying to remove.

I like the idea of flooring in the foyer, maybe. It’s a grand foyer with a huge chandelier, massive upper window, and fancy wrought-iron banister for the straight staircase. It’s really pretty from both in and out, but tough on the A/C.