Floor-plan finder: which floor plan suits your everyday life?

Why the right floor plan determines living comfort

When building a house, attention often turns first to the façade, the roof or the square-metre figure. Yet in truth it is the floor plan that decides how well a house feels in everyday life. It determines how light travels through the rooms, how short the routes are between kitchen, dining area and terrace, whether children and parents can both find retreat spaces, and whether the house still works when the living situation changes. Two houses with exactly the same living space can be lived in completely differently – one floor plan feels spacious and natural, the other cramped and awkward. This is precisely why it is worth clarifying, before choosing a provider, which floor-plan idea actually suits your own life.

The decisive starting point is the number of people who will move in permanently. A couple rarely needs more than two to three rooms, whereas a family with two children quickly arrives at four to five rooms – children's rooms, master bedroom and at least one flexibly usable room. Anyone working from home should plan the study not as a luxury but as a fixed component. Above all, couples who both work from home benefit from two separate offices, as video conferences and periods of concentration otherwise clash. From the number of people and home-office needs, our finder therefore derives a realistic room requirement and weights it most heavily in the matching.

Equally fundamental is the question of the number of storeys. A bungalow arranges all rooms on one level – comfortable, with short routes and forward-looking with regard to old age, but with the need for a larger plot, since the same area is spread across one floor. A two-storey house, by contrast, separates the public living area below from the private sleeping area above and uses the plot more economically. Anyone who builds young but thinks far into the future finds a viable compromise in a low-barrier bungalow or a two-storey house with a ground-floor guest or bedroom. The finder assesses your storey preference and your wish for accessibility as separate criteria, because the two are closely related but do not mean the same thing.

The kitchen, too, shapes the character of a house more than many assume. An open-plan kitchen brings cooking, eating and living together into a sociable zone – ideal for families who spend a lot of time together, and for everyone who likes to chat with guests while cooking. The price for this is cooking smells and noise in the living area. A separate kitchen keeps both away, but feels less spacious and needs a little more space. There is no right or wrong here, only a question of lifestyle – and that is exactly what the finder asks about.

Finally comes the budget, which sets the framework of what is possible. A shell-and-core house with self-performed work provides a lot of living space even on a comparatively small budget, but costs time and craftsmanship in return. Turnkey family homes are usually positioned in the middle segment, while prestigious town villas form the upper end. Floor plans that lie far outside your framework are not completely hidden by the finder – it only rates them lower so that you see the realistic options first. This creates a selection that suits both your everyday life and your financial means.

See the result as a starting point, not as a final conclusion. Prefabricated house floor plans are rarely set in stone: rooms can be enlarged, walls moved, a bay window added or a room used differently. Use the three suggestions to enter into conversation with the manufacturers – and coordinate the final floor plan together with a planner to suit your plot, the development plan (Bebauungsplan) and your wishes. Further inspiration is provided by our curated floor-plan collections for detached family homes, bungalows and semi-detached houses as well as in the floor-plan overview.