-Re House

“-Re” House no.1: The Obvious (1/3)

This is a little house found on one of the many websites for sale and rent available on-line. I initially thought that the layout was a fluke and the entire house was either a small addition or something built on a leftover piece of land. I later came to realize that it was completed in 2000 so it is a rather recent addition to the neighborhood and that there are several houses with the same design.

The house is composed of a rectangular ground floor and a partial first floor. In the middle of the ground floor there is a small patio with view from the living room, hallway and bedroom. The upstairs houses only 2 bedrooms.
floor-plan_zpscpwzpwel

I personally think there is a lot of wasted space, particularly on the first floor. The large portion of empty space has forced three bedrooms in a rather crowded way. If all the other houses on the street would have been ground floor this could have been seen as an exception and the limited use of the higher floor would have been explained. However the entire street is composed of two story houses.

The layout itself is a simple, basic one. I personally do not fancy the interior garden however there is nothing technically wrong with it. I do have an issue with the bathroom though.

bathroom-plan1_zps6txt72rr

The bathroom itself is decent size of 1.68m width on 3.66m length. It would be a tight squeeze to add a bathtub, however without one, there is even enough space even to dance. Nope, I’m not kidding! Seen with my very eyes our dance instructors, proving there is no need to take large steps in order to dance the cha cha. A small coffee table was more than enough for them to dance and for us to remain speechless.

Here the space has been rather wasted. The open shower (with the obvious drain) has been placed in the middle of the room so, whenever anyone takes a shower half of the room gets “flooded”. This also forces any type of storage to the extremes of the room, because no one wants a completely wet towel or a soggy toilet paper roll. It also requires more cleaning than necessary and prevents any additional use of the room when the shower is on.

A very simple and elegant solution is a shower cabin at the end of the room, enclosed so that the water is limited to that particular area. The sink can be easily placed in the middle while the toiled can remain in its original place.

There is more than enough space to either add storage on both sides of the sink or to add a second sink. All options are perfectly valid and depend on the use of the house as well as the number of people.

This was on a micro scale, however if we are to look at the location of the bathroom in the layout of the house we discover that the one and only bathroom of a house marketed to be able to do 3 bedrooms can only be accessed through one of the bedrooms.
So if we are to assume it to be the master bedroom, how pleasant would it be to have your children and/or guest pass through? The situation would be the same both if that bedroom were to be used as the children’s room or the guest bedroom. Probably the least annoyance would come from it being an office.

If this wouldn’t have been a Dutch house, I would simply move the door, open the storage and turn it into an open laundry/hallway/storage space. I’d might even give up the back door, move the door to the bathroom and enclose a smaller space. Either way there is plenty of storage possible, however for a better integration of the bathroom in the warm area of the house I’d probably choose the later.

As that is not the case, and this is on Dutch soil, there will most likely be a bike and an owner keen on having it into a shed/garage or some sort of a storage.


Click here for part 2 “-Re” House no.1: The Adaptation
Click here for part 3 “-Re” House no.1: The Design

2 thoughts on ““-Re” House no.1: The Obvious (1/3)

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