A floor plan that leaves nothing to be desired
After signing the reservation contract, we concentrate on the floor plan of the apartment. Even though the plan drawn up by the architect is almost perfect for our needs, we take the opportunity given to us to make specific changes where we consider it necessary. Although we only make a few adjustments, we still believe that we can get even more out of the current floor plan.
The scale becomes a daily tool
The new apartment will increase our living space by a good 50 percent compared to today. The last thing we think about is whether our three-metre-long sofa will really fit into the new rooms. On the plans, the 3-seater sofa looks tiny and the planned living area looks extremely spacious. However, we quickly learned that this view can be deceptive. If you are in this phase of property planning, always check whether you really have enough space available for your current furniture or for planned purchases. We did this with the good old scale in our apartment to give us a better idea.
So in our case, we had to get creative and want to redesign the kitchen so that there is more than 80 centimetres between the sofa and the cooking island. The distance is definitely too small for us. Instead of an L-shaped kitchen, we are therefore considering a variant with a wall unit and a generously sized cooking island. This would give us around 60 cm of additional space, which would mean a comfortable 140 cm of clearance – i.e. around 2 m² more usable space. You will find out more about the details of our kitchen planning at a later date.
Plenty of daylight is the most important criterion
Bright rooms not only look better, they also contribute significantly to a more positive feeling of living. Our apartment has seven oversized, floor-to-ceiling windows measuring 2.4 meters wide, and the loggia in the living/dining area adds another 7.5 meters. The redesign of the kitchen also has a significant advantage in this respect: the fact that it is no longer L-shaped means that daylight practically streams through the cooking island to the front door. This area would otherwise have been a little too dark.
A highlight for extending the room
We are only planning one change to the room layout. On the one hand, we are not planning to have more than two children, and on the other hand, we would like to do without a pure office room . We think it would be underutilized. Two rooms and a master bedroom are enough for us. That’s why we’re not going to build a wall for the fourth room and are enlarging the living/dining area. However, we are separating the area with a window wall with Jansen Arte 15 profiles. We are planning four equal-length sections, with the middle two forming two double doors. These 16 square meters will accommodate a secretary, a reading chair and a room-wide bookshelf . This change will cost a mid four-figure sum in Swiss francs. We are thus expanding the sense of space, but still ensuring that the room is still available as a place of retreat. And this also creates more daylight for the entire living/dining area. You can commission a metal fabricator to create such a window wall. Depending on the design, budget a mid four-figure sum in Swiss francs for this.
We can give you the following tips for this phase:
- Be very specific about which rooms are to serve which purpose
- Imagine where you want to place which furnishings and measure the distances with a ruler if necessary
- Think about how you can gain more daylight for your rooms
- Try to reduce „dead living space“ and thus gain usable space for yourself
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Michel N. (37) and Michèle G. (36) live in Lucerne with their daughter Lilou (1). The two communication specialists with a flair for beautiful living are fulfilling their wish to buy a condominium near the city limits of Lucerne. Bruno Wickart accompanies and advises the couple on their project from day one – from the floor plan design to the fully furnished property.
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Do you need support with your residential project? We will be happy to help you. You can find more information here ((https://www.bruno-wickart.ch/interior-design))