Apartment Renovation: 6 Floor Plan Mistakes to Avoid Before Starting Construction

6 Floor Plan Mistakes to Avoid Before Starting a Renovation

Renovating a home represents a significant investment of time, energy, and money.

Yet some of the most important decisions are often made very quickly at the beginning of a project—even though they will shape the way you live in your home for years to come.

Here are the floor plan mistakes I recommend identifying before construction begins.

1. Thinking in Terms of Rooms Rather Than How You Live

“This will be the kitchen. This will be the living room. This will be the bedroom.”

It’s a good starting point, but it isn’t enough.

I prefer to begin by looking at how you actually use your home.

How do you cook? How many people eat around the table every day? Do you entertain often? Do you work from home? Where do the children do their homework? How much storage do you really need?

Two families living in identical apartments may need two completely different floor plans.

2. Insisting on a Large Open-Plan Living Space

Opening the kitchen onto the living room and removing as many walls as possible has become almost an automatic choice in many renovations.

But a large open space is not necessarily a functional one.

You still need to comfortably fit a kitchen, dining table, sofa, storage, and perhaps a workspace, while maintaining pleasant and intuitive circulation.

That’s why I prefer to look for the right proportions, rather than simply creating the largest possible open space.

3. Forgetting About Furniture When Designing the Floor Plan

An empty room always looks bigger.

That’s why I introduce furniture into my plans very early in the design process.

A 160 cm bed, two bedside tables, a wardrobe, and the swing of a door immediately reveal whether a bedroom actually works.

The same applies to a dining table: its dimensions alone are not enough. You also need to allow enough space to pull out the chairs and move comfortably around them.

Furniture is part of the floor plan.

4. Adding Storage at the End

Storage is sometimes treated as an extra layer to be added once the floor plan is complete.

I prefer to do the opposite.

From the first sketches, I look for opportunities to integrate wardrobes, niches, and custom-made joinery into the design.

This makes it possible to use wall thicknesses, recesses, and circulation areas much more intelligently.

Storage then becomes part of the architecture rather than an accumulation of furniture.

5. Underestimating the Importance of a Few Centimetres

In interior architecture, a few centimetres can make a significant difference.

They can determine whether a door opens properly, whether a wardrobe has enough depth, whether there is comfortable space around a bed, or whether a bathroom feels spacious and easy to use.

This is also why floor plans need to be studied carefully before construction begins.

Decisions made at this stage are usually much easier—and less expensive—to change than once a wall has already been built.

6. Choosing Finishes Too Early

It can be tempting to start looking at kitchens, tiles, lighting, or colours straight away.

After all, this is the most visible and exciting part of the project.

But before making those choices, it is essential to secure what will have the greatest impact on your everyday life: the layout of the space.

Where are the walls? How do you move through the home? Where is the storage? How do the rooms connect? Where does the natural light come from?

Once these decisions have been made, the aesthetic choices can give the project its character.

Take the Time to Explore Different Possibilities

When renovating, the first idea is not necessarily the best one.

That is precisely the purpose of the design phase: to move things around, test different layouts, compare options, and sometimes go back and reconsider an earlier decision.

I work with floor plans, sketches, and 3D visualisations to explore different possibilities and help you understand the space before it is built.

Taking the time to think through these decisions in advance makes the rest of the process much clearer and allows you to move forward with greater confidence.

A successful renovation begins long before the first wall comes down: it starts with a floor plan that has been carefully considered.