How Can You Tell If Your Apartment has a bad Layout?

Do you have enough square metres, yet constantly feel like you’re running out of space?

Do you struggle to furnish certain rooms? Keep adding small storage units? Have an area of your living room that is barely used?

The problem isn’t always the size of your apartment. It may simply be the layout.

Here are a few signs that your floor plan may be worth reconsidering.

1. You Have Enough Square Metres… but Still Not Enough Space

It’s a paradox I come across regularly.

An apartment can have a comfortable overall size and still feel small.

Oversized hallways, a disproportionately large entrance, or poorly positioned circulation areas can take up a significant amount of space without providing any real function.

So the right question isn’t simply, “How big is my apartment?” but rather: how is that space distributed?

2. You Never Know Where to Store Certain Things

Shoes pile up by the entrance, the vacuum cleaner never really has a proper place, and suitcases move from one bedroom to another…

These aren’t necessarily storage problems. Sometimes, they are design problems.

When I work on a floor plan, I try to anticipate these needs from the very beginning.

Built-in storage in the right place can be far more efficient than several pieces of furniture gradually added throughout the apartment.

3. Some Rooms Are Difficult to Furnish

Do you have a large living room but no obvious place for the sofa?

Does your dining table block the circulation whenever you have six people over?

Is your bedroom a decent size, but the position of the door prevents you from installing a large wardrobe?

The size of a room doesn’t tell the whole story.

Its proportions, openings, and circulation largely determine its true potential.

4. Circulation Takes Up Too Much Space

Hallways are necessary. But they shouldn’t take up a disproportionate amount of your home.

Whenever possible, I like to explore ways of giving these areas more than one function: integrating storage, opening up sightlines, or reorganising access to different rooms.

The goal isn’t necessarily to eliminate every hallway, but to make sure that the square metres dedicated to circulation also contribute to the quality and functionality of the home.

5. Your Apartment No Longer Fits Your Lifestyle

A floor plan may have worked perfectly ten years ago and no longer suit your needs today.

A new baby, working from home, children becoming teenagers, the need for a second bathroom, or simply wanting to entertain more often…

Our needs evolve.

A renovation is an opportunity to stop constantly adapting to your apartment and instead adapt your apartment to the way you live today.

6. You Wish You Could Push the Walls Out

It’s something I hear often: “We just need a few more square metres.”

Sometimes, that’s true.

But before considering an extension or moving home, it can be worth taking a fresh look at the square metres you already have.

Reorganising the layout can sometimes create an additional bedroom, a workspace, or more storage without increasing the overall size of the apartment.

7. You Feel Like “There Must Be a Better Way”

This may be the most interesting sign of all.

You may not be able to identify exactly what isn’t working, but something about the space doesn’t feel quite right.

This is precisely where working on the floor plan becomes valuable.

By studying the existing constraints—structure, windows, water connections, drainage, and technical shafts—and then testing different scenarios, it becomes possible to reveal opportunities that aren’t always obvious at first glance.

Before Decorating, Look at the Floor Plan

Changing the sofa, repainting the walls, or installing a new kitchen can, of course, transform the atmosphere of an apartment.

But decoration can’t always solve a problem with the way the space is organised.

When an interior doesn’t function well, I prefer to go back to its foundations: how you use the space, its proportions, circulation, and the floor plan itself.

That’s often where the true potential of an apartment is hiding.