If you have visited enough homes or ever gone house hunting, one thing you immediately notice is how some homes have very big rooms and living spaces as compared to some other homes where the rooms look like poorly-thought slices.

Why are room sizes and living spaces so different? Is there any standard? Or, at least, is there an ideal size for rooms in the home?

Proper location and implementation of room sizes on a floor plan for a home is essential because it aids flow of natural air, makes adequate sunlight available within the home, maximises space utilization and affords space for movement and efficient flow of traffic within the home for residents.

Most homes have basic rooms like the living room, bedroom, kitchen and bathroom.

While there are no hard and fast rules, there are general guidelines for these room sizes. Let us explore them.

Living Room

Generally speaking, living rooms are the biggest rooms in a home. They are usually a common, comfortable and attractive place for sitting of family members and to receive friends and guests.

And, while it may be tricky deciding whether you want it cosy and inviting or large for entertaining, or if you’d love an open-plan home with the living room and dining room merged: the optimum size for a living room and dining room merged is 40-45 sqm.

Bedroom

How Big Should a Bedroom Be?

For the most part, this is determined by the functionality of the bedroom in question and the furniture. The master bedroom, featuring a king-sized bed and walk-in closet would typically be bigger than the children’s rooms, guest bedroom or help’s bedroom.

Suggested bedroom sizes:

Master Bedroom: 30-35 sqm
Standard Bedroom: 15-20 sqm
Guest Bedrooms: 12-15 sqm

Kitchen

An ideal kitchen should have three sides of work units/worktops and a central island or peninsula. Many kitchens, as a rule, have store rooms and pantries attached to them while some incorporate small areas for eating breakfast, which is not to be mistaken for the dining room.

All these considered, the ideal kitchen size is 15-20 sqm.

Bathroom

More and more homes now attach bathrooms to bedrooms in an en-suite fashion. This means more bathrooms in a home. This should not, however, affect the size of the bedroom. If you opt for a bathtub or jacuzzi- which takes up more space, or a shower stall, or both, there would be slight variations in recommended sizes. The least dimensions of a bathroom should be 6-12 sqm.

Other (optional) rooms in the home include an ante-room, a home office/study, a home gym, a home cinema, laundry room, private family room etc

As these are not very common, there is no general guide. That notwithstanding, the underlying guiding principle is to allow, most importantly, sufficient flow for traffic, as well as ventilation and lighting.