Should You Build A Single Story Or Double Story House?

For many people, deciding on whether to build a single or double storey house is one of the most important decisions taken before building a house. Both types of houses have advantages and disadvantages and both offer a different level of comfort and elegance. These decisions affect the plans like the size of the family to have, the resale value of the house, and maintenance cost hence it is a very crucial decision.

Pros & Cons Of A Double Storey House

1 – Availability Of Space

Double storey houses offer the greatest amount of living space. It allows you to design large bedrooms, a comfortable kitchen, and living rooms as these rooms are not squeezed into one place. The bedrooms can be directly above the living room. Double story building offers a small footprint hence more land available for gardening, a backyard, a swimming pool, and other recreational activities.

2 – Offers Maximum Privacy

Unlike single-storey buildings, rooms are not clustered in one place hence a straightforward way to create privacy. While building double-storey houses you can have living spaces on the first floor and bedrooms on the second floor. This offers total privacy if you have children and teenagers in the house.
For people working from home, you can create an office in the rooms upstairs and have a cool working environment while others are downstairs. When hosting visitors, especially the elderly, an extra bedroom can be easily added downstairs to accommodate them.

3 – Greater Views

Depending on the location of your home, double-story buildings can provide appealing views to the coastal areas, hillside view, and an aesthetic town view. Unlike the single-story building where your neighbors are your view, double-story houses offer great opportunity to have beautiful views of the sky, ocean, hillside depending on your location.

Cons

1 – Limited Access And Safety

Due to the nature of staircases, double storey buildings do have accessibility problems, especially for the elderly and toddlers. People in wheelchairs also find it hard to live in double storey buildings. Safety when going up and down the staircases for young children and the elderly is also a major concern as they can easily fall and cause accidents.

2 – Cost

Double-storey buildings are quite expensive to build and time-consuming. Because of its complexity and greater design, double-story houses take time and require a lot of finances compared to single-storey houses.

Comfort, safety, and cost are some factors considered while choosing between building a single-storey house or a double-storey house. Each one of them has its own advantages and disadvantages therefore the decision ultimately comes down to factors such as budget, lifestyle, and land size.