Hotel-type apartment and small family apartment

Hotel-type apartments with an area of 12 to 18 sq.m. include two rooms – a living room and a bathroom. A tiny kitchen is usually located in the hallway. A hotel-type apartment has only one window, and compact furniture is required for a relatively comfortable life. Suitable for a person living alone.

A semi-hotel-type apartment is a room (often in a dormitory) without a separate kitchen, they are less comfortable, since the cooking space must be shared with neighbors – the owners of the same semi-hotel-type apartment.

A small family apartment is a full-fledged apartment with an area of 16 to 26 sq.m. with a small area for a kitchen, a living room and a combined bathroom. It can have two windows or a balcony. A family of two can live in it, sometimes with a child. All of the listed options are considered the most budget-friendly.

Hotel Small-family

Open layout and studio

These types of layout are often found in new buildings. They differ from hotel and small-family apartments in their larger area. The main feature of studios is the absence of internal walls between living spaces. Only the bathroom is isolated in the apartment, and the issue of privacy in the room is solved only by competent zoning. A studio is a suitable solution for creative people and lovers of minimalism.

The term “open plan” applies to apartments in monolithic buildings, but there is no such definition in the legal aspect. This means that there are no internal partitions, but there is still a plan on the drawings. Partitions will have to be built at your own expense in designated places: for example, in the bathroom and toilet area, which cannot be increased independently at the expense of rooms. All changes must be agreed with the BTI.

Studio

Swing-out apartment

It looks like a child’s shirt without buttons, which is why it is called that. The sleeve rooms in such an apartment are located opposite each other, and their windows face the street and the yard. The central part is the kitchen or bathroom. This layout has many advantages:

  • The living space seems larger.
  • The microclimate is better, since one side is always in the shade.
  • The rooms are easy to ventilate.
  • The isolated rooms are located far away, which ensures privacy.

There is one disadvantage – a dark corridor, which almost does not receive natural light due to the lack of windows (although it is difficult to call this a disadvantage, since daylight rarely gets into any corridor).

In addition to two-room and three-room apartments, a one-room apartment can also be a swing-through apartment, in which the living room and kitchen are separated by a bathroom.

Swing-through

Euro-two-room and Euro-three-room apartment

Apartments of this type have one or two living rooms, as well as a living room combined with a kitchen. Officially, Euro-two-room apartments are considered one-room apartments, but they have two living spaces, where the kitchen-living room takes up about 16 sq. m. or more.

Such apartments are cheaper than classic ones, they are optimal for a family of two and are quite comfortable for three. The main advantage of a combined kitchen and room is a comfortable space where all family members can gather.

Not everyone will like this layout, since there are fewer opportunities for privacy. The noise of kitchen appliances and the smell of cooked food can also be disturbing.

Euro-two-room apartment Euro-three-room apartment

Apartment with a walk-through room

A walk-through living space is a nodal point, connecting all the entrances to other rooms. Often found in Soviet Khrushchev-era apartments – the architects tried to compensate for the small area of the apartments by eliminating the corridor.

For a large family or barely familiar cohabitants, this layout has a significant drawback – if it is impossible to add a corridor, you will have to put up with constant walking through your personal space.

For one or a family of two, a walk-through layout will not cause any problems.

Apartment with a walk-through living room

Linear apartment

This layout is the most popular. All the rooms are on the same line, and the view from the windows is, accordingly, the same. The main advantage is the window opposite the entrance, which makes the apartment seem more spacious and bright.

The main disadvantage is sunlight and stuffiness in the summer if the windows face south, and gloomy coolness if the side is north.

In the new stock (unlike the old), communications in linear apartments are often located at two points, which provides advantages for redevelopment.

Linear layout

Corner apartments

According to the owners of premises with such a layout, it has more disadvantages than advantages. The temperature in a corner apartment is lower than in a regular one: the reason is the freezing of the walls and poor quality of the inter-panel seams.

Mold is also possible in insufficiently insulated rooms. These problems are inherent in the old housing stock: heat is retained better in new buildings thanks to modern building materials.

There are also advantages:

  • more windows facing different directions;
  • possibility of successful redevelopment if you need to rebuild a one-room apartment into a two-room apartment;
  • fewer neighbors.

Redevelopment in a corner apartment

Pay attention to the characteristics of the layouts to compare them with your needs and choose the most convenient housing.