What a 20×30 house usually holds
- Ground floor: parking or a front room, living, kitchen and a bathroom.
- First floor: two bedrooms and a bathroom, or one bedroom and a family lounge.
- Second floor or terrace: a third room, a home office or an open terrace with the water tank.
Whether you can build three floors depends on the floor area ratio and height rules for your area, so check those first.
Small plot, big decisions
The staircase is the most expensive square footage in the house. On a 20-foot-wide plot, a stair of about 3 feet wide takes up a large share of each floor. A compact dog-legged stair against a side or rear wall usually wastes the least space.
Parking costs you a room. A car inside the plot takes most of the ground-floor frontage. If street parking works for you, the same space becomes a living room with a view of the street.
Bring light down from the top. Side walls are often shared or close to neighbours. A skylight or an open-to-sky shaft above the stair lights every floor and pulls hot air up and out.
Furniture first. In small rooms, a door swinging the wrong way or a window in the wrong wall can make a bed or wardrobe impossible to place. We size every room for its furniture before fixing the walls.
Vastu on a small plot
On 600 sq ft, perfect Vastu for every room is rarely possible. Prioritise the entrance, the kitchen (south-east or north-west) and keeping toilets out of the north-east. Put the stair towards the south or west where you can.