Attic floor (townhouse) or Frisian house with flat roof gable?

Hello,

I have been reading along for some time now. We (2 adults without children) are considering changing our living situation. We are still looking for rental houses, but are slowly also toying with the idea of owning a home. Existing properties are very hard to find. To be honest, in the last 2 years I haven’t found anything I even wanted to view (it looks better for rentals). We have already visited building fairs and had financial advice. Market observation has shown that building can be just as cost-effective (existing properties are not cheaper) and of course also has the design advantages.

So we are still at the very beginning. The reason for this post is that we soon have an appointment with a developer (I already have countless catalogs here). Background: we now know where we stand financially, but we don’t really know how much the whole thing could cost. Before we really get started (looking for land etc.) we want to know what we can afford at all and whether we can get what we imagine. Otherwise, we would probably wait longer.

Now we have a fundamental discussion. My partner would like to build a stepped floor building (city villa). Basically, I think that’s good as long as it’s not a blocky square. But there are different design possibilities.

I have now fought my way through various catalogs and come to the following conclusion: Such a city villa is clearly more expensive in base price than, for example, a Frisian house or other similar houses.

Our compromise would be some kind of Frisian house with a flat roof gable.

After playing around with the floor plans, I came to the next insight: Such a city villa needs much more floor space than a "normal" house with a pitched roof. That, of course, hits the wallet again.

Now I have found the following pros and cons for myself:

City house:
Pro:
- straight walls on both floors / no sloping walls
- modern

Contra:
- price
- less space
- no expandable attic

Frisian house with flat roof gable:
Pro:
- price
- storage space
- usable space under the roof

Contra:
- sloping walls upstairs
- either no roof windows or living with the disadvantages of having them
- flat roof gable could cause waterproofing problems (in the long run)

To give you a better idea of what we have in mind:
- double garage (with room at the end)
- no open kitchen, but separated (e.g. with sliding door) and still the possibility to eat comfortably with 4 people in the kitchen (plus a dining room for a standard 6 people, possibly expandable to 8 or 10)
- guest WC with shower on the ground floor
- storage room (for house electronics and tools as well as canned food, beverage crates, freezer on the ground floor)
- 2 children's rooms
- 1 master bedroom with dressing room (a possibility with 2 small dressing rooms is also conceivable)
- bathroom with bathtub and walk-in shower 90x120 and double washbasin
- laundry room for washing machine, dryer and space to dry laundry
- we need a "man cave" which also has to be usable as a work room for business (without external visitors)
- ventilation system (central or decentralized still open) with heat recovery
- small room for photo stuff, desk and PC (an attic conversion would be ideal here)
- storage space for decorations (not currently needed), suitcases, books, old toys, extra chairs etc. (ideal: converted attic)
- nice to have would possibly be a masonry fireplace (integrated in the wall so that no pipe etc. is visible)
- KfW70 (possibly rather not KfW 70+ house)
- (for Frisian house) converted attic with fixed stairs

In addition, if we had the possibility that someone could stay overnight properly with us, we would get visits 2-3 times a year by 2-4 people each. But this is not a priority.

The next challenge I currently see is that I absolutely want a floor plan where I can have the couch placed sideways to the window. That means looking straight ahead at the TV and to the right or left into the garden (south side). Such a floor plan seems impossible. Does anyone have an idea?

Summary:
- City villa yes/no
- Where do I get storage space in the city villa?
- Do I really need more sqm in the city villa?
- Is the city villa really fundamentally more expensive?
- Can I get by with 150-160 sqm with the wishes?
- How do I manage to have a side garden view from the living room and a frontal TV view?

I understand if some here write that you can plan nothing without a plot because then you only know what the development plan allows. But we would simply like to know beforehand what we want and whether it is even feasible. It is clear that the development plan and the orientation of the plot are ultimately decisive. We are already looking for land and only search for plots with a south orientation. What we are looking for and what we get are on different sheets, I know that.

I would still be happy to get helpful answers to these questions here so that our project slowly becomes more tangible.

Thank you very much.

Greetings from the far north.

CarinaJ

oh yes, one more thing I just thought of. Having a basement is not an option. This is very uncommon and expensive in this region (Grundwasser und später Probleme mit Feuchtigkeit im Keller). Older buildings often have (feuchte) basements or half-height basements, but in newer buildings it is absolutely uncommon.

Why don't you build a completely normal city villa without a setback floor? With two equally sized floors, you also don't have to build a larger footprint. What is a Friesenhaus with a flat roof gable? I think a Friesenhaus has a pointed third gable?

Best regards
Sabine

Hello Sabine,

thanks for the reply.

Whether both floors are the same size or the upper one is smaller doesn’t really solve the space problem itself. So that would also be possible. You don’t have a usable attic anyway.

I don’t know what to call it, there are houses that are completely rectangular and have a gable roof. The gable does not have a pointed roof (like e.g. with the Frisian or old gentlemen’s gable), but a flat roof. Often you see that this area with the gable is also designed in a different color. House white and the gable passage red. However, we would want to build the house completely brick-faced (to minimize/avoid follow-up costs like painting).

Regards

CarinaJ

Why should there be no attic? It is somewhat flatter and depends on the slope.

These urban villas always have a tent roof with many braces and also a very low roof pitch. There won’t be any usable space left, will there? At least I haven’t found a floor plan or a picture anywhere on the Internet showing what something like that could look like. Do you have an example?