Draft EHF with slope

:)Hello dear forum,

I have been reading along for some time now and have been especially interested in Kisska’s post. It’s similar for us. We have a hillside location and have planned the front door on the lower floor. Eventually, 4 people are supposed to live in the house. Currently, there are only two of us.

We have been planning with our architect since April and by now we already like the interior layout and the positioning of the house and garage on the plot suits us. We still don’t like the exterior views at all, but I have included them for completeness so you can better imagine how the house will later stand on the plot.

About the plot:
There is no development plan because it’s an old property. An old house and a shed will still be demolished. Below is the street and the only access, and a very nice view over the river. Above is a steep slope/mountain, which is also a green oasis, but from 6 p.m. the sun “disappears.” Up to the bottom edge of the old garage there is a flood risk, so the house cannot be placed too low (in the southeast).

About the house:
It was important to us to have an unobstructable view, but still enough sunny garden and light. We really like the solution with the roof terrace on the garage, since we don’t lose the space of the garage roof and a direct access from garage to house is possible.
We want two full floors because we are already living for the second time in an apartment with sloped ceilings and we don’t like that and it reduces the living quality. However, this means the house looks very tall from below, you can see almost 3 full floors! :( Therefore, the planner made us a suggestion on how to reduce the height, but we don’t like this first draft. The corridor/courtyard in front of the front door could feel oppressive and the view from below/front becomes restless. Maybe you have good ideas? I have in mind a wooden facade for the upper floor.

About the floor plans:
The lower floor is finished for us in terms of layout. Let’s see what you think :D
The ground floor is almost done. The guest bathroom/pantry/kitchen solution is not ideal yet, but better than before.
In the upper floor, we have “randomly” swapped the rooms. The bedroom was originally Child 1’s room. We want two equally sized children’s rooms and possibly a walk-in closet to the bedroom, or at least the possibility to look out the window from the bed instead of onto the wardrobe wall.
We don’t like the windows and also the views like this yet. Especially this large “around the corner” solution will definitely be removed.

So, that was a lot of text. I hope not too much and I’m very curious what you think about the drafts :):cool:

Many greetings

Why is the toilet area in the bathroom upstairs so huge and the shower so small? I would try to move the window in the toilet further towards the stairs and place the disposal shaft somewhere else. Otherwise, I like the layout and use of space on the upper floor. I don’t notice anything negative on the ground floor, I like it. However, the workshop in the basement would be far too small for me, especially considering there are 4sqm for shoes??? What kind of clunky shoes do you have that you need so much space for shoes???

Maybe it's more about the number of shoes?! When I look at our masses here... and everything would be stored in one room. Including seasonal clothing. I - as a woman - like the idea ;)

Thank you for the first and quick feedback! :-)

That is probably indeed because we wanted to have a window in the toilet so that we don't always have to turn on the light. It's a good point. However, I don't have a good idea where the laundry chute could go since we also want to toss the laundry into the bathroom on the ground floor. Unless we swap the bathroom and pantry on the ground floor... The "shoe" room is actually meant to serve as a wardrobe. That means it should store, as milkie correctly wrote, the seasonal items (winter jackets), shoes, inline skates, etc... In the hallway, there will then only be the jackets and shoes we need daily and the wardrobe for guests. (Later, there will also be room for a stroller in the hallway, etc. ;-) )

At first glance, a nice floor plan... my first thought was that I would probably swap the kitchen with the study. And that the path from the entrance to the stairs is too long. On the second look – and now I will confuse you a bit: on the second look, you are sitting on the beautiful rooftop terrace in the blazing sun in the south. With natural trees providing some pleasant shade, there isn’t much, at most a few flower pots, which, of course, do not provide any shade. Possibly a parasol. But what does the person do: they look for a spot under tree cover in the greenery, namely with you back there in the northwest. That’s when I would again be thinking about orienting the living rooms to the south and WEST and northwest, where I can visit cozy spots from the kitchen. Regarding the height of the building: yes, very tall... I would also see that as a minor problem. Off the top of my head, I would think of a staggered/misaligned upper floor or setting the knee wall to, for example, 1.60 meters height. Then it would also have little to do with roof slopes.

Hello, I hope you also had such a nice sunny weekend! :-)


Do you mean by orienting it to the south that the whole house should be rotated? Or do you mean that the study and the kitchen should be swapped?

By shifted upper floor do you mean a shed roof? Honestly, we don’t like that very much and it probably wouldn’t be approved anyway, since the entire neighborhood consists only of gable roofs. The knee wall idea is also a good one. We have to think about it. But wouldn’t that be more expensive? Our architect currently said that whether normal roof slopes and dormers or a full story with a very simple roof, the price would be roughly the same. With one I need fewer bricks but more labor to cover the dormers and roof slopes. With the other more bricks and plaster, but the roof is very simple and goes faster.

Any other ideas or potential for improvement?

PS: Something like the picture in my profile is how I could well imagine it with the wooden cladding on the upper floor.