Final floor plan draft - except for the windows

Hello everyone,

I would like to show our almost finished draft here.
Feel free to say what comes to your mind, what you like, what you don’t like.

Primarily, I want to discuss the arrangement of the windows on the ground floor. I have adjusted the drawing a bit and have sketched in our current furniture. Specifically, what bothers me is the arrangement of the rear window facing east as well as the positioning of the dining table. I would especially like feedback on these points.

A few notes:
North is always at the top (which is why some drawings are upside down).

1_Site:
- The neighbor to the west is far from the boundary (8m)
- To the east is a small forest area
- To the south, immediately behind our property, there is a railway track (6 regional trains per hour)
- To the north are the gardens of the houses on a northern street
- The street is a dead end and ends directly behind our property (red marking)
- Driveway (3x6m), house access (1x5m), terrace (4x5m) not drawn

2_Basement: no changes planned
K1 = Party/hobby/fitness
K2 = Storage
K3 = Guests (slope/window with daylight)
HA = house connections, gas boiler, controlled residential ventilation/heat recovery, washing machine & dryer

3_Ground Floor: possible changes in green
- Front door set back 50 cm
- Cloakroom and storage room in front of each other instead of next to each other (but not properly drawn)
- Extension of the chimney projection slightly lengthened so the fridge does not protrude
- Window at the couch should be a 2.00 m fixed element
- Next to it a lift-slide door / PSKT 2.00 m
- Toward the east at the dining table we want a 1.50 m fixed window element, here we are unsure where to best place it, possibly move it further north?
- Dining table is drawn as 1.00 x 1.70 m – unsure how it can be optimally placed

4_Upper Floor: no changes planned
- Special feature: separate children's bathroom
- We know that the wardrobes in the children’s rooms are drawn incorrectly

5_Section - no comments

6_Front-rear: windows revised
Front view: height of windows of the office and guest WC aligned
Rear view: window areas on the ground floor enlarged

7_Left-right: windows revised
Left: floor-to-ceiling element, which still gives us headaches; kitchen window height adjusted
Right: no comments

These are the matters currently occupying us.
Finally, the list with information:

Development plan/restrictions
Plot size: 372 sqm
Slope: plot slopes 50 cm down to the south in total
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.5
Building window: mandatory 5 m distance to the street at the front, then 15 m deep building possible; plus the usual 3 m to neighboring parcels
Edge development: no
Number of parking spaces: 1 in front of garage
Number of floors: 1
Roof shape: gable roof/hipped gable roof 43 - 47 degrees, flat roof
Style: ?
Orientation: ?
Maximum heights/limits: none
Further requirements: no shiny roof covering allowed

Client requirements
Style, roof shape, building type: classic, gable roof, detached single-family house
Basement, floors: yes, ground floor, developed attic (not a full floor)
Number of people, age: 2 adults: 33 and 30 years; 2 children planned
Space requirements on the ground floor, upper floor: as shown on the drawings
Office: family use or home office? Home office
Overnight guests per year: 10
Open or closed architecture: open
Conservative or modern construction: facade light plastered, roof covering, windows, doors, gates dark
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen without kitchen island
Number of dining seats: 4
Fireplace: yes
Music/stereo wall: combined with TV
Balcony, roof terrace: no, no
Garage, carport: yes, no (carport possibly later on the east side)
Utility garden, greenhouse: possibly small utility garden, no greenhouse
Further wishes/special features/daily routine: none

House design
Who planned it: relatives with corresponding professional background
What do you particularly like? open ground floor; minimal corridor area in the attic
What do you not like? we can’t think of anything
Price estimate according to architect/planner: 300,000 € (without outdoor facilities, painting, floor coverings, tiling)
Personal price limit for the house, including equipment: not fixed
Preferred heating technology: gas without solar (exceeding old energy saving ordinance by 15%; application submitted 2015)

If you have to give up something, on which details/expansions
- can you do without: nothing
- can you not do without: everything

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I took the liberty to straighten the uploaded pictures ;)

Rhenish greetings
Construction expert

Hmm ... kitchen .. how do you want to furnish it? There isn’t much workspace left.

The passage to the only terrace exit could become narrow, overall the furnishing actually reminds me of small cabins in a larger room. I find sofas as room dividers in only about 6.5 m room width rather confining.

Storage room .. if you do it like that, you might as well skip the storage room. In general, it might be better to design it as an open corner with floor-to-ceiling cabinets.

That’s it for now

A kitchen in L-shape 3 x 3 meters plus a separate refrigerator should be more than enough for us and also provide sufficient workspace. Maybe the kitchen door should be hinged on the other side so that it opens against the refrigerator and does not block the kitchen, that would be more practical.

The sofa was actually not intended as a room divider - but I also see the problem with the tightness. It might fit better as an L along the west and south walls, we would just have to figure out where to put the TV.

The storage room should have an internal width of 90 cm, as mentioned it is not 100% accurate but drawn too narrow.

Does anyone have ideas regarding the dining table and the window element in the southeast?

I took the liberty to straighten the uploaded pictures ;)

Rhenish regards
Construction expert

Hello Construction expert,
I had rotated them so that north is always at the top. You just have to think differently when looking at the site plan and then the floor plans.
Best regards

Are you sure the staircase works? With about 1.50m depth, it seems very short to me.

Well, how shall I put it, since this is already being advertised as final. I get the feeling you are trying to fit too many things into the few square meters. Roughly speaking, it should be between 120 and 125m², similar to ours. A study, a fireplace, a children's bathroom, and an extra storage room are all squeezed into the square meters. In my opinion, this leads to a loss of furniture arrangement, it results in cramped conditions or compartmentalization like on the upper floor. The planned open living-dining area thus turns into the cabins mentioned by ktb09. The children's bathroom, with an estimated depth of 1.3m, basically consists almost entirely of a sloping roof. One can only hope that the children don’t outgrow it too quickly.

You have the toilet drain above the kitchen... I don’t think that’s good. I would basically ... ahem ... put the children’s rooms in the south and the bedroom and bathroom in the north. I would probably, intuitively and spontaneously, also put the office in the north, set the garage back as far as possible. Also move the house further back so that the kitchen is in the southeast. Garden in the south, because it’s a dead-end street anyway and probably quieter than the north garden. Oh yes, and then of course the entrance from the side :) But then it would be a completely different house... But that’s how I would approach it. You surely had a reason not to consider the possibility of the quiet south garden and the view from the living area into the forest in the west at all. I’d be interested, would you like to share your reasons with us?

The staircase is 1.75m deep and it works – it’s exactly the same in my parents’ house. By the way, the living area is 128 sqm. The children’s bathroom has a depth of 1.70m (excluding the niche for the shower) and 50 cm from the wall the room height is already 2 meters. I, being just over 1.80m tall, could lean my shoulder against the wall without hitting my head. Why do you see nesting? The shower in the children’s bathroom as well as the wardrobe in the master bedroom are each in a niche, which we personally like very much. Otherwise, I don’t see any disturbing recesses or the like. I think the problem is that Bauexperte “rotated back” my pictures, so my note in the description that north is always at the top no longer applies. The children’s rooms are in the south and bedroom and bathroom in the north. Likewise, the office is in the north and the garage connects on the west side to the neighboring garages (see image 1, which shows the location), the garden is in the south, view to the forest is possible (here I hope for help with the positioning of the 150cm window element). So apart from the toilet drain, the orientation corresponds to your suggestions, and to avoid this confusion I originally uploaded the floor plans upside down. :)