Hello everyone,
First of all, thank you very much for the numerous feedback! I will try to address all points:
Regarding the costs: The budget of €450,000 - €500,000 is intended solely for the house. Garage, incidental building costs, outdoor facilities, etc. are additional. We are building in Lower Saxony (Hildesheim area) and, as mentioned, we already have offers from construction companies that stay within the budget.
Regarding the kitchen as a walkthrough room: We originally had a wall roughly where the kitchen island is placed, so that a proper hallway ran along the stairs. Since we have to build relatively narrow, this hallway would be comparatively long and take up a lot of space. The idea was to use the kitchen island as a room divider and leave enough circulation space upwards towards the stairs. This way, the kitchen becomes the centerpiece of the ground floor, which we like. Of course, we don’t know if this is really optimal in everyday life. Maybe someone has experience here?
Regarding the laundry room next to the bathroom: Here too, the idea was to avoid a large hallway. Actually, we quite like that the laundry room is accessible through the bathroom. This way, the laundry doesn’t have to be carried far and can be placed almost directly in the room next door before showering. People probably don’t spend too much time in this room anyway, just starting the washing machine or hanging up laundry.
I have seen this quite often now, that such a large size is planned at a relatively young age. Two offices and two children's rooms, although there is not even a child yet? I would rather plan with only one office, because as long as there are no children who each need their own room, there is an office/guest room.
But the questions make it clear that every room must be retained.
Are garage and outdoor facilities included in the €500,000 or is it only for the house?
Exactly, there are no children yet. Of course, it’s true that we don’t need the space at first. But as soon as children arrive, we need the two children’s rooms and two offices, since we both can/want to work from home. The opportunities for home office will rather increase than decrease in the future. That’s why we don’t want to plan too small and then regret the missing space later. Plus, we are planning without a basement and thus can’t just "create" an additional room.
The sentence "all desired rooms are accommodated" reveals the planning approach. A text is not automatically good just because all the necessary statements are included. It lacks structure, proportion, and orientation towards workflows.
I like the principle of avoiding circulation areas, but not the implementation.
That completely describes my impression. If the kitchen becomes the living center, to which the rooms connect, it’s quite a different thing.
I am all for diagonal and different, but in my opinion, this doesn’t work.
That is actually the goal: to make the kitchen the center. We understand the criticism expressed here but are not sure how to implement it better. Do you perhaps have ideas?
I can’t quite follow that.
We would like to build two full floors (city villa), but will probably have problems with the eaves height. According to building regulations, half the eaves height, but at least 3 m boundary distance must be maintained. Since our plot is only 15.5 m wide, we would like to comply with the 3 m boundary distance and may accordingly reach a maximum eaves height of 6 m. However, this does not seem possible with two full floors, so we could also live with a high knee wall (> 2 m).
Unfortunately, I don’t like it either. I find the kitchen unhappily placed. Apart from the uncomfortable walkthrough atmosphere, all smells and especially noises travel unhindered to the upper floor.
The guest WC can’t even fit the furniture? You can’t stand in front of the washbasin in the middle because of the shower.
Why the mini pantry? Groceries fit well in a tall kitchen cabinet, so you actually don’t need that.
Why should smells and noises from the kitchen travel to the upper floor? The kitchen can be completely closed off if needed and the stairs are also closed.
We haven’t put much effort into the guest WC yet, that’s true. But the wall towards the hallway could be easily raised a few centimeters so there should actually be enough space.
We planned the pantry because we have something similar in our current apartment and love storing all the groceries on shelves. This way, you keep it out of the kitchen but still don’t have a long way. Additional kitchen cabinets would of course also be possible – but we don’t see a big advantage here.
I don’t know the exact measurements, but somehow the stairs seem too short to me. How long is it currently planned?
The stairs are 370 cm long. We were guided here by the stair dimensions in the pinned thread "Floor plan planning – must read before posting!"
I’ll put it this way…
I would definitely sort out those who sent you an offer for this “draft” :oops:.
Is it really that bad? That seems a bit drastic to us to filter out the respective companies right away. Some larger well-known companies are among them.
Thanks again for all the criticism! We definitely take it seriously and will try to improve the floor plan or start completely anew. Do you have any ideas where we could start? Especially the kitchen was criticized. How could it be improved?
Best regards,
Raphael