Floor plan 185 sqm city villa tips

Hello dear house building users,

from another thread, another user gave us the tip to publish our house building plans/floor plan in order to get possible improvement suggestions. We are at the beginning of our planning phase and are in the process of deciding on Heinz von Heiden. The size of the house came about because we want 4 bedrooms and 1 bathroom on the upper floor. Basically, we like the standard floor plan. There are a few desired changes, such as a larger utility room, closed kitchen, shower in the guest WC, and a smaller living room. We would be very happy to receive tips and suggestions. Further down is a list of additional information.

Development plan/restrictions
Plot size: 700 m²
Slope: No
Floor area ratio: 0.4
Floor space index:
Building window, building line and boundary: 3 m each from the outer property boundary
Edge development
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2 full floors possible
Roof type: hipped roof
Style direction: urban style
Orientation
Maximum ridge height: 9.5 m

Client requirements
Building type: city villa
Floors: 2
Number of persons: 4 (1 still planned), 3 children's rooms
Room requirements on the ground floor: kitchen (closed), bathroom, living room, study, hallway, utility room
Room requirements upper floor: 3 children's rooms, 1 bedroom, 1 dressing room, bathroom, hallway
Office: study room with use as guest room (sofa bed)
Number of dining seats
Garage: single garage with possibility to use as storage room 4x9 m?

House design
Planning by: Heinz von Heiden
What do you particularly like? Why? Upper floor layout of the children’s rooms, bedroom with dressing room
What don’t you like? Why?: no shower on ground floor, open kitchen
Price estimate according to architect/planner: €312,000
Personal price limit for the house, incl. equipment:
Preferred heating technology: heat pump

Why is the design the way it is now?
Standard design from the planner

Rooms on the ground floor
(Living areas according to living space ordinance)
Living room: 45.62 m²
Kitchen: 9.83 m²
Guest room: 13.60 m²
WC: 4.18 m²
Hallway: 12.26 m²
House connection room: 7.61 m²


Rooms on the upper floor
(Living areas according to living space ordinance)
Bedroom: 17.25 m²
Dressing room: 8.43 m²
Children’s room I: 15.44 m²
Children’s room II: 14.04 m²
Children’s room III: 14.04 m²
Bathroom: 11.48 m²
Hallway: 11.91 m²



Best regards

At first glance, the budget seems really way too low to me. You want a house of about 10x10, that's 200 sqm for 315,000?

Otherwise, I find the hallway too small for a family, the kitchen too space-consuming and not practical for a family, the guest bedroom nice for guests, but you still have an extra children's room. A shower on the ground floor can be done by shrinking the guest room or putting the toilet under the stairs.

I would rather plan the kitchen and dining room in a row and separate the living room a bit than have dining and living together and the kitchen around the corner.

Personally, I don't find the straight staircase nice and wouldn't want it in the middle of the house like that. But that's probably a matter of taste. The same goes for the walk-in closet for me: what is supposed to be the advantage of that?

The bathroom is hard to furnish and equip with sanitary fixtures because it has more space in the middle than useful wall space. It is too big.

Overall, I find the design a good way to waste money. The house is too big and impractical and too square for me.

Price estimate according to architect/planner: €312,000

For 185 sqm? Never ever. Not even with Heinz von Heiden.

Unfortunately, the site plan and the positioning of the house on the property are missing.

And a few individual measurements are missing. The staircase looks quite short.

I see the price like my predecessors ... completely unrealistic or unclear what condition the delivery will be in.

I would place the bedroom access through the dressing room .. then the bedroom might also be a bit smaller. But, as I said, concrete measurements are missing here. For 5 people, I would also always try to accommodate the washing machine on the upper floor, preferably not in the bathroom, so rather a small utility room also for vacuum cleaner etc.

Doors should not be placed directly in room corners, like e.g. for Child 3.

It seems to be the Arcus B10. I assume that you haven't spoken with Heinz von Heiden yet and have only looked online to see who offers the 3 children's rooms - and also checked the price?! The 310,000€ is a pure catalog price. That's just how it is with general contractors. They naturally set the lowest price on the web. Although we didn't build with Heinz von Heiden back then, but had an almost identical scope of services, I can say that approximately another 1/5 to 1/4 of the price will be added if you want to reach roughly today's technical standards. The exterior views are also full of extra charges and upgrades. You can clearly see this by comparing the floor plan and the colored pictures. Realized houses look different. Even back then, the scope of services didn’t include items that an average general contractor would have, e.g. containers, exterior painting work, etc. I think nowadays you even have to paint your staircases yourself. But all this just by the way, because there is a moderated forum here – you can read about such things there as well. Also, I believe Heinz von Heiden has its own house forum where builders exchange information with each other.

Price estimate according to architect/planner: 312,000€

It clearly states starting price on the homepage. At least a ventilation system is already included, as well as photovoltaics. They naturally want to build according to the Building Energy Act, so such things have to be included. I bet they compensate for that elsewhere, e.g. in the tiling of wet rooms. However, you don't have to build elaborately or shy away from doing your own work, all good. You just have to be aware that a lot is still added on top.

Regarding the floor plan: neither fish nor fowl. 7 sqm + for a utility room is not enough for a 5-person household if laundry is also done there. You have no storage space: you won’t be able to use the tent roof like that. Possibly you can bend over and shove some boxes in there. With a 700 sqm plot and a floor area ratio of 0.4 and the desire for a “large family,” the city villa is the wrong choice. In my opinion, the more appropriate choice if the budget is tight would be a gable roof house, where you still get enough storage space in the upper floor and have better use of the rooms on the floor through the knee wall – yes, then with sloping ceilings on the upper floor. That’s just how it is.

Good evening,

first of all, thank you for your responses.

@
I have a plan attached. It concerns plot No. 90.
Furthermore, there are pictures with more precise measurements attached. We like the idea of the "small utility room" on the upper floor, but we don't know to what extent this is feasible or how Heinz von Heiden prices it. We have added it to our list.

Ground floor:

Upper floor:

@
We had an appointment with Heinz von Heiden. We went through 3 house variants there.
First, the unimprovable one, which is not adaptable.
Arcus 152:
We wanted to enlarge this somewhat (165-170m²), missing a children's room. Living room, utility room larger... Then we were at a similar price as with the B10.
Finally, we looked at the Arcus B10. Basically, the upper floor immediately appealed to us due to the 3 children's rooms and their equal size distribution, so at first, we had little to no criticism of the upper floor.
Photovoltaics are included... but at 1.5 kWp probably somewhat undersized.
On the lower floor, we wanted a closed kitchen, which was also included in the offer. Also, we wanted a larger utility room and a shower in the guest bathroom.
Our ideas to make the utility room a bit larger were to shift both the kitchen and utility room somewhat to the left in the floor plan and accordingly reduce the living room a bit.
We have an offer with inclusive and additional services (colored walls, utility room, side entrance door, etc.) Complete overview further below.
With the additional services, the offer amounted to €312,500.
The guest room is also intended to be used as a study since I partly work from home.

Why do you think the townhouse is exactly the wrong choice? "Only" because of the storage options?

Now a rough list of the services included.

We are grateful for tips (even if they deviate somewhat from the floor plan planning).

Regards

Christoph and Kathleen