Floor plan again - Prefabricated house shortly before building application

Hello community,

We would like to share our planned floor plans & elevations from the preliminary prints to get some last feedback before we return the preliminary prints and have the building application submitted at the beginning of next week.

A single-family house is being built for a family with currently 1 child (2nd planned) with 142sqm living space, gable roof with 1.30m knee wall, with air-to-water heat pump and integrated controlled residential ventilation from a major prefab house provider from northern Hesse in a building gap in a northern Hesse village edge location.

Documents attached.

Site plan
- Building boundaries -> exemptions in prospect
- Lots of garden, house front in line with the neighbors (therefore not set further back)
- Sewer connection needs to be extended in the street.

Elevations / base wall
- To the south are the (not so important) neighbors
- To the north are the parents-in-law
- Symmetry of the exterior view/windows was difficult. Everything is a compromise. We like east and west well. North and south are suboptimal but we accept that as we do not want to give up the desired window positions inside
- Unfortunately, according to the architect, we need a base wall/retaining wall because at the highest point under the house (southwest) we have to raise over 1m. Our house building company (which also has the foundation slab in the construction and service specifications) wants to execute these 13 linear meters for just under €8,000 (excluding perimeter insulation). We were told that if we get a good soil report certifying good load-bearing capacity, we can forgo the base wall and slope off. Is that realistic or are they fooling us and we should actually expect these additional costs?
Yes, sloping off to 3m is also not optimal but neither is €8,000 which we hadn’t budgeted for…

Ground floor plan
Deviating from the shown floor plan, we currently have the following changes in mind:
- Guest WC door to open towards the hallway
- The 2 fixed light bands in the living room will get roller shutters (although they cannot be cleaned from the inside)
- The study window will be shifted slightly to be universally in the middle of the wall

In the utility room, I still need space for a network cabinet. However, I don’t want to use the wall next to the house connections for this because a shelf will go there. Any ideas on how to better divide this without reducing the wall space for the coat rack?

Upper floor plan
Deviating from the shown floor plan, we currently have the following changes in mind:
- The partition wall between the shower and the washbasin will not be room-high except for a support beam; the top will remain open by 30cm for steam extraction and light
- The WC moves to the very bottom left, the bathtub next to it on the right. Privacy panel in between. Tiled shelves around the bathtub

Other opinions?
I know everyone builds for themselves (and will reject some feedback), but maybe we have some major blunders.
More eyes see more.

Thank you.

You did not take the sun (south orientation) into account? Personally, I would have basically countered everything (at least the upper part, living room, kitchen, and WC) along the vertical line (plan), so that the main rooms face south and the bathrooms face north. This naturally suggests placing everything on one side, including the utility room. The house will be very dark in winter as it is now.

Hello,

Overall, I really like the floor plan.

However, I would still reconsider a few small details (for myself):

The doors to the toilet and the utility room on the ground floor and to the bathroom in the attic are "only" 77 cm wide (all other doors are 90 cm wide). Apart from the different appearance, which will probably be more noticeable in the attic due to the position of the doors than on the ground floor, I think it is worth considering whether I would make the doors narrower specifically for the sanitary rooms and the utility room (this could become tight when carrying a laundry basket) – keyword here: accessibility. It does not necessarily have to be a wheelchair – with crutches or a walker, a few centimeters of extra space is already appreciated.

Also, the passage between the "cooking half-island" and the kitchen cabinets might, at least visually, represent a bottleneck in the otherwise generous room layout.

The beginning of the stairs to the attic is located immediately in the "dirty area" behind the front door. It will hardly be avoidable to carry dirt from outside "up" the stairs – walking barefoot or in socks in this area is then also not very nice.

With a depth of 140 cm, the splash area of the shower will reach into the entrance area of the bathroom – here, either a shower door (which is probably not desired) or a fundamentally different bathroom layout could be considered.

Regards,

Dirk

By the way, I notice that the windows on the upper floor are very small. The same applies to the dining area. If I were you, I would mark the actual size there.

Thank you already for the first feedback.
Even if, apart from the door width, I have not yet taken any changes for myself from it, it does give me the opportunity to reflect in writing on things that others might do differently.


I don’t quite understand your feedback about the orientation towards the sky.
It was not an option for us to orient the terrace to the south because it is a narrow plot and otherwise we would essentially only be looking at the left neighboring house. Also, the biggest height difference arises there at the southwest corner.

That’s why everything is oriented to the back towards the west. Although it also has a slight southern tendency.
The living room receives light from the first light strip from noon onwards and through the western window front from the afternoon as well as the nice evening sun over the fields.
The kitchen faces north but hopefully still gets enough light through the dining room windows.

The terrace is planned rather towards the west (and not all around south & west) because there is the large height difference (support wall) in the south and our entire garden orientation will rather be towards the neighbor in the north. These are the parents-in-law and we will combine the gardens. The trampoline and playhouse are already there

I also think the windows in the living/dining room and kitchen should be sufficient.
These are 2 x 2 m light strips at the southwest corner in the living room and 2 x 2 m double-leaf floor-to-ceiling terrace doors.
And in the kitchen a 2 m double-leaf window with a high sill height (because the sink will probably be there, so you can lean something on it to dry).
But the kitchen is facing north, I think most of the light will come in through the terrace doors anyway.

You would have placed the kitchen to the south, dining room to the southwest, living room to the northwest?

If I were to rotate anything, it would actually only be the plot, but as is well known, that is not possible.

And where in the upper floor should we make the windows larger?
They are all floor-to-ceiling windows with a fixed element below.
We don’t want skylights (mainly due to costs).
It is simply not a city villa, so each room only has one wall where a window can be placed.

And where does the dining area have too few windows? There are 4 meters of floor-to-ceiling window area through the 2 double terrace doors.
We didn’t want to add another window on the north wall of the dining room to be able to place a cabinet or something there.


Thanks for the note about the door width.
We can change that at no extra cost.
We will probably do this in the attic bathroom.
In the utility room I am still hesitating. Regarding the heating (the LWZ304 is quite a beast), the house builder says it fits through the door if it has to be replaced, otherwise they wouldn’t install it. Even though on installation day it will of course be hoisted in by crane.
The note about laundry baskets is correct. I am just wondering if I really want to reduce the space for the wardrobe because of that.
But it will be discussed again with the better half. We really hadn’t thought about the laundry baskets.
Thanks.

The shower in the attic is supposed to have a fairly flat shower tray and there will be a door in front of it as well.
I don’t like open showers.
So there should be no problem with splashing water.

We are aware that the first step of the staircase is in the dirt area.
We would prefer it differently as well but with other house models with other staircase shapes and positions, we would have had to make other compromises. That is why we have chosen the better compromise for us.

The kitchen planning was basically adopted by the draftsman as desired but of course we will still change things in detail and make sure that there is enough space for the passage there.
How much space in cm should be planned for that? We are currently planning about 1 m in SweetHome3D.
And how much "maneuvering width" between stove and the opposite kitchen wall? We are currently planning about 1.20 m.

Ypg thinks, as do I by the way, that mainly the upper floor could be mirrored, i.e. the bathroom to the right according to the plan, the master bedroom would then remain on the right according to the plan, facing north, and both children's rooms would be on the left according to the plan, facing south. Because the north children's room will not be particularly bright anyway.

For this, on the ground floor, the hallway would have to be mirrored as well and the access to the utility room possibly arranged via the kitchen. In the kitchen, do it so that on the left according to the plan there are tall cabinets on the wall, then the door below, and the kitchen, for example, with a U-shape on the right according to the plan in the kitchen area.

Do you want to arrange the furniture in the living area as indicated? I would try to catch some south sun there. The light bands don’t bring much there and always give me the impression in living rooms that I am in the basement.