Floor plan design and offer single-family house approx. 180 sqm

Hello everyone,

after being a silent reader for half a year and having learned a lot here in the forum, I would like to ask for your feedback on the current status of our house construction today.

We (my wife 27, employee in human resources and I (30, IT management consultant) are planning to build a single-family house in Lower Franconia (Kitzingen district) for us and our unborn 2 + possibly 1 children5.

We have already purchased a plot of land (545m² (approx. 27x20 meters)) in a new development area.
The plot is fully developed, neighboring buildings or trees etc. are currently not yet present.
I have attached a detailed plan.

Restrictions due to the development plan:
- almost flat plot, slope from the street approx. 1 meter to the end of the plot
- floor area ratio 0.4
- floor space index 1.2
- building window 3 meters away from the street and setback areas according to Bavarian building regulations
- 2 parking spaces required
- maximum wall height 3.60 meters

We are already quite advanced in the floor plan design, the details can also be found in the attachment.

What has been/is important to us in the current planning:

Gable roof house with bay window with approx. 180 sqm living space (12.5 x 9.5 meters plus bay window 4x1 meter)
Moderate knee wall (between 75 and 100 cm inside)
Home office needed for regular work from home
Guest sleepers per year (max. 5, in absolute exceptional cases more than one at the same time)

The following rooms are required on the ground floor:

- sufficiently large entrance area
- WC with shower and wide door (for a visiting wheelchair user who must be able to drive up to the toilet. Accessibility according to DIN is not required)
- utility room with space for air-water heat pump, water storage tank, washing machine & dryer (stacked), washbasin, electrical panel, water connection, telecom connection, photovoltaic system & Caterva Sonne (21 KW battery storage). Furthermore, the clothes drying rack should also be foldable.
- study & guest room (sofa, desk, file cabinet)
- open staircase
- spacious, open kitchen for cooking for two
- pantry
- comfortable living/dining room (based on friends' experience about 40 m² for us)
- no steps on the ground floor, ramp-like access to the front door

On the upper floor we need:
- bedroom
- dressing room
- bathroom with two washbasins and masonry shower, bathtub and if possible laundry chute to the utility room
- 3 children's rooms
- daylight in the upper floor would be nice (alternatively perhaps motion sensor spots?)

Further wishes regarding equipment:
- fireplace
- number of dining seats 6+2
- TV wall
- single garage/carport on the east boundary with as large a storage room as possible
- utility garden approx. 15 m²
- garden house approx. 10 m²
- maximum garden yield towards the southwest (terrace & lawn)
- electric blinds
- underfloor heating
- windows & front door in anthracite

House design:
- The planning comes from: planner of a prefabricated house manufacturer based on our own rough draft

What we particularly like:
- kitchen with living/dining area
- bedroom & dressing room
- the two larger children's rooms
- remaining garden area

What we don’t like yet:
- arrangement in the bathroom (upper floor): shower should be enclosed
- stairs (due to the cut into the utility room and bathroom)
- the location of the fireplace in the living room
- pantry too narrow (wall must be shifted approx. 25 cm towards the kitchen)

Personal budget limit for the whole project:
500,000 EUR
This should include the following:
Plot (545 m² * 82.50 EUR => 44,962.50 EUR)
Acquisition incidental costs
House price
Additional construction costs
Outdoor facilities (garage/carport; paving work; terrace; basic garden landscaping; garden house)
Kitchen (approx. 15,000 EUR)
Photovoltaic system (approx. 8.5 kWP) (offer pending)
Caterva Sonne (27,500 EUR)
Fireplace
Rainwater cistern (approx. 2,500 L)

Attachments:
- Floor plans ground floor/upper floor
- Site plan plot
- Existing lines on the plot
- Planned arrangement on the plot in the garden planner
- Exterior views

Thank you in advance for feedback and comments on any topics you notice.
If I have forgotten anything or there are questions open, I will respond promptly.

Please understand that the rights to the images and floor plans of the house do not belong to me but to the planner.

The bathtub and toilet are in the u2m area, and the pantry can only be accessed by sled. The connection between the porch / prefabricated garage is terrible. The passage door to the garage would require not choosing the narrowest garage model: since nothing can be carried through when the car is inside, the (in my opinion already overrated) practicality is greatly relativized.

After half a year of reading along, this should no longer happen.

By the way, the house is visualized quite flat, but in the site plan it looks like a 1.25 m slope over the width of the plot (?)

Pantry also caught my attention, it is not at all usefully usable, e.g. freezer cabinet

Bathroom on the upper floor .. door right next to the shower with a total of 180 cm is simply too narrow. Laundry chute in the bathroom results in a slalom path into the bathroom.

Master bedroom and dressing room consume about 26 sqm of floor space (just under 22 sqm of living space) and offer barely enough space for about 4 to 5 meters of closet.

I would maximize the knee wall according to the regulations.

Unfortunately, I do not quite understand where North is or how the house is actually situated on the property. I just can’t assign the front door. Maybe I have a total mental block.

Who talked you into buying the battery storage, and one that is oversized by a factor of 3-4 as well?

The bathtub and toilet are in the u2m area, and the pantry can only be accessed by sled. The connection between the porch / prefabricated garage is awful. The passage door to the garage would require not choosing the narrowest garage model: since you can’t carry anything through when the car is inside, this considerably diminishes the (in my opinion, anyway overrated) practicality.

After half a year of reading along, this shouldn’t happen anymore.

By the way, the house is visualized quite flat, but in the site plan, it looks like there is a 1.25 m slope across the width of the property (?)

Thank you for your feedback. I have to be honest that I haven’t seen a problem so far if the toilet and bathtub are at the height of the slope? Isn’t that conceivable? However, as mentioned, the bathroom is also an issue where we’re not yet happy with the arrangement. I completely agree about the pantry. It’s also one of the points we haven’t liked so far. The wall will be moved 25 cm towards the kitchen. Then it should fit and the kitchen will still be big enough.

The garage issue is correct. It needs to be reconsidered.

The railing issue is correct. The visualization is flat. It has to be filled in order to be level with the street.

so far no problem seen if the toilet and bathtub have the slope at that height?

Well, the bathtub may stand underneath, the toilet should also be operable without hitting your head on the slope. That means: the front edge must at least touch the 2-meter line.

In addition to pure storage, this offers further advantages which in my opinion even outweigh that. The company Caterva acts as a regulator on the electricity market with all customer storage units (buying power peaks and storing them in the customers’ storage units & selling shortages to the electricity market from the Caterva sun units). For this, one receives a monthly rebate (fixed amount guaranteed) and another advantage: through this system it doesn’t matter when I need electricity. I have the amount over the year including what I generate on my roof. What I don’t consume is fed into the grid (but that is only a side effect).

That reads like something out of a promotional magazine. My neighbor also has such a (similar) unit. He curses the monthly! tax work because with this system he is an entrepreneur and obliged to deliver punctually every month. When you calculate the hourly wage...

Regarding the pantry: I would probably tear it down if it were mine. You have to circle around the house inside just to drop off the small shopping and then make yourself a coffee.

The bathroom on the upper floor will be an absolute challenge. The floor plan doesn’t make it easier either, because due to the staircase location you have no options to move the relevant walls. To my taste, the generally upper-plan area (i.e., behind the stairs) is a bit too narrow in the design.

Regarding the knee wall: what we have ourselves is what I would call the absolute minimum: 125 raw construction measure... if I were to build again, I would set it to 150 ;)