Floor plan design for a single-family house for a young family

Hello dear home builders,
my wife and I want to start building our own home next year and are therefore already busy planning. The plot of land with 900 m² is already in our possession (inherited). The northwest border of the plot is a small stream (one of the reasons not to build a basement), adjacent to it are large trees up to the building area. The southeast border is a street (quiet cul-de-sac). The two adjacent plots are still empty, with a multi-family house soon to be built to the northeast. The southwestern plot (500 m²) belongs to my parents and should not be built on or sold without necessity (it can be used by us as a garden). For this reason, the living rooms should also face the southwest.
The house should have space for 2 adults and 3 children, but ideally also work if there are only 2 or even 4 children. When the children have left the house someday, there should be the possibility to use the upper floor as a separate apartment.

We have now received the first drafts from our architect and wanted to hear some opinions before we go into too much detail in planning and then later notice fundamental disagreements.

About variant 1: The architect has set the roof as low as possible here to keep the price down and works with skylights and dormers, which we like visually, but I’m actually not a big fan of it ("hole" in the roof, difficult to clean, worse insulation). Regarding the ground floor, it should be mentioned that the room at the entrance is a bit too small and the separate exit to the garden between the living room and bathroom can be omitted. On the upper floor, we miss a storage room or a space for a large wardrobe (bedding, towels, possibly vacuum cleaner, etc.). What we especially like is the large covered passage to the garden on the front door side and the recessed corner with the terrace.

About variant 2: Here, the upper floor is much more flexible due to the higher roof, but the estimated price of the house is also 15,000 higher. At first glance, we thought there were too many small rooms, but on second glance, we actually like it very much. The small room to the left of the bathroom can either be a guest room, office, bedroom for 1-2 children, or later become a kitchen. I think some fine-tuning is definitely needed here, but we like the concept. What we don’t like about V2 is the passage from the carport to the garden through the shed.

Apart from general ideas and improvement suggestions for the floor plan, we are particularly interested in your opinion on the topic of dormers and skylights vs. a 1m higher knee wall, how much money can be saved with this and what actual disadvantages come with many skylights and dormers.

Development plan/restrictions
Plot size: 900m², or 1400m² (see text)
Slope: no
Floor area ratio: 0.4
Plot ratio: 0.8
Number of floors: 2 full floors allowed
Roof shape: gable roof 25°-38°
Orientation: ridge line parallel to the street, so northeast to southwest

Requirements of the builders
Style, building type: modern wooden house
Basement, floors: no basement, 1.5 - 2 floors, upper floor separable later
Number of persons, age: 2 adults, 3 children (1st 1 year old, 2nd in the belly, 3rd planned)
Space requirement on the ground floor: kitchen, living, dining, shower bath, technology & utility, 1 room or depending on upper floor the possibility to separate one later
Space requirement on the upper floor: bath, 3-4 rooms
Office: small workspace for PC etc. desirable
Annual overnight guests: no extra guest room needed
Open or closed architecture: open
Conservative or modern construction: doesn't matter, rather modern
Open kitchen, cooking island: yes and yes
Number of dining seats: 8
Garage, carport: carport for 2 cars with shed for bicycles and garden tools

House design
Who created the design: architect
What do we like particularly?
V1: covered corner terrace, arrangement of technology - shed - carport - front door, light in the living room from 2 opposing sides
V2: layout of the upper floor
What don’t we like?
V1: many skylights and dormers
V2: passage on the front door side to the garden only possible through the shed
Price estimate according to architect/planner: V1 430,000, V2 445,000 (all included except kitchen and access)
Personal price limit for the house, including equipment: 500,000
Preferred heating technology: heat pump

If you have to do without, which details/extras
-can you do without: 2nd covered parking space
-can you not do without: large bicycle/tool shed

Hmm, I don't really like either version.

Version 1 clearly has the nicer children's rooms on the upper floor. Because with version 2, you also have to realize how windows look from the inside with a knee wall height of 200 cm. Especially when a roller shutter box is integrated there. Then, at a maximum height of 155 to 160 cm, the glass ends. I would find it annoying to walk through the rooms and have no window view.

In both versions, the upper floor bathroom seems cramped and not very suitable for a family of 4 to 6 people.

In version 2, I still don't see how one would spatially separate it. And if you want to spatially separate it, how is the use of the upper floor then intended? Rental to outsiders? But on the ground floor, there must at least be a room that also meets the criteria of a bedroom with enough closet space for 2 adults. I don't see that at all.

Therefore, you should first reconsider this desire to separate the floors. Then you could also place the stairs much nicer.

Hello Sciurus,
I’ll keep it brief today:

In view of the statement that you could also imagine a separation of the ground floor and the upper floor later on, I prefer V2, as you can convert the work niche into a bedroom there without sacrificing comfort in the living room.
However, this should already be planned now, considering that in old age one might not be as agile anymore, see barrier-free accessibility (no unnecessary corners and doors not too narrow). This concerns the future bedroom on the ground floor.
As for the kitchen passage, we’ll have to see about moving it? The kitchen is apparently a placeholder; I would place the island vertically in the plan.
I see problems in the current bedroom...

Wouldn’t it be more logical to plan an office/bedroom downstairs right away and upstairs only 3 children’s rooms plus a bedroom?

Regards Yvonne

: We don’t really like either variant, which is why I created the post here. Thanks for the note about the window heights with a 2m knee wall; I think a solution could be found there. For example, making the roof even flatter (although the development plan doesn’t allow much more, but if everything else is followed…) and instead raising the knee wall.
The bathrooms shouldn’t actually be any smaller, but in principle that’s fine, we don’t need that much space there. There is one on each floor anyway.
, ypg: The idea to be able to use the two floors separately later comes from wanting to still be able to use the house fully when the kids are no longer living there, especially with multiple children and a corresponding number of rooms, otherwise that would be a shame. Our architect made the designs with our requirement to be able to separate the floors. We don’t really like the staircase in the corner that almost inevitably results from that; it creates a lot of hallway/traffic space and significantly limits the options for layout. Where would you place the staircase otherwise? In the middle at the top instead of in the top right corner?
: All furnishings, including the kitchen, were more or less placed by the architect just for decoration; I don’t like the kitchen in V2 at all either. I think one room downstairs would definitely make sense, maybe making the room from V1 a bit wider, I quite like that. However, the current design is still missing a small room upstairs, with a higher knee wall that should be possible to accommodate.

The 22.5° roof pitch in variant 2 and the 40° in variant are already no longer within the range of the allowed roof pitch.

If 2 full stories are allowed, why not plan for 2 full stories?

And, bathrooms don’t have to be huge rooms, but the individual elements should be usable. Imagine the bathroom in variant 1. The tub is under the sloping roof in the area with a room height of 1 to 2 m and is probably framed right next to it by a shower about 100 cm square. And this shower already starts where the room height is only 200 cm. Ok, there is still a skylight above the tub/WC... but getting comfortably into the tub is a different story.

Bedroom in variant 1... what kind of wardrobes do you want to put there? Hardly any 200 cm wardrobe in standard height fits. Even in variant 2 it won’t be much better.

Children’s room 11 sqm in variant 2 is hard to furnish and at the latest in adolescence, when the wish for a 140 cm bed comes (I just had this again in my circle of acquaintances, it is the case with my niece and nephew, etc.), then the rooms are hard to plan with.

I would probably conceptually approach it like this, that downstairs you accommodate:
- Living room
- Dining/cooking area
- Bathroom with a large walk-in shower
- Room that is suitable as a master bedroom
- Utility room.

Upstairs I would then have
- 3 approximately equally sized rooms where wardrobes can also be placed well
- Comfortable bathroom
- Possibly a small room that can be used as a closet/office or so.

Then currently as parents you can sleep upstairs, if the 3rd child comes, maybe the first child can sleep downstairs at first, because as parents you want to stay near the youngest child’s room. And then after about 2 years or so, the parents move downstairs and have the children’s floor upstairs.

Then at least the room program downstairs would already be suitable for separation. And then you would have to play around with the stairs, where and how they can be placed.

Finally, there is news again! Our architect has presented us with a new design, which unfortunately still struggles with some problems and would also be by far the most expensive so far. I have attached the floor plan. The design includes a full second floor with 4 1/2 rooms as well as 1 room on the ground floor. That is at least one room more than we need. We have thought about it for a long time and have come to the following conclusion: If we are going to waive later separate use of the ground floor and upper floor anyway, we could possibly also do without the room on the ground floor. This would allow us to include the utility/technical room inside the house, slim down the whole house a bit, and still realize 4 rooms upstairs. I have attached a sketch of how we roughly imagine it, using the exterior dimensions from our architect's design and only shrinking the house by 1 meter in width.
A few words about the individual rooms:
Ground floor:
- Entrance situation: We designed this a bit more generously so that there is space for a nice wardrobe, located below the front door on the plan
- Bathroom: The bathroom becomes a guest WC with a "emergency shower," as now the whole family uses the upstairs bathroom as the "main bathroom."
- Utility/technical room: We are not sure if the size will be sufficient; this will probably depend on what technology exactly will be installed later?
- Staircase: The space under the stairs can be used for the vacuum cleaner and similar items
- Kitchen: A kitchen similar to the one we currently use would fit here, with 1-2 extra cabinets for the larger family
- Dining: A 1x2 meter table should fit here
- Living room: Sofa corner with TV + piano should fit here
Upper floor:
- 3 children's rooms: They should not be smaller, but since they are at least 2.20 meters high everywhere, they can be arranged flexibly
- Large bedroom with possibly space for a small desk
- Bathroom slightly larger than in the architect's design

Anyone who finds a good arrangement of the rooms upstairs that saves some hallway space or can correct the awkward corner, please share it with us.
We may also have overlooked something rough in our own design?
We would appreciate feedback; our architect is on vacation for now and we would like to be well prepared so that there is some movement in the matter when he returns!