Floor plan design single-family house approx. 250 sqm with granny flat

I would design the accessibility for a possibly needed [Rollator], because many can still take good care of themselves with it. If the [Rollator] no longer works, a nursing home is usually the next step.

Since my better half suffered a lumbar vertebra fracture 2 years ago, we have some experience with [Rollators]. On the one hand, you always push it in front of you and turn around. In the kitchen, it usually stands behind you because it is also often used as a seat while working. All in all, it needs more space than you think.

Regarding the concerned posts about doing work ourselves: we have already renovated two apartments (and by that I don’t just mean a few painting jobs) and can therefore more or less estimate it. Anyone who has put Q4 plaster on 3.20m-high crumbling old building walls and ceilings full of cracks, holes, and non-load-bearing surfaces will tend not to give up in front of the same task in a large but certainly less complicated new building. We have the time and patience for it and actually enjoy doing things ourselves. Because it is enormously satisfying, because we are control freaks who otherwise want to watch the craftsmen’s fingers 24/7, and because it also saves money that we would rather spend on other things. Tasks that completely overwhelm us technically we don’t do at any cost, but many manual tasks are not rocket science and no craftsman in the world is as motivated as we are to deliver a good job in our house. You can learn a lot if you really want to and have the courage to just do it. If we lose enthusiasm, we simply pay someone else to do it. We have done that in the past and have managed very well with it. Do first, worry second, to quote an old election poster.

When we built, the rule of thumb was 100 euros saved on a craftsman equals 3 working hours for amateurs. You have to think that through well.

As explained above: it's not just about saving money for us. When I think back to the services of numerous craftsmen (and I don’t mean the cheapest offer from MyHammer, but established companies with a good reputation, partly recommended by the architect) from the past, we were rarely really satisfied. Actually, you would have had to watch them full-time over the shoulder because the quality almost never fit.

Draw all existing and desired furniture into the floor plan to scale. Especially for the granny flat, books, shoe collection, etc. should be taken into account.

The furniture drawn so far is all drawn to scale – so we didn’t “cook the books.”

Regarding your area – big, long walking distances, impractical were my first thoughts.

I don’t find big negative, even if most here might find that stupid. Although I also don’t find 200 sqm for the main apartment that crazy. Long walking distances: hmm, they will naturally become somewhat longer with more square meters, at least if you don’t plan one entrance from which everything goes off centrally (which then requires compromises elsewhere). Impractical: concrete examples would be nice, as that is so general that it doesn’t help me much.

The second kitchen – I can very well understand the why, however, it is so unergonomic. I can’t imagine it being practical for everyday use.

What exactly should be unergonomic about it? In terms of dimensions, our current rental apartment has a kitchen with the same depth (but of course longer) with a 60 cm deep kitchen line on both sides. I find the kitchen annoying because you basically stand around waiting alone while cooking and are separated from the rest of the apartment, but ergonomically I don’t see anything negative. Opening the fridge, loading and unloading the dishwasher, etc. is even very convenient. The room may be too short (it was once longer at the expense of the main kitchen, but that caused problems with the interior and exterior symmetry of the windows), but otherwise, I don’t immediately see the problem?

The kitchen and living room will be quite dark.

I can imagine that for the living room, less so for the kitchen. A lot of light comes from the south through the dining room; there are two reasonably sized windows on the west wall. It’s certainly not as bright as some others build here with 4m lift-and-slide doors, but actually too dark? Hmm.

Entrance very hidden – seriously, how often do you go to the trash in pajamas? The upper floor somehow looks convoluted and partially dark.

I can unfortunately hardly make anything out of “somehow convoluted” – can you name concrete examples / problem areas for me?

I would design barrier-free accessibility for a possibly needed walker because many can still care for themselves well with this. When a walker no longer works, usually the nursing home is next.

Since my better half suffered a lumbar vertebra fracture two years ago, we have some experience with walkers. On one hand, you always push it in front of you and turn around. In the kitchen, it usually stands behind you because it can also be used as a seat during work. Overall, it needs more space than you think.

Thanks, those are sensible hints. We will try to improve accordingly.

To give the basement apartment a bit more additional space and especially a small entrance area, we could build a bay window measuring about 400 cm x 150 cm (width x depth) instead of the small porch at the entrance, since according to the Building Use Ordinance 1968 or 1977, this would, to my knowledge, not be counted towards the floor plan as a subordinate component. Let's see if this could create a bit more comfort and how that would look.

Well, if you are experienced renovators and you like your plan and the budget is flexible upwards, what is there really left to discuss here? The gimmicks are mostly a matter of taste and the rest is easily argued away by the OP. At the end of your 30s, only the desire to have children can still throw a wrench in the planning. The porch with insect protection will probably be more expensive than expected. Friends of ours had the idea a few years ago as well and quickly gave up on it and instead built a conservatory that can be used all year round.

Here now the numbers for the staircase from our planning (calculated with a staircase planning tool):

Length of the stair flights (in the direction from the ground floor to the upper floor):


Floor height: 3050mm
Stair flight 1: 1679 mm
Stair flight 2: 2682 mm
Stair flight 3: 2437 mm
Tread width: 100 mm


Number of steps: 16
Number of risers: 17
Step height: 179 mm
Tread depth: 273 mm
Angle: 33.31 degrees
Blondel's law: 631 mm


If necessary, one could also plan one more step (there would probably be space), then the following values result:

Number of steps: 17
Number of risers: 18
Step height: 169 mm
Tread depth: 257 mm
Angle: 33.4 degrees
Blondel's law: 595.88 mm

So lower step height, but less tread depth, Blondel value not optimal. The tool rates the first variant with 16 steps as comfortable, the second variant with 17 steps as less comfortable.

The staircase actually looks tight in the floor plan, but that may also be due to the fuck-up that the software produces there. Even if you feed the program all the calculated numbers individually, it does not seem to be able to create a staircase with continuously winding steps. In the sketch from the staircase tool, however, I think the staircase looks okay. Since I do not have the rights to the images, I unfortunately cannot post them here.

Are there any opinions on the staircase based on the existing numbers? Feasible or problematic?

Well, if you are experienced renovators and you like your plan and the budget is flexible upwards, what is there really left to discuss here? Most of the gimmicks are a matter of taste and the rest is casually dismissed by the OP.
At the end of the 30s, at most the desire to have children can throw a wrench into the planning.
The veranda with insect protection will probably be more expensive than expected. Friends of ours had the idea a few years ago as well and quickly dropped it and instead built a conservatory that can be used all year round.

I have said on many points that we will look at them again – so there is no question here of "casually dismissed everything" IMO. Some things are also a matter of personal preferences and priorities and are not generally wrong or right, so I may also have a different opinion than the respective commenter, but I am still thankful for the food for thought. Other things, such as noise from roller trainers or too little space in the guest apartment bathroom/bedroom, are objectively problematic and we will look for solutions accordingly.

My primary concern here was advice on the floor plan, not on the DIY efforts. I know that for many here in the forum, only (almost) turnkey comes into question and there is nothing wrong with that. It would just be nice if other posters would not try at all costs to talk people out of doing DIY work, even if they have said several times that they already have some experience with such tasks.

The insect protection on the veranda is probably okay in terms of price for us. It is not a complicated construction, but merely a straight, but very large roller blind that is supposed to run in a wood-clad track at the corner of the dining room extension and the wall of the kitchen extension opposite (in this case somewhat reducing the terrace when the insect protection is closed). I have already researched the costs, it should be around 3000€. It would definitely be worth it to us. We are 200m from the lake, so there are many mosquitoes every summer. Every few years there is also a real mosquito plague and then really no one sits outside here without mosquito protection.

Once again from the beginning:

There will certainly be style criticism

To your surprise, there was no criticism, right?

For us, it's primarily about whether we basically have anything planned that could work. We are mainly hoping for hints about functional planning errors.

You have indeed received a lot of input on that.

What I noticed is that your specifically asked questions (entrance, stairs, bedroom in the granny flat, bathrooms, etc.) were addressed, but you dismiss them. Why did you ask them?

the rest is casually dismissed by the OP.

So I wasn't the only one to read it that way.

But what would be important to us, of course, is that the apartment works for my mother. We have of course read about how to design an accessible apartment.

No one here wrote about accessibility, but that, for example, a walker needs space as well as an older person sometimes needs some room to move. What you make of that is your business.

You mentioned several times that you had it the same way, etc. But that does not mean, on the contrary, that one shouldn’t do it better if one can.

My primary concern here was advice on the floor plan, not on doing it yourself. I know that for many here in the forum, only (almost) turnkey solutions are acceptable, and there is nothing wrong with that. It would just be nice if others don’t try to talk people out of doing work themselves at all costs, even if they have said several times that they already have some experience with such tasks.

It’s not that no one here knows what doing it yourself means. Honestly, your husband can be as ambitious as he wants and eager to "do something," just as you are, but many here also know that it is a difference between renovating a manageable apartment and doing all the interior work yourself on 250 sqm with 3 meter ceilings. Some here have had to sacrifice their annual vacation just to get the bare minimum of painter’s work done by the builder. And afterward, for most, one spa day was not enough, who normally do this as a hobby and then turn it into an office job.

I don’t want to be presumptuous (just as I don’t feel offended when someone assumes that I probably moved into a turnkey house – but I know what I sweat for just to get the walls livable and some interior finishes), nevertheless it seems to me that you somehow live in an American soap bubble and just let us talk. And maybe some things will be reviewed again.

However, with what in my eyes are small changes, it can become a chic, very livable and special house... if only a large refrigerator finds its place in the main kitchen.

The small dismissed little aches might hurt somewhat during living or furnishing. But one can live with that too. We all know: the first house is for the enemy, the second for the friend, and so on.