Floor plan design single-family house solid wood construction 140 sqm in Lower Saxony

Ecology this, ecology that (whoever deals with the eco-topic in construction will quickly come across completely different issues beyond the wall structure). For me, it was actually about the topic of building physics and the experiences I was allowed to have.
In my opinion, the drawbacks of the described wall structure include, among other things:
- the wall settles and also expands again. This is technically feasible by providing space above doors and windows, but it does not suit my taste. Actually, I never reconsidered the issue regarding the insulation values (what is in the gaps when the wood has settled??)
- the corners are hardly windproof with this wall structure.
- I suspect there should be no sockets in the exterior walls.
- I would also wish for an installation level.
- missing fire insulation will later result in substantial surcharges from the insurer.

That is what immediately comes to my mind.

A warm hello to everyone!

Since my last post some time has passed, we have continued to work on our dream house construction sometimes more, sometimes less intensively, and believe we have now found a presentable variant that makes the upper floor usable, even reduced the floor area by 4sqm, and which, despite the two gables, is cost-neutral compared to the previous variant with the dining nook. We have taken all your comments on our floor plan to heart and tried to implement as much as possible...

For cost reasons, we have decided to stick with the log cabin construction – we don’t dare to take on solid masonry with lots of own work for coordinating the trades as first-time builders, and we cannot and do not want to afford turnkey with a general contractor. We are aware that we have to plan very, very precisely and cannot make any changes later to the electrical/plumbing/heating installations, but that is a challenge we are happy to take on. We have also decided not to build the house ourselves and will have this work done by the manufacturer. We will then "only" do the entire interior finishing ourselves and partially outsource what we do not feel confident doing ourselves.

The main points we took from the previous posts were essentially:
More windows, dining nook is bad, wardrobe with window, utility room too big, bathroom not furnishable due to knee wall (which remains at about 30cm between upper edge of flooring and lower edge of rafters of the exposed roof truss), overall everything too much like a dark cave, entrance situation at the stairs unfavorable, kitchen too cramped for a new build, and too much hallway area. Also (even though it was hard for me personally) we abandoned the idea of symmetry. So the dining nook and the fireplace were removed, the kitchen opened up, gable entrance, the stairs placed in a dormer as had suggested, more windows, and thanks to the large gable in the children's rooms also less wasted space. The bedroom dimensions are matched to a 2.00x2.20m bed with about 75cm walking space all around, the bedroom closet will have a sliding door solution, and behind the bed there would be space to later create shelving for storage. We will probably box out the bathroom since the entire distribution for the upper floor will come up from the utility room. Side entrance downstairs through the utility room with storage space and room for a drying rack as well as the cellar replacement niche, which will then be fully equipped with shelves. A flight from the side entrance to the terrace door, which will then be accessible from the kitchen. Utility room smaller, storage space at the end of the hallway also possible extending under the stairs – I hope it will not look too narrow and that enough daylight will come into the hallway through the window in the "stairwell." The door to the living room will also be wider and equipped with glass elements.

In the current drawings a balcony is planned, but we will not take it. We are also currently considering using the four floor-to-ceiling windows on the upper floor as regular windows to be more flexible with furnishing. Hopefully, it won’t get too dark then? Regarding the drawn roof windows, we decided against the offered variant and would like to use Velux double windows, each with roller shutters. We do not yet know exactly how the window in the "stairwell" will be. Also not sure whether we should align the dormer height-wise to the south dormer – currently, it was planned to be "as big as necessary, as small as possible." The stair dimensions were taken from the standard post. Since the carport will also be on that side, hopefully, it won’t look so bare with just the one small guest WC window, the large stair window, and the side door – or does anyone have a better suggestion?

Thanks to the many great contributions throughout the whole forum, I stuck this time to developing with a concrete room program from top to bottom, starting with the stairs. We actually did not want two gables, but with our limitation of the knee wall, there is little else to make the other rooms usable. I have uploaded the transferred plans from the manufacturer here and my hand drawing which takes furnishing into account. It is only for illustration – I hope you can recognize and read the relevant parts. The manufacturer’s plans turned out a bit different from what I had drawn – log cabin construction has different construction requirements. But that fits well for us; we printed the manufacturer's floor plan to my scale and played Tetris with our paper furniture snippets... My husband finds the floor-to-ceiling window between the dining table and sofa unnecessary – I would like it as an additional door so you don’t always have to walk around the dining table when going from the bathroom back to the garden – does anyone have an opinion on that?

I hope to have provided all the info – if anything is missing, I will gladly follow up.
We look forward to how terribly you find our new approach and hope you don’t have to tear it apart too much.

PS: We know it would actually be a case for an architect... But that is not affordable, and nobody around here in the north really knows about log cabin houses. If we sign the offer, there will be a long appointment with a real architect for fine-tuning. He works in the same office as the energy consultant and the structural engineer – we hope to benefit from some synergy effects. The architectural office has been working with the manufacturer for a longer time and knows the construction method well. Basically, it is about whether we could build it this way and sign the offer so that progress can finally be made. The floor plan now fits much better with what we originally wanted. We would also build a standard floor plan, but somehow none of the ones we researched so far ever convinced us with our concrete wishes and ideas...

Well done: the relaunch is pleasantly distinct from what is otherwise usually presented here as a supposed revision, in that one can already recognize "something essentially different" at first glance.

Poorly thought out: you make two major errors in thinking (from the foreword of the milkmaid’s arithmetic book), namely:

we do not dare to coordinate the trades ourselves as first-time builders with massive stone construction and a lot of own work and we cannot and do not want to afford turnkey with a general contractor.

We know that this is actually a case for an architect... But that is not affordable, and here in the north hardly anyone is familiar with log houses.

"The statement that an architect is not affordable" is the opposite of the truth insofar as an architect alone recoups multiple times over what he is "more expensive" as a floor plan designer when tendering and supervising construction, compared to doing it yourself. And if in your region "hardly anyone is familiar with log houses," that poses a risk potential for the execution and costs of the separately contracted trades. And even you yourselves, with your desire for own work, will be much better off choosing a building material compatible with do-it-yourselfers already as a wall builder. Kill two birds with one stone, and take a look at the prefab house catalogs from Hebel and Ytong.

We know that this would actually be a case for an architect... But that's not affordable, and around here in the north, hardly anyone knows about log houses.

Huh? How about this:

If we sign the contract, there will still be a long appointment with a real architect for the fine-tuning.

Unfortunately, I don't know much about log houses, but why do you absolutely want to run through the kitchen to get to the utility room? It's not necessary at all to carry the laundry past the dirty dishes. There's plenty of space in the hallway for a door. Plus the dead corner in the utility room. A more usual solution would probably be something like this: It doesn't necessarily have to be this arrangement of the furniture, but I would definitely move the door.

It's not necessary at all to carry the laundry past the dirty plates. The space in the hallway is more than enough for a door. Plus the dead corner in the utility room.

Very much so. Didn't think about it at all... Is there still enough space for a wardrobe if we put a door instead of the "disappearing square meter"?

I would still like a door between the utility room and kitchen because of the side entrance from the carport, so I don't have to carry groceries all the way through the house... What do you think? :)

I would still like to have a door between the utility room and the kitchen because of the side entrance from the carport, so that I don’t have to carry groceries all the way through the house

I often can't understand that, and also not here. Basically, a kitchen is meant to store sugar, flour, vinegar, and spices as well as bread, fruit, and vegetables. The so-called utility room is used to store bulk items. You then go into this room once before cooking. During daily chores like cleaning, mopping, laundry, etc., you go into the utility room about 10 times a day, so it’s more central from the hallway. My concern, however, is the small utility room (HAR?) at the top right of the plan: it will probably be a bit too small for the technology and the craftsmen.