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

.. however, a nice little bite is already consumed for getting from the street to the house

I have not read anywhere that the street is at all higher or lower than OKFB? What makes you conclude that?

At first glance, I find the floor plan quite solid. However, on closer inspection, I have doubts about the staircase. It looks too small to me. Are there exact measurements and values for it? What ceiling heights are planned?

According to the last section, we have a ceiling height on the ground floor of 2.46m plus 36.5cm = 2.825m; with 14 steps plus the last step onto the upper floor level, this would result in a step height (is that the correct term?) of 2.825 : 15 = 18.83cm. Is it correct to calculate it this way? In my last sketch for the current floor plan, I had drawn the staircase with a length of 3.00m and a width of 1.50m on the front door side (I took the values from the manufacturer’s model house floor plan; the numbers are the same). We have a phone appointment with the manufacturer tomorrow—I will ask for the exact measurements of the currently planned staircase there.

The seems a bit old-fashioned and small to me in this form. The way to the terrace from there is also annoyingly long—in my opinion, a direct exit is missing.
I don’t think moving the seating area in the ground floor is a good idea. However, forgoing the third gable on the upper floor is indeed a missed opportunity.

The shape of the kitchen and the furnishings are not fixed yet. There are also ideas with an L-shape and a work island—we are still unsure how best to solve this. Without moving the dining area, we can’t bring the terrace door any closer to the kitchen; if we did, the gable would be inside a children’s room. Leaving the gable centered over the dining area is not possible because of the construction—we originally planned that but then abandoned it because it would hardly be usable for the children’s rooms. Do you perhaps have a brilliant idea here?

I think the utility room, HAR, is a bit too large relative to the total size. I would sketch the technology in there and radically shift walls. The also seems awkwardly placed or too large in the HAR.

Shifting walls in the sense of keeping the HAR width but shortening it in the north-south direction, thereby enlarging or pushing back the utility room and/or the kitchen? Or have I misunderstood your "shifting walls"? My husband has been working on the technical planning for a few days, so the exact measurements of the planned equipment are not yet fixed. For the next floor plan, we would try to use standard dimensions and recalculate how much space we could save there to allocate it to the other rooms (especially the kitchen). Maybe this would also solve the furnishing problem we currently have there—what do you think?

Do you have a suggestion for a more suitable window size? We haven’t firmly decided on this yet—neither in position nor in final dimensions. It certainly also depends on the sensible positioning of the technical equipment. This also applies to the windows throughout the whole house—we are open to any suggestions. At the end of the week, our current landlord wanted to stop by for a beer; he runs a glass company and had offered to take a look at our plans…

The low knee wall on the upper floor regularly causes head bumps on the . What roof pitch was that in the example?

We are currently also not happy with the knee wall of 40cm. It is at the very top of the agenda for tomorrow’s phone call how best to solve or improve it. The current roof pitch is planned at 45 degrees. According to the development plan, between 35 and 50 degrees is allowed.

I have read nowhere that the street is at all higher or lower than OKFB? How do you conclude that?

I do not conclude that at all. THAT the street (and not the ground floor floor) is decisive here is the crucial point. If the street were higher - so theoretically we would get height gifted - that would be of little use insofar as especially in timber construction the bottom edge of the sill beam (= always at least at top edge of floor slab = OKRFB) should lie at least 15 cm above the natural ground level. The choice here is only between embankment and moat. The top edge of the manhole cover is virtually the "backwater level" with regard to rain; with a stone building, however, the whole thing only pans out about 15 cm more favorably.

a step measurement (is that what it's called?) of 282.5 : 15 = 18.83 cm.

That is / is called the rise height.

The floor plan will work, even though the wooden walls naturally also constrain the overlapping areas. One must also be aware that stair landings in front of the entrance door are annoying when you rush up and down barefoot or in socks, but residents also bring dirt into the house.

If we were to widen the entire house by, for example, half a meter to have a bit more space right at the first step, that still wouldn’t solve the problem, I assume? Could we plan the staircase more sensibly to avoid this problem — or would that be equivalent to starting from scratch? Originally, the front door was much further east, and the stairs were along the wall to the living room, but we then had major problems on the upper floor...

Personally, the cloakroom area would be too tight and dark for me. An adult also needs some discipline if they want to resist the temptation to just kick off their shoes right in front of the toilet. I find the hallway quite large, but that fits with the rather conservative rest. I would probably swap the door and the stove so that the house welcomes you openly upon entering.

Then I should plan the door opening so that the shoes would have their usual place behind the side of the door, so that in a pinch I could just “slide” them aside to avoid tripping — right? :D Hopefully it won’t be too dark with more light — more than a small bulb was definitely planned there. Or are there more structural concerns here?

What would really bother me, though, are the many windows randomly thrown onto the gable sides. With such a simple floor plan, that can be done a bit more elegantly. The north side should also be made more attractive with windows. Instead, the planner emphasizes symmetry with the roof windows. I would arrange those more intentionally, especially because a 40cm fridge needs the window’s standing height.

The windows are currently more symmetrical than sensible... According to the drawings, that initially seemed reasonably fitting to us — but with the knee wall height increase, I hope to have more leeway for more sensible arrangements. Maybe you would have time one day to sketch a little how the arrangement and size of the windows could fit better? We would be totally grateful for any suggestion! :)

Definitely put the fridge as high as possible and also extend the bay window upwards if it’s going to be elaborate anyway. Because 40cm is practically nothing. The bed probably won’t be able to stand in the bedroom as currently planned. The bathroom looks bigger than it actually is. But of course, it’s enough. The patio door absolutely must be wider, otherwise no one will go outside. Personally, I would also choose larger windows, i.e. deeper or wider everywhere so that light comes into the house. Keep in mind that you have spruce on the inside and not white walls like most. The wood will reflect no daylight and absorb a lot of light.

With the — hopefully — several centimeters (preferably several dozen centimeters) of knee wall height increase, we would put the bathroom and bedroom through a room tool again. We currently live in a half-timbered house, and in the bedroom, we have no knee wall at all. However, the roof pitch is extreme, so we only have about 50cm between the headboard and footboard. Having one and a half meters of wasted space between the bed and the wall would also be highly unfortunate…

Patio door noted — what width would you suggest? Regarding the lighting situation, we would install relatively closely spaced LED spots in the ceiling for basic illumination and possibly add a wall light or two, accompanied by indirect lighting sources for evening coziness.

I don’t want to say anything in detail about the floor plan design, that’s not really my strength ;-)

If I were you, I would first clarify the essential framework conditions before getting lost in details that eventually don’t fit.

Definitely clarify the possible knee wall height; the 15cm above GOK mentioned by I also consider indispensable, I seem to remember our shell builder even attached guarantees to that? I enter the house via a slight slope that overcomes about 20cm in height in total, with which I am very happy. Unfortunately, I hardly see a significant increase of the knee wall height feasible for you. Other compensating measures, like captain’s gables and dormers, cost quite a lot (and that’s why I curse the zoning plan creators again extra hard!)

Then I read somewhere that the planning absolutely has to start on the upper floor, i.e. I recommend throwing everything overboard and first precisely questioning and writing down the room program. The smaller it is, the more meticulous the planning. Much less space is also sufficient for the technology; in an emergency, a smaller technician will be called (an allegedly common saying on construction sites). Just don’t overdo it.

Maybe just draw a section through the possible house with eaves and ridge lines and then experiment with what is maximally possible. That’s more or less how we did it, or rather our architect, and he really got everything out except the very last possible cm ;-)