Floor plan discussion of a medium-small detached house with a pitched roof & double garage

We are both 30 years old (and want to stay that way)

Funny :) unfortunately I can't give you much hope there.

otherwise the house looks like a thumb

Not bad either. Hehe, good humor.

We actually like the floor plan a lot.

That is quite possible and is due to the fact that you have (long) intensely dealt with your design.

However, there are many planning mistakes. Kerstin has already pointed out the window heights on the upper floor.

We like the sight lines, that is from the stairs through the kitchen to the garden and through the hallway past the fireplace into the garden. A spacious entrance area is important to us to avoid future tantrums when entering the house and not knowing where to put the groceries

When I read this, I was curious to see what I would find. Many forego sight lines or have to forego them because with children they have to squeeze a lot of space into few square meters, so such details often fall by the wayside. However, there are no sight lines towards the garden there. The stairs looking towards the kitchen door look into the (right side in plan) kitchen corner, from the hallway towards the fireplace you see the fireplace but not the window. For that, you would already have to be at the stair landing height. The entrance area with 150 cm is also not spacious. However, you have a nice spot for a wardrobe, I like that.

Price estimate according to architect/planner: €600,000

That was of course promised too, and I wonder where the costs are (besides the basement). The house is very compact, in my taste too compact.
Many rooms are very narrow, almost too narrow for their use. The dressing room is a chamber where you can hardly turn around. The quarter cabinet is not usable. At least 90 cm should be in front of a cabinet so that you can get an overview of the cabinet contents within your field of vision. The optimum starts at about 120 cm. The bedroom has hardly any walking space with bed furniture (approx. 210 cm). It must be mentioned that these are shell construction dimensions, so a few centimeters must still be deducted for plaster.
It gets worse in the bathroom. The 210 cm are not enough if you also draw in the false walls and calculate the tiles. Then we are at about 2 meters. I myself once had 230 cm width including tiles in a row house and it was already very narrow for two people in the bathroom. You could only pass each other by touching. That’s not bad, but honestly? You don’t build for things to be so tight. By the way, the washbasin water lines currently run in the load-bearing stair wall.
270 cm width is actually okay in the study, but with the 455 cm length it again becomes more like tube rooms.
One could overlook that if everything else fits, but the areas downstairs are too narrow due to the fireplace: Kerstin has already mentioned it, and I also have a fireplace: it is better to sit at a distance. And if not, you actually get scorched. There should be one meter between the flame and fabrics/furniture/upholstery so that nothing scorches from the heat. Thus, the dining area is very unfortunate for use. The living room has more length than width. That can be done, but then it feels uncomfortable. The fireplace itself divides here where there is not much space anyway. The kitchen is not generous either: two more tall cabinets for oven and groceries remain, and then 2.40 m plus a storage corner, minus the already included 60 cm sink and 60 cm stove. That sounds like a lot but isn’t. Also, the necessary 65 cm depth for the worktop under the window is currently not there because the door to the dining area takes up the necessary space.
The platform in front of the entrance is also too narrow. On the other hand, you have a shower on the ground floor that initially has no use.
There are empty rooms in the basement. One room has its window in the terrace.
Design-wise, I would avoid the kink in the hallway, it makes it unnecessarily long.

Do yourself a favor, omit the basement and build a generous ground floor and a suitable upper floor for your good money. At least the rooms should become functional. Then you will also manage with €500,000, and a double garage is still within the budget. Whether you plan with an extension or stay with a rectangular footprint but then with a lower knee wall and cut it off, that must be considered.

I think there is no need to reinvent the wheel here. There are clever house designs on the internet and as standard houses from home builders and general contractors with a utility room on the ground floor. Of course, you can also have an architect design it, but I wouldn’t take the one who approved your plan.
Do you lack a corner at the top right of the plot or is it just drawn badly?

We actually like the floor plan a lot.

What do you actually like? That would interest me.

I have a bit of a provocative question. When I look at your basement, it almost has no justification for existence. Wouldn't it be more sensible to remove the condition "basement" and rather plan something larger on the ground floor (and possibly also the attic)? The square meters in the basement cost about the same as living space on the ground floor. Even if you have a smaller plot, there would still be room for "more house." It could even become more livable and still cheaper.

We will attach our basement equipment plan (essentially: workshop, sports, technical room, washing/drying/ironing laundry, guest bed for 2-5 overnight stays per year). Maybe this justifies its existence? We find it difficult to accommodate all these things on the ground floor/upper floor without making our garden too narrow and the house would still have to fit into the neighboring buildings (10x10 is the absolute limit here according to the architect's estimate).

So, I think we should start from scratch.

The dressing room on the upper floor is a disaster, what are you supposed to do with the niche just above the chimney shaft?

The office with the knee wall of 200 cm ... those will be bad windows. You enter the offices and can’t look out the window because the top edge of the glass will be at about 150 cm.

The dining table and the potential fireplace are too close to each other. If you sit at the dining table and the fireplace is on, it just gets too warm.

.. and that was a chuckle :):)

Yes, the dressing room is anything but optimal, that’s why we are getting in touch here :). Do you have any ideas on how to arrange that differently/better?
The point about the windows is good. How high should the knee wall be so that a “normal” window fits? We will discuss again with the architect whether raising the knee wall is within the budget.

Thank you for the reminder that we still advise against "grafting" the architect too rarely (or too quietly?). Yes, the 11ant basement rule is also often overlooked. These are two determinations that I consider unwise: construction method and specific wall builder. Make the construction method decision only after the >switch in the >dough rest, and then follow the >stone mantra. From 50 cm upwards, many state building codes include the roof overhang in the boundary distance.

Yes, we reconsidered the point about "grafting" later on. We then went back with a blank sheet of paper to a house-building company to get an alternative. We know they aim for easy buildability. But still, the new approach did not appeal to us. We looked at the basement rule, but it doesn’t give us any new input in our considerations. Omitting the basement only works under the assumption that we don’t need the entire area. If we do (as shown in the basement usage plan attached above), the house would have to be 8x12 or 10x14 m. Unfortunately, that’s too large for the plot. When would you decide which wall structure to use? For us, it was a fundamental decision based on bad experiences living in timber frame construction (rental apartment).

Unsorted thoughts: Topic 1: The closet room - A central but unanswered question is: How large should / must the home office workplaces be? - How much closet space is needed?

These two questions go together. Currently (unfortunately) I assume that the wardrobe space upstairs will not work and is pure waste of money and space. The room is simply too small to be used sensibly. Something like this can be changed, for example, we have planned it so that we do not put wardrobes in the bedroom and accordingly planned the bedroom smaller. Instead, we have a larger dressing room. Also, some space could possibly be taken from the home office workplaces.

Topic 2: Financial planning - Fireplace is expensive. If you love fire, sure, it should be your own dream house. However: even KFW 55 houses overheat very quickly because of fireplaces. People in my circle who have built with fireplaces in recent years hardly use them – and if at all, only very sporadically. - I would seriously consider whether the investments in the basement justify the benefits. The plot does not require a basement. A basement is a massive investment. - Cars also survive in fresh air and under carports. Double garages, on the other hand, are also quite expensive.

Topic 3: Knee wall (Kniestock): - if not specified by the development plan (which does not exist here), I would not go into this knee wall area. Either so high that you can still have a good view even with shading (usually realizable depending on the provider from about 240cm clear knee wall, or 2 full stories), or classically 1.5 stories with a low knee wall, steep roof and dormer windows. In the planning, when standing on the upper floor axis of vision, you always look only at the wall.

Topic 4: Kitchen: - a rather heretical idea: door directly between entrance area and kitchen, instead of in the hallway. The door as currently planned is an accident waiting to happen. At some point someone will end up with the door in their face. And if the goal is, I quote, "A spacious entrance area is important to us to avoid future tantrums when entering the house not knowing where to put the groceries", then I think to myself... "okay, then be consistent and avoid accident hazards." (And if you want to see the garden from the stairs, an interior window would also work. The upper kitchen door lies directly on the pathway axis from the stairs and the living area. Which also must be crossed to get to the WC. Alternative: glass sliding door with some frosted elements.)

Thanks a lot first for the detailed answer!

The home office spaces should be large enough to serve as multifunctional rooms. This means that even if we have to sell the house someday, they should also be usable as children's rooms. A bed and a wardrobe should definitely fit well. And if next to the desk in the home office a chair for reading and a bookshelf or an easel fit, we wouldn’t mind.

Closet space: In recent years, we have managed very well with 3*1m IKEA Pax wardrobes. This need will not change much (assumption). On the contrary – for example, thick ski jackets and pants etc. will move to the cloakroom/garage, that’s the plan.

Financial planning: The fireplace is an emotional decision. We don’t really need it. That’s true. We will reconsider that. Are there any pointers/numbers here about how much one saves (especially in installation etc.)? The double garage, in contrast to the fireplace, is not negotiable :D We are planning a prefabricated double garage. Omitting the basement only works under the assumption that we do not need the entire area. If we do, the house would have to be 8x12 or 10x14m. Unfortunately, that is too large for the plot. Our considerations that we need the entire basement area are based on the attached plan further above.

Knee wall: That is a good hint, also from . We will talk to the architect about how much more expensive a higher knee wall would be.

Kitchen: We had also considered in the kitchen studio putting a door into the entrance area instead of in the hallway to the north (or realized only as a pass-through). We then dropped that idea because we do not always want to go through the dirt area in the entrance to get to the kitchen. Of course, you could enter “within the house” through the dining area. Anyway, the kitchen would then only be accessible indirectly. We wanted to avoid that with the middle door. That was our thought. A sliding door might solve that, true. We will examine that. However, the future master of the house has a strong aversion to sliding doors (fragile mechanics, rollers, …).

Omitting the basement only works under the assumption that we do not need the entire area. But we do (as shown in the basement usage plan attached above)

I do not see in the plan that you "need" the space. The workshop will be an annex to the garage. A guest bed goes into a home office. Three drying racks? One can also sugarcoat the "need." I see space requirements, but not in the form of 75-100k as a mundane basement.