Floor plan draft for a 220m² single-family house

Seriously? Why not just go one size smaller and be financially a lot more relaxed? I don’t want to start a discussion, but if that’s really the case, I would question the immense space...

That would indeed lead to a fundamental discussion. I just wanted to point out that not everyone who has a good budget for a house necessarily needs an ironing helper. However, space is definitely reduced in the basement as well. Then a small partial basement with a small technical room, guest room, two storage rooms, and that’s it. We just forego the hobby room.

I would like to put the beams in the living room up for discussion again. We are considering getting used to them in order not to have to change the room layout too much... wanted to hear some opinions.

It can be so different. We just want as little sun as possible in the living area, since only TV is watched there. The aniline leather couch doesn’t like sun rays very much either. That’s why at first we didn’t want a window to the right of the couch in the last design. But the architect calculated, based on the angle of sunlight, that no direct sun rays would hit there that would land on the couch. Otherwise, we would have closed the entire side.

So, to summarize again: You already have a north-facing garden and then want to darken the east side as well, and no rooms facing south, so that it’s as dark as possible. And all that just to watch TV? I’d rather set up a cinema in the basement.

Not everything has to be perfect just to watch TV. But we don't care about the southern orientation! We now also live with the living room facing north and are perfectly happy with it. We miss nothing. Please don't make too much of an issue out of the orientation. In OUR personal case, it really is not the problem. We don't value it, and it is much more important to us where you look onto the street and where into the garden.

And before we save elsewhere, we'd rather save on the expensive full basement with huge storage rooms..... all just because of the hobby room, since the basement otherwise makes no structural sense. Either a full basement with overall too much space or a partial basement, which simply doesn't allow for a hobby room. In the end, the hobby room is surely not worth 50,000 € (just a number pulled out of thin air)..... you can certainly invest that more sensibly.

Of course, discussion in a forum can never replace the hours-long conversations with an architect.

In the normal case, with a sensible and attentive architect, it would probably be the other way around.

However, space is definitely reduced in the basement as well. Then there will be a small partial basement with a small utility room, guest room, two storage rooms, and that’s it.

Be careful of false hopes – half a basement costs three quarters, three-quarters of a basement costs ninety percent. Roughly speaking, any reduction of area that does not significantly affect the exterior wall length practically saves nothing. For example, making the basement L-shaped by reducing it under a rectangular ground floor plan would be a shot on the border between down the drain and wasted effort. "Saved" benefit, costs remain.

Poured something again. Well, at this time of day, I'm unfortunately running out of ideas. Classic - plain - boring. But sometimes you still see something you can use. Otherwise, trash. Good night.

We haven't dealt in depth with the detailed planning of the bathrooms yet. The way it was drawn in the last draft before the major changes, we liked it in principle. But to go too deep into it now, when everything is still up in the air.... we first need a finalized room program

Everything I wanted to share with you: some details/the furnishing can make a design a lame compromise if the furnishing just doesn’t work. Or lead to having to intervene more extensively in the floor plan than originally thought.

By the way, the statement that you first need a room program surprises me. All that stuck with me when reading was that you don’t want to change the basic orientation anymore. Individual rooms aren’t really up for discussion either (at least on the upper floor and probably also on the ground floor). In my opinion, you can no longer assume that anything will change in the existing room program. And somewhere also not in the floor plan, because you actually don’t want to change anything anymore.

The question about beams fits with that...
Personally, I think that with appropriately high ceilings and symmetry/distribution of the beams with lighting, it could already look nice. If necessary, I would even position “false beams” where no real ones are needed, but it looks better that way because of the design. But it mainly depends on how high the ceilings are, how low the beams will be, and whether the space underneath can still be sensibly furnished (e.g., if you want a pendant lamp above the table, but the position doesn’t fit the beams at all -> again those annoying details).

Speaking of the table: won’t the passage past the fireplace be a bit tight?