Floor plan feedback: 1.5-storey building in Northern Germany

Hi everyone,

we are currently planning a house, see attachment, and would like to hear your opinion on our ideas and the current status.

Here are the things that cannot be changed:

[*]Exterior dimensions cannot be changed with the current general contractor or there are no better exterior dimensions offered by the GC (because of building site boundaries)
[*]The house cannot be rotated, the development plan does not allow a house in width
[*]The house cannot be moved to the other side or middle of the plot, again the development plan
[*]The development plan requires a 1.5-story building with a 40-60° roof pitch, currently we would choose 45°
[*]The southwest roof must remain relatively free because we need space there for the photovoltaic panels required by KFW40 (planned 5-10kWp)

Things that can be changed include:

[*]All interior walls (of course nothing absurd, statics)
[*]All doors and windows in position and size
[*]Stair position
[*]The ground floor bay window cannot be changed in size but can be positioned arbitrarily along the long exterior wall of the house, also on the other side
[*]All furniture is of course only for illustration, more on that later

A few general notes before we come to the individual rooms:

[*]GC floor plan, heavily adapted by us after discussions with several GCs over a few months about several proposals
[*]There are two of us
[*]We both work from home office, therefore two offices (mandatory for us due to data protection)
[*]No children are planned or desired, so no children’s rooms or similar
[*]Yes, northeast garden is not ideal, but the plot is otherwise great for us
[*]The plot is located in a very near-urban suburb and is surrounded by single-family houses each with ≥ 500m² plots
[*]The plot is in the first row on a quiet side street
[*]The plot is approx. 17 x 29m in size, the street is on the long side, the house must be positioned on the left side (see development plan excerpt, blue area is the plot, a part was separated on the left, this part is not ours – no right of way)
[*]All interior doors are currently 90cm rough construction, living room passage for sliding door 1m, for the utility room we might also take 1m
[*]The images are relatively to scale but of course not 100%, we recreated the floor plan in some free tool
[*]Walls on the upper floor and non-load-bearing walls on the ground floor would be a bit thinner than shown, but that should not make a big difference
[*]Building will be timber frame construction
[*]Parking space planned on the left side of the house, initially no carport
[*]Knee wall height 90cm
[*]Approx. 130m² according to WoFIV
[*]No basement

Here are our thoughts and requirements per room:

a) Living Room

[*]Enough space for sofa corner + two 180x60 desks for gaming/hobbies, arranged so that you are not looking at the PC screens from the corner of your eye while watching TV and vice versa
[*]We do not want or need a large dining table in the living room
[*]We want to use one of the terrace doors for ventilation; a permanent insect screen will be installed here which cannot be destroyed by our cats, therefore we need a post between the doors (opposite of an inactive door leaf)
[*]The south terrace door should have a normal insect screen door
[*]Terrace doors are 1.20m wide based on forum tip so that something can get through even if there are no inactive doors
[*]Some windows are fixed glazed to 1) possibly save money 2) gain window area; we are still considering whether a second window for ventilation would be better, for that the northern floor-to-ceiling window would be predestined
[*]The door to the room is deliberately chosen in the middle so that when opened you don’t stand directly in front of chairs or stare at someone sitting at the PC
[*]We liked sliding doors, especially because otherwise the door position would be “in the middle of the room”
[*]We see no reason to move the bay window into the living room; the room depth of about 5m would be too much for us, e.g. for watching TV

b) Kitchen

[*]Should be closed, we don’t want our cats there, and generally prefer it closed, non-negotiable
[*]Wall to the living room is designed as non-load-bearing in case we want to change later
[*]The bay window gives us the most space here (side note: it basically costs us nothing, so we wouldn’t omit it)
[*]We are considering whether we would like a sliding door, what do you think?
[*]We want lots of contiguous cutting surface, storage space and short work paths
[*]Fridge and oven should NOT be behind seating places of people, it just annoys and gets tight (from experience)
[*]There will really only be one refrigerator in the kitchen, freezer in the utility room
[*]We find a pantry cupboard in the kitchen nice to store “often used” supplies, other pantry in utility room
[*]We are possibly open to other ideas here, but want a real table, no bar stools. Table must be movable.

c) Utility Room (HAR)

[*]Mandatory furniture: heater (heat pump), water tank, inverter, photovoltaic storage, etc.
[*]Utility room, but should have space for freezer and some storage
[*]Washing machine and dryer are deliberately and intentionally not here, see bathroom upstairs

d) Guest WC

[*]Is just a hole, ok for us
[*]At the moment we think we don’t need a shower here, otherwise it gets complicated with the storage room

e) Storage Room

[*]We have two very, very skittish cats, so this is the “cat litter room” + storage space
[*]Cat litter boxes are deliberately not in the utility room because the noises could disturb them and we want to avoid having to find a compromise solution for litter box placement in the new build – this is the safe way, non-negotiable
[*]1-2 cupboards for storing winter clothes or similar

f) Ground Floor Hallway

[*]Should have space for wardrobe (see wall indentation at utility room)
[*]Is designed so that a shallow cupboard could possibly be placed in the narrow spots
[*]We currently live with a hallway about 1.4m wide and find that quite nice
[*]Stair winding is not yet decided, suggestions?
[*]Do you have suggestions for the dimension and positioning of the lighting element at the stairs?

g) Bedroom

[*]No floor-to-ceiling window desired (among other things privacy), non-negotiable
[*]Position is important to us (away from street and neighbors, facing north)
[*]Relatively large, could possibly be smaller
[*]Space for many cupboards etc. must remain
[*]Space around the bed is important to us
[*]Are the 2 roof windows too many or too few?

h) Large Office

[*]No floor-to-ceiling window desired (among other things privacy), non-negotiable
[*]Designed as office + recreation room when other rooms are occupied, ergo also TV etc.
[*]Should deliberately be bigger than the other office to fulfill the above point
[*]Are the 2 roof windows too many or too few?

i) Small Office

[*]No floor-to-ceiling window desired (among other things privacy), non-negotiable
[*]Is just an office, no other special requirements

j) Bathroom

[*]No floor-to-ceiling window desired (among other things privacy), non-negotiable
[*]Large shower 1.1m x 1.1m is important to us
[*]Washing machine and dryer deliberately placed here for shorter walking distances
[*]Fixed place for drying rack so it’s not in the way
[*]Toilet should not be on the sloping roof side, deliberately positioned on the straight wall with minimum height 2m
[*]Layout was made by us "to the best of our knowledge," we are open here
[*]We don’t want or need a bathtub
[*]1-2 cupboards would be nice for cleaning agents + towel storage etc.

k) Upper Floor Hallway

[*]Is just a hallway
[*]Do you have suggestions for the dimension and positioning of the lighting element at the stairs? Should we even have a second one upstairs?
[*]Floor hatch to the attic

Thanks a lot,
roookeee

The small excerpt of the development plan looks extremely familiar to me – just spare me the searching and give the hint yourself under which member name you were previously active ;-)

The small section of the development plan looks very familiar to me - just spare me the searching and give the hint yourself under which member name you were previously active ;-)

Yes, we both have an account here:

Well then ... here are: further excerpts from the development plan (and I would like to add the question: have you already checked out Ernst & Ernst in Achim?).
How do you explain the strange shape of your building envelope, also in comparison to those of the neighbors?

GU floor plan, heavily adapted by us after we discussed several proposals with multiple GUs over several months

I have certainly mentioned this several times as well: that an individual design is better than repeatedly bending a catalog design. "Clean Code" also ensures minimized complication points in a building plan. A proven catalog design is a fine thing, but this applies less the worse discipline you apply when making changes. Windows and non-load-bearing walls can be moved quite freely, they don’t add much (including to the price). The nastiest changes are narrowings, insertions of rooms, and stairs are almost untouchable. Show the base design.

Can you show your property as a rectangle with the house drawn in? I don't understand the hatched area and the white rectangular spot. A legend is missing for this. Or is the white the building zone? It would be nice if you could list the development plan more clearly according to the questionnaire. Your explanation is full of negation. Something without interpretation, but rather a neutral explanation, would be better. Those who want to think can then do so themselves.

(and I add the question: have you checked out Ernst & Ernst in Achim by now?)

We have decided that we do not want to build extensively, so I think Ernst & Ernst is out. We have now found a general contractor with whom we are quite happy, because many problems we had with other providers simply do not occur here.

How do you explain the strange shape of your building plot, also compared to those of the neighbors?

I’m not exactly sure what you mean, but at the left edge of the original parcel there is a small electrical hut (no idea what exactly that is) belonging to the city (but it doesn’t hum or anything), hence the small notch. Otherwise, all building plots there look very similar: you can build up to about the middle at most and then you have to stick to one side. Because of the separation of the left part of the parcel, we have lost quite some building width.

I’m sure I have mentioned this several times: that an individual design is better than repeatedly bending a catalog design. "Clean code" also ensures minimized complication points in a building plan. A tried-and-tested catalog design is a fine thing, but that applies less the worse one is at maintaining discipline when making changes. Windows and non-load-bearing walls can be moved around quite freely, they don’t make (or increase the price) much. Probably the most troublesome changes are narrowing, inserting rooms, and stairs are pretty much untouchable.

Ah, I apparently messed up here, sorry: these floor plan changes have already been costed; we’re paying about 2.5k for a different type of stair and another 4k for the full customization and resulting "replanning" (this price is always the same at the general contractor if you change anything there). Not for nothing, but also no end of the world.

We don’t get very far with catalog floor plans and our wishes; paying an architect separately again, mhh. I don’t know what would make these additional 5-10k more appealing to me. I find our position pretty good at the moment (let’s see how long I think so :D), or is that too naive?

Show the basic design

Coming tomorrow.