Floor plan & house positioning Single-family house on a "curved floor plan"

Hello dear forum members,

we have tried to prepare the questionnaire and the attachments diligently and thoroughly.
If questions remain open - always feel free to ask.
We thank you for your time in dealing with our construction project and for constructive criticism, ideas, and suggestions =)

Development plan/restrictions
Plot size: 610m²
Slope: no
Floor area ratio: 0.3 (exceeding possible due to extensive green roof surfaces)
Building window, building line and boundary: 3m building boundary in the west and east, open construction
Number of floors: 1 full floor
Further requirements: noise protection (noise level area II)

Requirements of the builders
Style, roof shape, building type: Classic single-family house/somewhat country house style; preferably third gable; timber frame construction; gable roof
Basement, floors: no basement; 1.5 floors (currently ground floor ~95m² + utility room): currently 1.00m knee wall -> we would like to increase it to 1.10-1.15m (real height)
Number of people, age: currently 2 adults, 0 children, but 1-2 children planned
Space requirements on the ground floor and upper floor:
Ground floor: wardrobe, utility room (as well as "craft corner"), office (see below), kitchen (see below) with small pantry, guest WC with shower (size/possibility of a cupboard -> should later become a children’s bathroom), living room and dining room (family center for eating and e.g. game nights with friends)
Upper floor: bedroom, walk-in closet (separate room), 2 children’s rooms (about the same size), bathroom with shower and bathtub and toilet behind sliding door, storage room with washing machine/dryer
Office: family use or home office? Desk, PC, folders etc.
Overnight guests per year: very rare (1-2 times a year)
Open or closed architecture: rather closed without creating tightness
Open kitchen, cooking island: closed kitchen -> actually prefer short ways to the dining room and terrace; preferably U- or G-shaped kitchen or also L-shaped with island
Number of dining seats: 4 fixed, expandable to 6-8 desired (also room for a larger table for occasional parties during the year)
Fireplace: desired yes, unsure if space and budget will be available; if yes, then a classic one on the wall, preferably not as room divider
Garage, carport: double carport desired
Utility garden, greenhouse: classic low-maintenance family garden
Further wishes/particularities/daily routine, also reasons why this or that should not be: We want a closed staircase with a landing;
we prefer it a bit more intricate, sometimes a slanted wall, as it’s cozier (we don’t like square, all open and white);
we want a house for our future family with plenty of storage space and practicality, it should of course also look good inside and outside, but it is there for use and not a design object
covered front entrance;
optimize plot area for house and garden and minimize front yard;
use directions of the sky/sun position sensibly

House design
Who is the planning from: Combination of DIY (room plan/partly room arrangement/staircase request) & design from favored house company (house exterior dimensions/staircase location/partly room arrangement)
What do you especially like? Why?: Rooms, orientation of the rooms, staircase/use of staircase space
What do you not like? Why?: unsure about the route from the kitchen to the dining room/terrace; size of some rooms
Price estimate according to architect/planner: €370,000 including carport, turnkey (= plus additional construction side costs & exterior work, putty, floors (tiles included)
Preferred heating technology: now air-to-water heat pump (monoblock with outdoor unit) as underfloor heating & controlled residential ventilation, photovoltaic still open
If you have to do without, on which details/extensions
-can you do without: staircase potentially inside
-cannot do without: we would not be open to suggestions here, we would not participate then but basically the design meets all our wishes we do not want to give up; bedroom access via a walk-in closet is not acceptable to us -> therefore two separate accesses

What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan summarized in 130 characters?
House positioning? (with utility room only 0.5m space left to neighbor in the north?, house would be about 3.5m away and thus office window under the carport? Or carport with distance to house? or position at an angle and thus change the directions of the sky regarding the floor plan? other ideas?)

Knee wall?

Larger rooms? -> we feel everything is a bit tight, or does it only look like that in the drawings!? We want a rather cozy, snug house without huge entrance, open gallery etc. still it should of course not be cramped ...

Price estimate?

PS: Arrows indicate that the plot boundaries are slightly angled, no slope; blue = building boundaries; all plans are oriented north

Halli Hallo dear forum members,

Finally you dare yourself

open kitchen, kitchen island: closed kitchen -> actually preferably short ways to the dining room and the terrace;

Have you ever thought about a closed kitchen-living area?

it should of course also look appealing inside and outside, but it is for use and not a design object

At the moment the rooms are just lined up, on the ground floor there are long corridors of rooms... on the upper floor there are also (too) narrow rooms for the kids...

What do you not like? Why?: uncertain about the route from the kitchen to the dining room/terrace; size of some rooms

Yes, I think so too... I always find it unwise to place the stairs between the essential rooms: later you hardly have options to adjust the needs by breaking through...

Why no architect? Why not set the house further back?

Short and painful

Throw the floor plan in the trash

Don’t believe you are allowed to build the utility room right on the boundary.

The rooms on the ground floor office, cloakroom, WC are hardly usable tubes

Kitchen far from the terrace and dining area.

Swap the position of kitchen and stairs. The kitchen gets access to the terrace and is separated from the living area by sliding doors

To the upper floor
The bed would stand too far under the slope for me. Walk-in closet accessible from the bedroom
Children’s room very tubular just like the small room between the children’s room and bathroom

Bathtub and toilet too far under the slope.
What are those boxed-in areas in the bathroom?

The saying "the first house is built for an enemy" refers to an insight and not a command to act. As an etude for learning the drawing program, it was hopefully useful, but after sleeping on it twice, one will recognize it as something worth crumpling up.

Draft by favored house company

Tell me, the model that is supposed to be homeopathically related to this draft, that can actually only be similar in external dimensions or layout.

Have you ever thought about a closed living kitchen?

How do you define "closed living kitchen"? Everything open? Kitchen/dining area together and living room separate?

Currently, we already have it like this: living room/dining area together, kitchen separate. This was extensively discussed with us and we agree that we like it this way. Utility room kitchen and feel-good room living/dining area.

At the moment, the rooms are just lined up; on the ground floor there are long corridors of rooms... upstairs, the rooms for the kids are also (too) narrow...

YEP ... exactly our problem. Solution proposal without massively enlarging the house (due to budget and floor area ratio)?

Yes, I think so too... I always find it unwise to place the staircase between essential rooms: later you hardly have the option to adjust the needs by making breakthroughs...

We absolutely agree with that thought! It is also an uncertainty.

Nevertheless, we do not want an open solution. And having the staircase next to the living area pleases us much more than by the front door!

The walking distances from the living area to the WC, from the living area to the stairs, but also from the stairs to the WC as well as entrance and wardrobe we find good. You just have to go through the entrance area to get to the office, but that doesn't bother us. If my husband still has time to play a round on the PC with the kids in the future, he is happy when he sits a bit out of the way ( ) and filing letters, documents etc. is not done constantly. And from the mailbox to the hallway console and into the office is actually also a good short walking distance!

Why no architect?

That really was our consideration already, but there are simply additional costs that could be saved if we find a nice solution with DIY and the house company.

Do you have an idea what creating several drafts alone would cost? Additionally, we are a bit clueless whether an architect X can create a draft for timber frame construction (regarding specific requirements, budget, etc.) …. After some online research, we found no one so far in the region who specializes in this.

Why not set the house further back?

So that we have privacy in the garden and are not sitting on a plate for all to see. A house location in the east/northeast would also mean long access paths.

Short and painful
Throw the floor plan in the trash

Didn't hurt that much

We have no problem with that, it wouldn’t be the first floor plan to be discarded. But basically it contains a lot of things we like. Number and type of rooms, as well as orientation according to the cardinal directions is already as desired. Only the exact arrangement/size of the rooms is not at all optimal yet!

I don't think you are allowed to build the utility room so close to the boundary.

According to a phone consultation with the building authority, it is possible.

We have to comply with the noise protection limits for the neighbor regarding the air-water heat pump outdoor unit
-> this is currently not yet placed. Potentially we will also get a written OK from the neighbors. Whether there is a garage or a utility room next to their high fence won’t make any difference, right?! The house is then far enough away.

The rooms on the ground floor, office, cloakroom, WC are hardly usable narrow rooms

The square meters are borderline okay for us (of course you always want everything bigger and more spacious, but that also has to be paid for and maintained)

That they are “narrow rooms” we also find unpleasant for the office and WC.

We find the locations good as they are. We would like to open the front door this way, which would allow a good walking path between the front door and the cloakroom. The WC was once between hallway and living room (see attachment), but then you can touch the TV with your feet on the sofa -> so the WC was rearranged.

Kitchen far from the terrace and dining area.

Already mentioned. Consideration regarding the terrace -> east window in the kitchen as terrace door = access to the garden, but also less space for the kitchen unit. Or east window as a pass-through?!

We want to visit the kitchen studio soon. The island in the middle is probably illogical, maybe a small square table instead.

Swap the position of kitchen and stairs. The kitchen gets access to the terrace and is separated from the living area by sliding doors

Stairs in the corner? = triangular landing?

Then the bedroom would have no window anymore? Or only a skylight above the bed. My husband could live with that, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep anymore

About the upper floor
The bed would be too far under the slope for me. Walk-in closet accessible from the bedroom
Children’s rooms very narrow as is the small room between children’s room and bathroom

The bedroom is almost the same size with the same bed position as our current one in the apartment. And we feel very comfortable there! No restrictions under the sloping roof.

Bathtub and toilet too far under the slope.
What are those boxed-in sections in the bathroom?

Boxed-in section as you call it at the bathtub, to bring it somewhat out from under the slope; under the sloping roof and the window a tiled storage niche is desired, a small shelf north of the bathtub and a shelf in the area between bathtub and shower on the south side. Is that understandable? Is it allowed to upload impression pictures from the internet here?
The boxed-in section between sink and shower arose out of necessity, but we also want to use it for recessed shelves. We simply don’t want the sinks next to the shower because two glass sliding doors are planned for the shower. Access from both sides.

Toilet too narrow underneath? We will measure it again today at friends who also have their throne under the sloping roof (and the husband is almost 2m tall, so whatever fits there fits us easily) … theirs is also in a boxed-in section -> you just don’t see it because of the skylight