Floor plan house with granny flat - improvement suggestions?

I unfortunately have to come back from my determined forum coma, as it was borderline negligent to let you run into this ruin.

We have the insecure feeling that we might have forgotten something essential or not paid enough attention, since we were more focused on the compactness of the house during the planning.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

We are currently in the final planning phase

Decidedly no – it’s hardly imaginable to be further away from it.

From a layman’s perspective, you might feel pretty well understood by the “architect.” Because especially where you put him on the wrong track, he boldly took off and seemingly flawlessly squeezed your wishes into the framework of the building volume. However – don’t be fooled by the drawn sewer lines – there is N.O.T.H.I.N.G. here even remotely close to the hope of approaching a final result. What is shown here is (apart from the already mentioned parking space issue and the like) approvable nonsense.

If it were actually built like that, you would cry bitter tears for the rest of your lives: after the shock over the actual room dimensions, you would have to pay for this breach of trust just as expensively as if you had gotten reasonable living value for the construction costs. The design is pure money destruction to the benefit of the builder, a planning disaster of the first order (but unfortunately without penalty, since you formally get xy cubic meters of house for it).

You yourselves made the first mistake – as you yourself have recognized – in focusing on the compactness of the planning. This alone would not have been an error (and even as an alternative villa the requirements would have been well solvable), but it would have required a professional architect’s approach, which a general contractor’s lackey is on the one hand not capable of, and on the other hand has a completely different task, which is:
1. to skim the client’s budget as exactly as possible
2. to give the client the feeling that all their wishes are fulfilled for the money
3. if necessary, also to bring the planning to approval with cheap sleight-of-hand tricks.

From the above perspectives he has fulfilled his task to complete satisfaction. From a professional point of view one must unfortunately say: “sit down, six!” Conceptually, he went wrong right from the start, bungling the spatial program to the max. Apart from the oversized concrete firewall (about which the structural engineer will also have a few expensive words to say) it is a scandal to design the senior living unit as a maisonette and thus burden it with the mortgage of a very expensive private staircase. The incredible disproportions between the rabbit hutch living room on one hand and guest suite on the other have already been discussed here. Unlike themselves, their guests at least do not bump their elbows on the washbasin. It has also already been said about your own bathroom that its biggest fault is the lack of redundancy. According to your information, two of the children are currently teenagers who already fully occupy this bathroom; child three and the parents meanwhile crowd around the guest toilet’s washbasin. I have rarely seen such planning foul-ups – but if you pay more attention to facade symmetry, you hardly notice it. Regarding the parking spaces – I guess: three should be needed here, you may “freely” quote the development plan (Attention, no links!) – the planner also spectacularly failed here (and no, the building authority can count to “three,” whether you mark the parking spaces or not).

With nominal target values of 140:70 sqm for the two residential units and the requirement that the senior unit be only on the ground floor, a division of the ground floor of about two thirds of the ground floor for the seniors would result. By the way, your problem is not new, see here with : – and also Yvonne’s suggestion

I know some houses, only on paper and in reality, where the family living room was placed upstairs. On the ground floor was the entrance and living kitchen with terrace access, the granny flat could spread nicely on the ground floor, and the roof that is there anyway was used.
Would a gable roof be an option @MarlenP?

would be worth considering – mind you, best with an architect without quotation marks. And now give the planning basis :)

What is more imposed on the seniors here than offered had a lovely name about ninety to one hundred years ago in automobiles: “mother-in-law seat.” One can endure a stay of several weeks there, but in the long run Sophia (do you still know the Golden Girls?) would certainly prefer the “Shady Pine” here ;-)

I think the OP is somewhat speechless because of the feedback...

..that is indeed correct; I am speechless in two respects. 1. Because of the many responses and 2. Because of the criticism of our floor plan. To be honest, I am very disappointed that despite months of planning with our architect, we apparently did not get the optimum result. The current status of the construction project is that we have already received the building permit and are now waiting for a date for the start of construction from the construction company.

The floor plan of the granny flat was mostly criticized, but how should the floor plan of the main apartment be assessed?

Criticism points granny flat:

1. Granny flat - Living/Dining/Kitchen area is too small - we thought that two seniors, almost 70 years old, would not need much more space. Everything they need is on the ground floor. But is the living/dining/kitchen area really too small? We have looked at many floor plans of houses with a granny flat where the main room was not much larger either. Do you perhaps have example floor plans of single-family houses with a well-designed granny flat?

2. Granny flat - Staircase unnecessary - the granny flat should be exclusively on the ground floor: The youngest son of my parents (i.e. my brother :-)) studies a bit further away from the parents and often comes home and sometimes stays for a few days or weeks with the parents. So that he has his peace, and the parents do from him, we planned the room on the upper floor with a shower bath.

Cooking and eating should definitely stay downstairs in the garden. But living should not.
It's not that much to carry. Usually, there's nothing in the living room that is needed in the garden.
You can take the bowl of snacks and glasses with you anyway when you leave.

We also had this idea once, however. It was discarded again for two reasons.
1. Converting the attic unfortunately would have blown our budget. 2. You would have three finished floors and thus more stairs to climb (but that would have been bearable if it weren't for reason 1).

I know some houses, only on paper and real, where the family living room was placed upstairs. On the ground floor was the entrance and living kitchen with terrace access, the self-contained apartment could spread well on the ground floor, and the roof, which is there anyway, was used.

Do you perhaps have "die Häuser Papiert" to post here?

Is a gable roof also an option ?

Basically yes, but a hip roof is our favorite.

To what extent are you now fixed on the plan? Would another option still be open in terms of planning?

As I said, we have already received the building permit. However, we could theoretically still submit a change request.

Honestly: I am looking for the family bathroom. You can't be serious that you five share one shower room, while the granny flat has 2 washrooms with 2 showers?? :eek:

The bathroom is sufficiently large for us. We currently also have a bathtub in the bathroom, but the children and we haven't used it for years. That's why we omitted it.

When I look at it calmly, the whole thing is a big sham. The architect simply does not include important things because they are not feasible. In my opinion, the terrace of the granny flat is also too close to the boundary and would only be allowed with a few exceptional development plans. Garage too narrow for 2 cars, furniture far too small - it’s all dressed up to get the approval. I would be very cautious here.

That doesn't sound good :-(. Regarding the garage - only one car will be parked here. The remaining space will be used for bicycles, garden tools, etc.