Floor plan: New construction on existing bungalow basement, 1.5-story

Well, if you work with lightweight construction in the upper floor, I still have this one

That looks great and conveniently also provides a larger ground floor bathroom and a separate utility room on the upper floor.
Despite wooden interior walls on the upper floor, our architect always insisted that the ground floor walls rest on the load-bearing basement walls. Therefore, we never discussed suggestions like yours. And now I don't know if we want to completely rethink our plans again. We actually just want to solve the critical points in our current floor plan, but we are a bit annoyed that we didn’t think "out of the box" earlier.

Regarding the knee wall:
That was also a waiting game. We are glad that we have 1m at all; in the first draft, it was still 65cm. The tricky point is the dormer windows on the south side, where the parapet height grows with the knee wall. I once discussed this in a separate thread:

Despite wooden interior walls on the upper floor, our architect always insisted that the ground floor walls be supported by the load-bearing basement walls.

Hopefully this is a shortened version, but fundamentally advisable.

That looks great and conveniently also brings a larger ground floor bathroom and a separate utility room on the upper floor.
Despite wooden interior walls on the upper floor, our architect always insisted that the ground floor walls be supported by the load-bearing basement walls. Therefore, we never discussed proposals like yours. And now I don’t know if we want to completely rethink our plans again. We actually only want to solve the critical spots in our current floor plan, but we’re a bit annoyed that we didn’t think “out of the box” earlier..

I want to say this: for me, the access to the guest toilet next to the dining table would be a deal breaker. If I’m spending such a huge amount, that compromise would be too much for me. If the basement can’t be “supported” so that it bears all the walls, then maybe rotating the basement stairs would be a feasible alternative. Then almost everything in the basement stays as it is, except for the new passage at the stair landing and sealing off the previous stair landing. The previous washroom becomes the stairwell – which I think is tolerable. If necessary, the water can be moved to the adjacent room. It would have to be the same wall. But laundry is moving upstairs anyway – maybe something like this:

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Regarding the knee wall:
That was also a nail biter. We’re glad that we have 1 meter at all; in the first draft it was only 65 cm. The critical point is the dormer windows on the south side, where the parapet height “grows” with the knee wall. I once discussed this in a separate thread:

So whatever you told yourselves, that’s total nonsense. You’re building a new house! The development plan doesn’t prevent you from choosing the knee wall height freely. So do it! The beauty of the dormer is priority 250 behind knee wall height somewhere around 10. First of all, the rooms have to work. Then you can worry about beauty. If I can’t put the bed against the wall, the room doesn’t work in my opinion.

I want to put it this way: for me, the access to the guest WC next to the dining table would be a deal-breaker. If I’m spending that huge amount of money, that compromise would be too big for me.

The guest WC access issue initially seemed small and acceptable to us. The longer we think about it, the bigger it now seems. Thanks for this additional creative suggestion. One of the dogmas of the previous planning was also not to touch the basement; in hindsight, we should have allowed ourselves more freedom there as well. Considering the short time until construction begins in March, we will stick to our floor plan and implement your solution from post #57 for the guest WC.

So whatever you told yourselves, that is total nonsense. You are building a new house! The development plan does not prevent you from freely choosing a knee wall height. So do it! The beauty of the dormer is priority 250 behind knee wall height somewhere around 10.

For the dormer, we were less concerned about beauty and more worried about having the window frame right in front of our noses in the children's rooms on the south side. This has since proven to be unfounded. The parapet height is approximately 94 cm above the finished floor level with a knee wall height of 1 m. We could actually raise that by 25 cm to 119 cm parapet height with a 1.25 m knee wall. I don’t know how critically deviations in eaves and ridge heights from the specifications in the building application are handled. I should actually comply with those specified dimensions.

So maybe one could also consider separating the toilet in the bathroom itself by placing it under the stairs (provided there is enough headroom there).



Then use an exhaust system that is impressive to carry the odors outside. With custom-fit furniture and a standard corner shower, it even looks quite nice. It would of course be nicer if the toilet door could open inward, but I can't assess that with Photoshop.

Thank you for the further suggestion The clear headroom would be between 2.58m at the top of the plan and ~1.90m, 1m further along the stair slope. That would already be tight.

Over the holidays, we basically reconsidered this floor plan again. We like the upper floor as it is, so we will not change the staircase anymore. But we are still struggling with the ground floor regarding the positioning of the WC (privacy) and the kitchen, also prompted by the input from and (post #67). Our architect had planned the kitchen in the quiet east with a view, the living room towards the garden, street, and property access. If we rotate the whole thing, it could look like this:

[*]The living room is in the quiet east, with a nice view (large floor-to-ceiling window or window seat instead of a narrow kitchen window)
[*]The kitchen is near the garden/garage/property access and can have its own house entrance (directly at the garage for groceries)
[*]By swapping with the utility room, the WC/shower is further away from the dining area and somewhat larger. The utility room can be smaller because the freezer moves into the kitchen (there is a bit more space there with the L-shape + half-island than before)

Disadvantages: The large, open living area is segmented and we get a long, narrow hallway to the WC/shower.

Of course, this is a last-minute, off-the-cuff idea from us. Construction is supposed to start in March, and the offers for the shell are in. The structural engineer is probably already calculating (can’t reach him right now). Drainage including ventilation must still be checked, but it seems possible. It’s not neutral in terms of cost, of course: larger WC/shower, more kitchen furniture, more walls.

What do you think? Is this a sensible improvement to the current planning?