Hi everyone, so many answers are coming in that it makes your head spin and you can hardly keep up with the responses. Wonderful! And at Christmas!
So I will try an appropriate reply that also acknowledges the efforts of everyone who has responded here. However, it is possible that I have missed some points or follow-up questions.
I have already spent the last 2 hours trying to "fix" the ground floor. Patchwork rarely leads to good results, but ultimately this is actually more of an approximation of the original model house design regarding the entrance area. The cloakroom corner is still a bit thrown together.
The new ground floor plan is attached. Unfortunately, I only have the architect’s drafts as PDFs and have so far avoided the effort of redrawing them in proper software. Therefore, I have tinkered around in the PDF. Unfortunately, this has resulted in even fewer of the already scarce dimensions being indicated, and not even the square meters are given anymore.
One change that came only from me/us is a reduction along the east/west axis by 0.5 m. The house is still huge, but it helps a little.
The living room wastes a lot of space that basically can only serve as a dance floor
Or as a play area for the kids in the living room. In December, the Christmas tree can go there, and the rest of the time perhaps a reading nook or cabinets (which, of course, are permanent, not just from January to November). Currently, we actually find this surplus of space very pleasant.
Do guests come so regularly that you can’t pull out the couch in the living room or accommodate guests in the office?
The office on the ground floor is used daily as a workplace and is also a small electronics lab. Definitely no option for guests. Also, about 2 days a week both adults work from home simultaneously and are often in video conferences. Only one office would be exhausting in the long run.
25k, I will also need that for the complete outdoor facilities including garden, hedge, tool shed, paving, etc. so for material and tools, I will do the work myself.
Just for an attractive fence (no double bar mesh, no precast concrete parts) one can easily spend 25 to 30k.
No fence is planned; we are planting a hedge and sowing the lawn. Most of the costs go to the paving work. The tool shed is already included in the offer for the carport. The budget will still be enough for the two trees required by the development plan.
If it says something like "30cm gravel bed is included, everything else costs extra," then you can expect several tens of thousands more.
I will certainly provide more details from the offer later, but besides 150 m³ of building sand for preparation, the following points for the foundation are included:
[*]Foundation concrete C 20/25 XC 2 including reinforcement, steel reinforcement above and below with one diameter 12 mm for the external foundations. Dimensions: 30/65 cm.
[*]Foundation ring earth conductor made of galvanized strip steel including the connecting parts.
[*]Floor slab:
The reinforced concrete base slab is made with concrete of strength class; C 20/25, exposure class; XC 2, leveled roughly and receives reinforcement 2 x Q 188. The floor slab is installed underneath with a PE foil as a protective layer between the floor slab and the perimeter insulation. Thickness: 16 cm.
[*]Masonry and base waterproofing in the base area according to DIN 18533 T1 (issue 07/2017) carried up to 30 cm above terrain (see base detail) with an aluminum composite layer or similar. Connection of the sealing membrane to the interior masonry. On the horizontal concrete base that holds the facing bricks, the sealing membrane is attached with ALUJET Walljet adhesive WAL and ALUJET connection strips SPEED. Including building corner connections. Material: ALUJET Walljet aluminum
[*]Sweeping the concrete floor and applying a waterproofing membrane made of an aluminum composite layer. Supply and professional application of the waterproofing membrane to the existing slab including connection to the existing masonry barrier membrane. Material: ALUJET Floorjet SPEED
We are really not experts, hence the question: Is this what you mean or do you mean completely different services?
Oh, for some it may be irrelevant... but almost 6m from the couch to the TV. Even a 70-inch device looks like a postage stamp then.
The entire furnishing is "decor" from the architect; we did not discuss it at all in the conversation. It just came like that in the first draft. I have marked the orientation we are aiming for in the living room in the attachment.
Air space ... that small one by the entrance ... what is it supposed to be useful for? Would be an immediate cut point.
Yes, that’s correct. The air space dissolved into thin air in my design.
Floor-to-ceiling windows throughout the upper floor .. with the planned furniture you can wonderfully see the desk in front of the windows. Cable runs etc. will then always be visible. Would also be a cut point for me.
Nevertheless, for example, portrait windows do not provide the light yield in width that a wide window can. I consider floor-to-ceiling windows unsuitable for bedrooms because of privacy. Here even a floor-to-ceiling window in the bathroom facing the street - now a pleated blind (do people still use those?) must already be planned. Child 2 will never feel comfortable in the room in pajamas. The same goes for the west side (Child 1 and bedroom).
We have been pondering this for a while. Basically, we believe that more light is almost always better, and our experience with floor-to-ceiling windows regarding light yield is more positive than ypg portrays it here.
We actually planned for pleated blinds, which in doubt are always 50% closed but let in more light than a piece of masonry. Is that no longer common nowadays? I see them everywhere.
Staircase, it is already quite tight, overbuilding by the upper floor over the first 2 to 3 steps. Take a close look at the section to see if tall people might bump their heads coming down.
With the removal of the air space, the problem with the staircase dissolves into thin air because the access to the dressing room can be moved closer to the exterior wall. Or you do it as ypg suggested:
Omit built-in wardrobe, put the access to the dressing room there. Change access to the bedroom, rotate the headboard to the exterior wall.
However, we find the straight passage through the dressing room more pleasant; then you are not constantly confronted with all the storage space. We also like the north window for natural light in the dressing room.
Entrance slalom past the WC to the office. That is also the main cloakroom, and with 2 small children.
I have eliminated this labyrinth from my new design.
Kitchen / dining .. if furnished like this, terrace access from this area is more than impractical, as the table is completely in the way.
In my opinion, there is actually enough space around it (I need to draw this again with our real table and chairs, but I don’t have them at hand right now).
Besides, I think the number of walkways between kitchen and terrace is greatly overestimated. But maybe that is just my allergic nature, which rarely sits on the terrace anyway from spring to autumn, let alone eats there.
My wife will probably see it differently.
If we manage to get a kitchen island in, the walking path will be a bit less serpentine.
Parents’ bedroom, unfortunately, no dimensions at all, but I find positioning beds with the headboard directly next to the external passage very critical. The corridor left of the bed also looks a bit narrow.
The bed is marked as 2.00 m wide. I think we will upgrade soon from 1.40 m, but not to such a monstrosity. Therefore, there will be enough space to walk around it.
The orientation is deliberately chosen this way; we like the frontal view west through the window.
Bathroom and floor-to-ceiling window facing the street, it is already clear that this will definitely be fitted with privacy protection. The layout .. too little space between washbasin and tub. But dimensions are missing here again for closer assessment.
The floor-to-ceiling window is true. We are just worried we’d otherwise have too little light. And wider would look really strange from the outside; below is the utility room, and it definitely does not need light. (Although I write further below that outside views don’t really matter to us....)
Pantry can be done there, but...
It is deleted for now. As drawn, it did more harm than good. In the architect conversation, I did not want to give it up, but now enough time for reflection has passed.
Ground floor: 180-degree stair rotation and switch to a quarter turn. Then remove the wall between the stairs and cloakroom. Place office window so that you could put a cupboard behind the door.
I perceive any type of turned staircase as an absolute tripping hazard, especially with a child or other awkward things in your arms. Maybe I’m just clumsy, but a staircase with a turn would be an absolute last resort for me.
Fixed window in the west I find a style mismatch here.
Only one neighbor looks from the west; we don’t care much about that. As long as the views are not completely haphazard, that already suffices for us, but in the west we wouldn’t care even about that.
The parents want that for the kids. The kids don’t care.
Probably depends strongly on one’s own experiences. My wife and I both had rooms > 20 m² and found that very pleasant, especially later in youth.
But it is indeed so that people want the whole project here in one thread.
Thanks for the info, then we will try it that way.
What kind of provider is that?
I’d rather not write that here in the thread now. But I can send it via DM if relevant.
On what basis should the builder reduce his quoted price?
I could fundamentally be wrong in my understanding of the world and capitalism, but I have always assumed that builders also want to make a profit.
A prerequisite for negotiation room would, of course, be that the builder would rather take a project with a bit less profit than none at all. But we have enough builders in the region, and the number of new single-family home constructions is not exactly at a record level. At least not in a positive sense.
Uh, which district would that be?
District Harburg, rather in the western part.
