Floor plan of a 1.5-story house with a captain's gable on nearly 200m²

ok, and now?

Many have written where the floor plan is lacking - me too. Plan anew and don't just move walls in a suboptimal floor plan. Brickwork in NI is not unusual after all.

Then you still have time, although depending on the provider not much. But you are building in NI? I’m not familiar with that, but in NRW there are quite a few good GÜs who easily and gladly do an individual plan with you. Ours literally cheered when we mentioned that we wanted clinker bricks. (That apparently doesn’t happen every day anymore.) You need one like that, too.

I’ve called all sorts of people here. Many drop out already when I say that we don’t want to come by for first meetings but want to do everything via Zoom/Teams. Then not all offer painting/flooring. Then some say: The builder has to participate here, a lot is only clarified on site. Those are all no-gos. Then some need weeks for a first response and are unreachable for us in the meantime. When building remotely, that is simply an exclusion criterion right away. We still have Roth Massivbau on our radar, but we don’t feel comfortable there.

We had one, Ö-Haus - unfortunately, they just don’t build where we are building.

Well, you practically “ironed out” almost everything. Kitchen table that doesn’t fit at the front and back, generally unergonomic kitchen, 0.5 sqm “rooms,” roof windows, etc.
Nothing really fits in the hut, which is why I only criticized the 42 at (hall/stairs/living area). The rest is unnecessary, because “moving walls” won’t make it any better either.

Well, I just miss the why.

Kitchen table: Here we built the kitchen around this table with boxes and a cabinet and didn’t find it too tight. So I cannot understand the “fits” comment.
Why is the kitchen unergonomic? It’s just a plain L-shape. Also here: I cannot understand the comment.

0.5 sqm room: In our current house (rented) we have 2 of those “mini rooms” and love them! Everything sorted in there, vacuum cleaner fits in, spare parts, screw set. Why is that dumb? We’ve lived with it for 5 years and think it’s great.

Well, you don’t have to respond to that, I just wanted to show why I simply can’t make anything of those comments. I just take it that it’s not liked. Aside from “too much hallway” I couldn’t find anything objective. The walking distances we often take are not really long, the way to the front door is long, that’s also my initial question: will that eventually get really annoying?

Plan anew and don’t just move walls in a suboptimal floor plan.

Surely we won’t plan completely new if we like everything except the entrance area.

many people drop out as soon as I say that we don't come by for initial talks but want to do everything via zoom/teams.

Quite strange. I know this doesn't help you now, but that's exactly how we dealt with our provider (because of Corona). It was new and unusual for him, but he went along without grumbling, and we are only 100 km apart. So you probably just had bad luck. Maybe you could ask here in the forum again with an approximate region of your construction site. Someone there should know something suitable.

Alright, let's do the calculation example for the kitchen table: room width 4.21m, cabinet 63cm away, door opened 90cm, leaving 2.68m for table and chairs. Table 1m wide, chair depth about 2x60cm leaves a bit less than 50cm for all maneuvering activities and passage as well as getting up and sliding away over or someone automatically has the chair behind their back.

- An L-shape is not the best choice in terms of walking paths, additionally you are constantly either dancing around the dining table (as currently drawn) or pushing it further towards the (in my opinion too small for the hut and number of people) terrace, you have a bottleneck to get to the piano, the terrace, the "play corner" (where should things be stored there, no depth for a cabinet?), and the passage to the living room.
- Couch for 5 people (plus possible guests) is planned on a 3-seater sofa, chair in the bay window may be a bit tight if it is supposed to be involved in watching, chaise longue with ~1.6m depth is not very large, longer would stand in the passage to the hallway.
- Half-height wall for the TV, if it were at least the extension of the bay window wall, you wouldn’t have the unbearable additional corner.
- Mini room or built-in closet can work well if the niche is available. But to install extra "warts with less space than a regular cabinet" like in the kitchen seems simply odd to us.
- If you are not tall, you can probably do your business under the sloping roof. Is that the standard for your house in an overall project that depending on the plot can soon reach seven figures? "It’s okay"?
- 2 bathrooms upstairs but only one where all 5 are supposed to shower.
- WC on the ground floor, here you already have only about 5cm clearance to the door with the slanted toilet in the drawing, passage to the shower barely 60cm with a depth of 75cm?
- 2 doors in the vestibule and 2 more in the garage, I would optimize at least one away to have wall space, probably even 2.
- On the ground floor you have about 20 sqm hallway or vestibule, space for the wardrobe is the 0.49 sqm wall cupboard and the three colorful boxes in the vestibule, here max. 40cm deep. Additionally, the hallway doesn’t have the flair of a gallery or similar but is really just a relatively dark connecting tube.

There is definitely no lack of space, this is at least sufficiently available and also the individual sizes of the living rooms as a list on paper would initially look quite plausible, the bedroom could take a bit more for more than 2m of wardrobe for two people ;).
The transit area, which only costs but brings nothing because it is designed such that no wardrobe, built-in closet or storage option can be created, is relatively huge and thus expensive, the partial basement will hardly bring a cost advantage due to the necessary connection with the floor slab.

The "coziness" is your choice but for every shopping bag to walk through 3 doors and ~15-20m through the house I personally would have no great desire, so yes I would find that super annoying. Like everything else just a thought stimulus ;)

And yes it is very direct but I hope it lets you question some things, should all questions be answered with "Great, we want exactly that," good luck with the project and hopefully a developer or similar.

I'll say it differently again.
If you have to mess around with boxes in a 200 sqm hut to check if the table fits, then something is wrong.
And I really wonder again and again whether you don't actually see the mess!?
50 cm away from the cupboard (but only when sitting at the table) and the door right behind your back on the other side.
But 25 sqm hallway/living area.

And 3.50+4.2 m kitchen is not a normal L.

etc. etc.

I just wanted to show why I simply can’t do anything with the comments.

I just take away that it’s not liked.

Let’s put it this way: it is not well executed or technically not executed.
……..

It fits the plot like this, the terrace is already really small.

Personally, I can also do very little with such a statement. I ask myself: is there any personal emotion, passion or desire for this house at all? Is there euphoria to finally realize the big dream or does one just want to take along their mini rooms and what they know, their rented average 500 km to the necessary move?

Thanks for the feedback, but I find it hard to pull something concrete out of here, except for "go to the architect".

Yes, I can understand that. Usually, however, the statement is actually the quintessence.
In this case, if it is actually going to be built with Gussek Haus (which unfortunately is nowhere stated), then the expert for you is the architect of the Gussek Haus. He owes you a house design with which you can be happy.

We have to see at the sampling, going Friday to the preliminary sampling.

I think that with you there is absolutely no criticism/change planned, right?!

Or almost every evening go through the front yard to the upper floor because the stairs are directly at the entrance, shudder.

Such stairs are planned in very small houses because they use the least amount of space. No reason to make fun of it, uh shudder.

All these floor plans where you can already look directly at the couch or the living room table from the entrance are an absolute horror to us.

That is often done on purpose because then you get the feeling that the house invites you to feel comfortable. You can see what nice things await you. It brings joy, even if your hands are full of shopping.

…, but now to fundamentals, from which you can hopefully draw conclusions for yourself.

Knee wall is planned at about 130 and Velux windows will also come above the toilets, so that should negate it, we also not that big.

- The front edge of the toilet must be at least at a height of 2 meters according to technical regulations.

- Velux is expensive, Velux is an emergency window, room height is made through Velux in renovations.

- Staying with the attic: the bathroom needs a proper window.
- A household with up to 5 people should have a bathtub larger than a sitting tub. Also plan with shelves.
- Shower partition is too short and it takes away light from the washbasin (if the gable then also gets the necessary window)

- Washing machine and dryer in the emergency bathroom: please run me through one load of laundry and one hand wash including drying and intermediate storage per day until you get to ironing on the weekend.

- Children’s rooms are in the east and get light when they are at school.

- The windows are also too small for the rooms. 1/8-1/10 of the sqm…

- The facade on the east looks as if the mason was drunk.

- The south facade with the different widths in the windows, as if the carpenter had drunk his brain away. Or just the planner.

If we are on the ground floor:
- You have already noticed the terrace is too small. You can probably pave it bigger.
- The table is in the way in the kitchen when the table outside is set - probably daily in summer?!
- Kitchen too far from the terrace.
- Terrace furniture blocks the door.
- Kitchen has no tall cabinet for the oven.
- Side-by-side is too tight and cannot be opened. -- Kitchen line will be too small over the years, chairs block 1/4 of the cupboards when in use and the cook too.

- Storage room destroys the space and takes necessary area.
- Piano at the south window: sun destroys it.
- Basement stairs do not open inward but outward: then they are a disturbance factor in the hallway.

- The hallway is too long and gets narrower like a telescope …
/ Coat rack missing. Do you have only one jacket and a few shoes?

How stupid is such a long hallway? We have a construction deadline by when it has to be move-in ready by 2023. The architects simply took forever.

A long hallway is very stupid!
Hopefully architects don’t just slap something together quickly, that’s why it sometimes takes longer. Especially with many customers.

Why is the kitchen unergonomic? It’s just a normal L-shape. Also here: can’t understand the comment.

That may be because you simply don’t think about it or don’t want to.
Google ergonomics in the kitchen.

For you, the disturbing table is obviously the one where the person sitting there gets the drawer handle right between the shoulders… ok, the table can be moved. But you can’t claim not to see the tight spots there?! o_O

"miniräumen" and we think they’re awesome! Everything sorted in there, vacuum fits in, spare parts, screw set. Why is that stupid? We’ve lived with it for 5 years and think it’s awesome.

We live in a millennium where half rooms are no longer worth mentioning.
maybe you should put your mega rooms in the basement?

That is also my initial question: whether that eventually really annoys?

That hallway annoys me just by looking at it.
I come home, I bring a work bag and two bags with me… I have no free hand to turn on the light and I wouldn’t want long ways either. There is practically a dark abyss looking at me as long as my whole house… you can’t sugarcoat everything.