I find your open approach pleasant; after a long dry spell, this might once again become an interesting thread. Without real furniture and its dimensions, good planning is difficult. The occasional edge or function can strongly impair a nice floor plan or make the piece of furniture useless; both are unnecessary and always a pity. The roof shape would be almost irrelevant to me; I like
individually thought-out floor plans,
that fit the residents exactly; that alone would be my goal. A nice facade or roof shape can always be found later. Even if I don’t find involving children to be bad, in my opinion, a child is not capable of or should not be allowed to have a major influence on the principles of house construction (floor plan, daily routines...). There is no question that you build the children nice rooms or design them specially and individually, but decisions affecting the floor plan—that is, the entire house project—I would not give to them. I remember the travel agency where the children increasingly made the real decisions about where the family holiday should go and which hotel to choose. The big tour operators had long since identified these new, true decision-makers, and suddenly the catalog pictures were full of colorful water slides. My niece, for example, had already canceled her very nicely finished house because the son, at 12 years old, didn’t think it was good. I wonder what specific experience horizon a child of that age could bring to the topic of house building/living. Of course, the child should have a nice place, may participate, and especially help design their room, but an intervention in the overall concept/floor plan, no. A small, seemingly insignificant change to the floor plan can completely ruin it—I would be rather cautious there.
First of all, I would take care of the basic needs, that means a reasonable living space for 4 people. Nice-to-have is expensive. Possibly you would rather plan the house 50cm bigger for that money?!
yes. Often the builder runs out of steam on really important things just because they wanted some frills beforehand. First, I would really plan an individual floor plan, and if there is money left at the end, there are plenty of possibilities to convert this into additional comfort. So my first glance falls on the conservatory. If it is not really planned, built, and designed nicely, it takes the air from the room behind it; sunlight and daylight as well. Without really good (expensive) shading, ideally including air conditioning, a conservatory can be a nightmare. A really generous, covered terrace would be more my way here, which gives you a kind of outdoor living room in summer. I have seen several conservatories; I never wanted to have any of them exactly for these reasons, except the really nicely planned (expensive) ones.
Children’s rooms: One of the absolutely mandatory requirements is that they are the same size. Difference at most one decimal place, better not at all.
Sorry, but that's exactly what I mean. Of course, no child wants even a hint less than the other (adults usually as well), and yet there is never this supposedly necessary equality. Here one child has a sliding door, the other does not; the different cardinal directions also change the rooms. I would rather give every child’s room a special note or maybe a theme (that corresponds individually to the respective child), there are thousands of ideas instead of a centimeter-exact room copy that might bother you later in the floor plan development. If it turns out like that, fine, but I would find it rather harmful to present that as one of the maxims.
And storage space—we know there isn’t much, that is partly intentional and partly due to the plan. We’ve planned a little bit more in the garage. My suggestion for more storage space in the house was rejected "from above."
Then you don’t build it that way, because you will have your spatial needs, or you really discipline yourselves as parents and pass it on to the kids to make do with the existing space. But one should be radically honest with oneself, otherwise it can end in a junk room. In our first house, we hardly planned any cloakroom/storage, which plagued us for many years. As described elsewhere, the floor plan MUST fit your life, and only you can (must) decide that.
There will be overnight guests, yes, but not that often. I can well imagine the study downstairs (9sqm is enough), but the family wants me to stay upstairs. Both my wife and K1 strongly prefer that. But here we are still quite flexible for some time in case of a change of mind.
Here too, I would find it important that you as the earner also have a nice workspace. Because after all, you enable this house construction with that. Since you apparently work a lot from home, you should pay special attention to having an appropriate and nice workplace so that you can work long, happily, gladly, and healthily.
I suggested earlier; there was strong protest; the two want a separate bathroom. Preferable to a bit more space (consider they come from a very small space ratio). Quote: "And then I moved out at 18 or 20, and then it would have been wasted space."
I agree with the children because I would never do 4 adults and only 1 shower/bathroom in a new build; but I would also decide that with my wife based on our real life. Whether the children move out... who knows that, even the children at that age don’t. In my surroundings, I experience everything, including children still living in the upstairs room at almost 30 and blocking the bathroom for hours.
I like the process of you planning together as a family and expressing your wishes. What will help find the best within the framework of conditions is if you imagine different situations typical for your life, that you wish for in your life, and that bring you particular joy. Describe the situations without architecture and then see how they work in one or another design.
I basically find that good too, although from my own experience I still recommend caution. In fact, with the first house, we implemented a lot of unnecessary and expensive stuff that was mainly supposed to please the children. We would have been better off investing in real comfort gains for all of us or simply spending less money and still having a nice house. I am already curious about your new drawing. As said, I would put the topic of the conservatory under close scrutiny regarding costs and real design/use because the floor plan is not particularly generous so far. It doesn’t have to be, but if I have a conservatory, I would rather give my actual living and working area more comfort than "sink" square meters and money there. Do you know the costs of good shading/cooling in a conservatory?