Floor plan of a single-family house on a hillside - opinions

Hello everyone,

after having browsed a lot in this forum and getting inspired, we would now like to also post the floor plan of our construction project here for discussion.

Perhaps in advance, the building permit is already available and we are in the final stages of the detailed planning. So far, we are satisfied with all aspects of the planning, but many eyes always see more than just four, and maybe you will notice something.

The following points are currently still occupying us or we want to revise:
- We probably want to raise the parapet height of the window in the bedroom on the upper floor (OG) to 1m as well
- Execution of the windows as French balconies or fixed glazing at the bottom – we tend rather to the latter
- Planning of the stove has been requested from several stove builders but is not settled yet
- Location and opening sides of the windows and doors have only recently been fixed, but we are still not 100% sure about one or the other door (e.g., bathroom on the upper floor or children's room 1).

Now we are of course curious about your thoughts, what do you notice, what would you do differently, where do you still see potential for improvement...?

PS: Oh yes, the wind rose is cut off in the pictures, the house is slightly rotated to the left on the plan and oriented to the south, the site plan is north-aligned.

PPS: Here are the basic data:

Development plan/restrictions

[*
Building permit is available.

[*]The terrain has a rather steep slope rising from east to west (visible in the south elevation)


Client requirements


[*]Number of persons, age: Two adults, early 30s, and one child, 3 years old, a total of two children planned
[*]Space requirements on ground floor (EG), upper floor (OG):
[LIST]
[*]OG: two children's rooms, bedroom with walk-in closet, bathroom with barrier-free shower
[*]EG: living/cooking/dining area, study, guest bathroom (could not be shown in the basement; also, we want a toilet on the living floor). A storage/pantry room would have been nice; as a compromise, we now have this 1x1 niche where we want to integrate a built-in cabinet (for vacuum cleaner and essential cleaning supplies). Sleeping should be separated from the living/cooking area due to noise.


[*]Office: family use or home office? Home office necessary
[*]Guests per year: irregular but space in the basement is provided for this - dual use as a small home cinema
[*]Open kitchen, cooking island: open kitchen with stove in the counter, extractor hood facing downwards
[*]Fireplace: masonry panoramic fireplace planned
[*]Music/stereo wall: in the living room on the ground floor a "normal" stereo system is planned, in the guest room in the basement/home cinema surround, cables/conduits are to be laid accordingly
[*]Garage, carport: the two parking spaces required by the development plan are represented by one garage space and one carport

House design
Who is responsible for the planning:
Planner of a construction company with various modifications at our request

What do we particularly like?
Basically, we like the separation of the house entrance and the living floor, as we have a generous foyer downstairs and upstairs there is no lack of space because of the entrance. We are aware of the disadvantages (keyword: age-appropriate living). We like the spacious and hopefully very bright (all windows facing south and floor-to-ceiling) living area, including the unfortunately not exactly cheap 4-meter lift-and-slide door. We really like the size and layout of the bedrooms on the upper floor.

What don’t we like?
The guest bathroom/storage room area on the ground floor was quite a back-and-forth shuffle, but we decided on the barrier-free shower and against a larger storage room. The kitchen could perhaps be a few square meters bigger, as well as the bathroom on the upper floor. The guest room in the basement is almost a bit too large; on the other hand, we can fulfill our dream of a home cinema there.
Oh yes, and the way too tall witch’s house chimney , but due to the height of the windows of the slightly higher neighboring house, this could not be reconciled with the chimney sweep any other way...

Price estimate according to architect/planner:
Price according to the construction contract 330,000 excluding land and additional costs, changes to the contract (e.g., chimney...) are mostly known and in the end, we will end up at just under 400,000 excluding land and incidental building costs.
favored heating technology: gas condensing boiler

So I find the upper floor layout good; practically no space is wasted on corridor areas. On the east view, a pointed gable is visible – is there perhaps an attic that can be used as a storage room and possibly accessible from the upper floor corridor (via a folding ladder)?

Honestly, for children’s rooms, I don’t find a low window sill height of 1m or floor-to-ceiling windows very good, especially if the kids are still small and like to climb and don’t pay attention. Fixed glazing up to 1m and openable windows above is just as dangerous as a French balcony with a railing, since children can easily climb over it using a stool. Actually, the openable windows should be fully childproof (but then you can’t really open them when the children are in the room); maybe a tilt-and-turn transom window above the windows could be used for ventilation. With a view to later changes in wishes (e.g., retrofitting a balcony, or creating a separate outdoor entrance to the then rentable first upper floor via a landing on the outside of the house in old age), French balconies on the first floor wouldn’t be bad.

Which entrance is supposed to be used as the main entrance? Do you want to always enter the house through the basement? Or should the terrace door on the ground floor also be used as a regular entrance? The latter is not really recommended with rain-soaked dirty shoes, since you stand right in the living room. On the other hand, it’s also no fun to carry all the shopping every time up the basement stairs to the kitchen. Maybe you could plan a small food or shopping bag lift from the basement corridor up to the kitchen. It may sound extravagant, but if you plan it in when building new, it certainly won’t be so expensive, and in the mid-19th century everyone had that. Then you can also easily call down to the guest in the cellar to please send up some potatoes from the pantry.

Speaking of guests in the basement – in order for basement rooms (even if only occasionally) to be used as living spaces, they must have a direct escape route to the outside; have you considered that? Is the window there suitable as an escape route in case of a fire?

For age-appropriate living, you just have to keep the option open to use the terrace as the main entrance via a ramp; then you would put up two drywall walls in the middle of the room that is now the living room and have a vestibule/hallway leading to the door to the entrance hall, from which you can enter one room each on the right and left; the right would then be the living-dining room with kitchen connection and the left would be the private area; you would have a door leading from here to the current study, and you would close the other doors from the senior ground-floor apartment to the stairs. That way you gain enough space for a walk-in shower where the guest WC and a piece of corridor currently are.

Maybe it would make sense to have the door between the living room and the entrance hall closer to the kitchen access, i.e., opposite the other side of the stairs. Then the corridor required for age-appropriate retrofitting (which one naturally doesn’t want in the current open floor plan) would run closer to the kitchen, and the private area to the left of the corridor (viewed from the terrace door) would be larger. Here you could accommodate a comfortable senior bedroom and a sufficiently large study. Access to the ground-floor shower bathroom can then be directly from the bedroom or from a niche from which doors lead to the bedroom and the shower bathroom. And the caregiver or housekeeper will then be accommodated in the basement room that currently serves as a home cinema. And the upper floor will be converted into an independent apartment and either occupied by one of the adult children or rented out profitably. Such extra income can certainly come in handy with the current pension situation.

I don’t find the tall chimney so bad; you can make it a visual highlight with bright colors.

A house is not complete without suitable landscaping of the property – what do you plan to do with the garage roof? A sloping site can be very practical, for example, you can use the natural slope to design very nice seating walls and rock gardens. Or even a small (play) brook with a garden pond for cooling feet in summer; it doesn’t have to be deep, just pond liner and a few nice stones and sand inside, and a circulation pump to bring the water back up to the source; maybe also a hand pump for the children to play with.

Hi kivaas, thanks for your reply - I had already written off the thread and thought nobody would respond...

So I like the layout of the upper floor, practically no space is wasted on corridor area. On the east view, a pointed gable can be seen - is there perhaps an attic that can be used as storage and possibly accessible from the upper floor hallway (via folding ladder)?

Yes, there is - as fate would have it, I was working there all day today laying tongue and groove boards. There are a total of 36 square meters that can be well used as storage. The access is through the dressing room...

Honestly, for children's rooms I don't find a low parapet height of 1m or even floor-to-ceiling windows so good, especially if the children are still small and like to climb and not be careful.

Regarding climbing up, we have also thought about that, but we did not want to miss out on the additional light and the beautiful view (the children's rooms have the best distant view). We now have the parapet plus 1m window, the windows are also lockable.

Which entrance is supposed to be used as the main entrance? Do you always want to enter the house through the basement? Or should the terrace door on the ground floor also be used as a regular access? The latter is not necessarily recommended with rain-wet dirty shoes, since you stand directly in the living room. On the other hand, it's no fun to carry all groceries from the basement up the stairs to the kitchen every time. Maybe you could plan a small food bag or shopping bag lift from the basement hallway up to the kitchen. Sounds extravagant but if planned from the start during new construction, it surely wouldn't be that expensive, and in the mid-19th century everyone had that. Then you can also just call down to the guest in the basement to please send up some potatoes from the pantry.

Interesting thought unfortunately we already failed with planning a laundry chute as well as a ventilation system due to the spatial conditions or rather our planner - both simply could not be cleanly planned through all floors, or only with big compromises (smaller bathrooms, etc...). I would have loved to see the planner’s face if we had come up with an elevator. Anyway yes, we will probably carry the groceries up one floor. The terrace door is only supposed to be used from the garden side for the reasons you mentioned, even though we have a garden staircase from the carport.

Speaking of a guest in the basement – for basement rooms to be used as living spaces (even if only occasionally), they must have a direct escape possibility to the outside; have you considered this? Does the window there qualify as an escape route in case of fire?

Yes, that should be no problem. The guest room window faces directly onto the courtyard and is large enough.

For age-appropriate living, you should simply keep the option open to use the terrace as the main entrance via a ramp; then you would insert two drywall walls in the middle of the room that is currently the living room and have a vestibule/hallway

Interesting idea, but the difference in height level between courtyard and garden makes it basically impossible to build a ramp there in my opinion. Still a good idea for the future to possibly divide the room!

I don’t find the tall chimney so bad, you can make it a real eye-catcher with bright colors.

Actually, the chimney is there now, clad with stainless steel - and it doesn’t stand out particularly. At the topping-out ceremony, friends who know our planning well even asked whether by mistake a lower chimney than planned had been installed.

A house is not complete without the appropriate landscaping of the property - what do you plan to do with the garage roof? Sloping locations can be very practical, for example, you can use the natural slope to create very nice retaining walls and rock gardens. Or even a small (play) brook with a garden pond to cool feet in summer; it doesn’t have to be deep, just pond liner and a few nice stones and sand inside, and a circulation pump to bring the water back up to the source; maybe a hand water pump for the children to play with as well.

In the meantime, we have gone through several rounds with the developer, building authority, and neighbors and ended up with a great solution. The carport will be built as a concrete flat roof and completely walkable with upstands and fall protection, so our garden effectively leads out to the carport at ground level. Some persuasion was necessary with the neighbors because we exceed the legally permissible boundary height, but in the end it went even without an official easement with a simple building application amendment. For this reason, beautiful slope garden solutions are omitted (my parents have a great rock garden on a slope with a winding path leading to an orchard meadow...), but we are definitely very satisfied with it.


As you can probably tell from the text, we are already in the middle of construction. Here is a current photo, really great how quickly everything is progressing!

The thread also passed me by in April.

I notice the bathroom on the upper floor .. the space between the sink and the bathtub looks very cramped.

I notice the bathroom on the upper floor .. the space between the sink and the bathtub looks very cramped.

Yes, that is certainly a weak point - we accept it in favor of the spacious shower. During the bathroom planning, the planner said that "you can still get past each other when brushing your teeth, although not comfortably." Next week is the sanitary measurement, then we will see exactly where we end up with the wall constructions, etc...

No doors or windows in yet but already the panel on the roof. Looks funny. Can easily imagine it with the large window front. A bit annoying though with the neighboring building or am I interpreting it wrong that your ground is much higher than the house on the right (according to the photo). I would be interested in the data for the hsb door in the living room. Feel free to send it via pm! Thanks