Both stairwell windows. If the view is correct, all window top edges are the same. If your clear height is 2.50 and you assume the roller shutter box with 25cm, the window would be OK at 2.25m. On the stair landing, after 8 risers, you stand at about 1.48m. With a sensible railing height of 90cm, you would be at 2.38m bottom edge of the window. You can see, that can’t fit.
Anyway, this massive landing staircase takes up a lot of space. What actually happens in the attic? Just storage space, or is it supposed to be finished? You won’t be able to lead this staircase with sufficient headroom all the way up due to the roof pitch. However, if a roof hatch staircase is planned in the upper floor hallway, you could possibly rotate the stair run and then build over the first part of the bedroom-side starting step on the ground floor, certainly 26cm, maybe more once the section is developed. That would then make the hallway space to the bedroom door on the right wider. If you can build over 2.5 steps, the door can be placed all the way down and behind the door leaf, a closet could fit along the full wall width. That would also have the advantage that you wouldn’t walk into a closet corner. But for that, the stair run would have to be represented in section and the headroom checked. And finally, for whoever wants, the stair landing in the middle could get one step = two risers more. Then the stair run could be shortened.
Each to their own
As said, this is a sales drawing. Theoretically, I could post the slightly modified floor plan from the other general contractor here, but I don’t know if it’s any use since we haven’t settled 100% on a general contractor yet. Besides, Katja suggested that we should first clarify whether we build against or with the slope. The opinion was that it is a solid design for a flat plot, but we have a slight slope. The plot slopes down slightly starting from the development road. Since we are building with a basement, we can easily raise the ground floor to street level, and then it should actually work.
Regarding the landing staircase, I have tried various stairs in model homes and found this one best. Originally, we wanted a bungalow, but a) didn’t find a suitable plot, b) need 3 children’s rooms for our 3 kids plus an office for me. So the landing staircase is actually already a compromise for me. Although I am more flexible now than five years ago. Basically, I no longer want to exclude anything and want to be as open as possible.
The attic is intended to serve only as storage space and will not be finished, but thanks for the hint and the tip to rotate the stair run! I’ll keep that in mind. We have changed the upper floor a bit in the modified floor plan, and I like it better.
Proven standard construction proposals are worth their weight in gold. There are thousands of ways to “customize” a catalog house so that you can’t see the resemblance to its “twin” three streets away. So the sacrifice of “individuality” can be convincingly minimized, but in return, even in a normal single-family house with three thousand eight hundred quarter to twelve construction detail corners, you get the chance that your own specimen is not a guinea pig for the skills of the trades involved. Many builders underestimate that a general contractor usually does not have a constant team. That pays off, at least on the shell construction level, to lay the foundation for calm waters. A construction proposal from another general contractor at least brings a certain maturity – then only on the level of avoiding bottlenecks; by system nature, the worst suited for "transplantation" are construction proposals that you try to “transgene” from a timber builder to a masonry builder (or vice versa). The best is to take a catalog design of the general contractor 1:1 if no individual planning is desired, and the plot at least does not require such in your case. If none of them fit (with a maximum of just shifting a few non-load-bearing interior walls), then better take a smaller one and stretch it (in the “wheelbase” = in the ridge axis) than shrink a bigger one.
It is always my concern that I might forget or overlook something with a “free design” and end up dissatisfied. You must not forget it’s a sloped site, but due to the basement, the ground floor should actually be easy to bring up to street level. Nothing is worse than being unhappy after purchase. Considering the requirements I wrote in the initial post, it’s hard to find a good floor plan; what I have posted here is, from my point of view, the best so far for me, my family, and the plot.
Yeah, then both are badly placed. You can’t reach the upper one, and the lower one is to “look under the skirt” :)
It is just the question of how to do it better, I can’t think of anything. I probably have to decide between the front appearance of the house and just being able to reach the window, right?