Floor plan single-family house 190m2 with basement. Feedback?

Most timber frame companies build basements. Albert Haus and Wir Leben Haus can do slopes as general contractors. Timber frame or solid wood.

First of all: Thank you very much for the interest and the time invested! :-)

What, what? Why is that? What did they say or not say? Who is supposed to create the plan?

The construction companies of course each offer the planning. After we brought the floor plan, they initially had minor comments which we then incorporated. Afterwards, they primarily adopted what we proposed and did not provide any more useful suggestions.

Oh dear, and they leave you on your own with that? Even some experienced planners struggle with slopes. Trying to solve something here as a layman will, in my opinion, result in botched work. Thinking that the basement saves you from all the slopes of the landscape is a misconception. Besides, there is the financial question and the question of garden design. Let me ask cheerfully: What do you base your terrace on? Is it floating in the air? Or do you really want to pile these huge amounts of material against the slope to get this galactic terrace to the living room? How should the slope from the terrace down to the garden be designed?

The plan so far: The plot is 40m long and drops about 5m in height. We are building the ground floor at street level and are filling in the terrace as well as the parking spaces. We will retain the parking spaces at the back with a retaining wall (but none of the construction companies take that on as a fixed price), and we also retain the terrace at the sides and the rear with a retaining wall. The second level would then be about two meters lower. On the south side of the plot, we would raise and fill in about 1.5m with a wall. There is still excavation material from neighbors on the plot, which we would use for filling.

You have about 1m height difference over 8m. Plus 5m distance to the street – the parking spaces would therefore have to be partly basements if you don’t want a sloped driveway. Your neighbor on the left has already done this, if the cutout is correct. How did he solve it? I’d just ring the bell and invite myself for coffee. A great test to see what you like and what you don’t. Where is his terrace? How is the garden connection? Has he leveled the plot in the building area or also built basements?

We would fill in the parking spaces (hence the retaining wall in the floor plan). Unfortunately, we haven’t met the neighbors yet because we currently live about 4 hours away. But I assume we will get to know them soon. What is “plot” (sorry for the naive question)?

What is intended here for whom? Why 3 children's rooms – I count only 2 children. Is the office also supposed to be a guest room? I don’t see a guest room in the basement. But there is an unnecessary light shaft to illuminate of all things the room on the slope side. That’s putting the cart before the horse. Or did I misread: So the street is above and the house below, right?

The street is "above" and the plot slopes down to the south. An elevated terrace (aka balcony) is not an option for us, so we would have the terrace filled in. Unfortunately, that leaves only one room that can be used as a guest room. In the floor plan, it is currently labeled as "hobby" because we would not initially develop it.

So far we have 2 children. In the future, there may be 3 children and/or an au pair; in addition, the parents live about 3 hours away and come to visit regularly. The guest room would be in use about 12 weekends a year. Initially, we would use the 3rd room on the upper floor for guests – if then either the 3rd child or an au pair arrives, we will develop the room in the basement (turning "hobby" into "guest").

Do you have an alternative suggestion on how to accommodate the guest room in the basement and still avoid elevating the terrace?

Follow-up question: One of the construction companies builds WU basements with waterproof windows which are very expensive. They therefore suggest omitting the light shafts to save money. You need light in the basement anyway, and the ventilation system covers the basement. That seems a bit odd to me. What do you think?

That will be the crux. The 650K is presumably just the house with a standard basement from the manufacturer. But you are on a slope and want to use the basement also as a hobby room etc. Then there are the costs for the exterior design, which will probably still stun you. Terrace, paths, stairs, and retaining walls – those will swallow a significant amount of money.

How do we get an approximate figure here to properly include it in the plan? So far we plan with 650K for the house as well as 73K for additional costs (about 25K for the usual stuff and the rest for making the garden usable).

That brings you to the next question – how do you sensibly use and arrange the rooms in the basement? Can you really afford to build 50 sqm of storage that does not serve any explicit purpose? What hobby deserves a dedicated room of this size? What are these retaining walls supposed to retain anyway? Especially the wall in the south makes no real sense in my opinion.

We are planning an exterior entrance to the basement at garden level in the southeast corner. The retaining wall supports the filled terrace above.

Regarding the floor plan itself, I don’t want to say anything yet – it has no value as long as you don’t fully integrate the plan on the slope. Show the exterior views including slope, paths, terrace + retaining walls.

Fair enough – unfortunately I do not yet have any views showing the garden. As soon as I have put something together, I will get back to you. The construction companies keep quiet about that and only take care of the house.

Best regards

Bastian

Do you have a site plan with elevation profile?

Only a sketch, which I unfortunately cannot share. However, the terrain slopes relatively straight from 4.8m at the street to 0m on the south side. The west side is about 0.3m below the east side.

Your budget is missing the outdoor area and the basement.

The basement is included in the 650k€, for the outdoor areas and other ancillary construction costs, we have allocated 72k€. Unfortunately, we have not yet found a good way to substantiate this figure. Do you have a suggestion?

1. Lots of space for kitchen and dining in the south. I like that. Living room in the north. That fits. However, I don’t understand the kitchen island (?). I would plan it parallel to the tall cabinets.

We would like the kitchen island to be in line with the dining table and facing outside. This way we can also plan a 3m kitchen island without having to raise the room 3 + 1x1.2m.

2. What is this recess? Is it for the fridge? I wouldn’t plan it like that because of the corridor behind it.

Yes, for a freestanding double-door fridge. In the corridor we will then install built-in cabinets or a built-in wardrobe and make good use of the space.

3. What is that between dining and living?

A partition wall with a tunnel fireplace and chimney. On the left we will install a fixed glass element, on the right a frameless, ceiling-high glass door.

4. I wouldn’t plan "front door with adjacent window" like that, but rather a front door with window without a wall in between

I’ve now learned “front door with side panel.” Good suggestion, we will do it that way.

5. How wide is the corridor/entrance downstairs?

1.2 m

6. In my view, it’s worth considering moving the stairs somewhat south, reducing the ground floor corridor and rooms upstairs accordingly, but enlarging the bathroom upstairs

The bathroom upstairs is 2 m wide. What width would you want?

7. Also, I would divide the long bathroom into a master bath and children’s bath and at the same time rethink the necessity of the shower on the ground floor

We’ve been playing with that idea for some time, but so far haven’t found a nice solution.

8. I would never put the master bedroom between two children’s rooms

As mentioned, the room allocation upstairs is a compromise we are not very happy with. With one less room it looks much better, but then the other room would have to move into the basement and the filled terrace wouldn’t work anymore.

9. Private question: Are you sure you need a third children’s room?

The 3rd room would initially be the guest room until we either have a third child or an au pair. In that case we would convert the hobby room in the basement into a guest room.

2 things as food for thought: - The niche for the refrigerator: From my point of view, freestanding refrigerators are currently a fashion trend. Whether that will always be the case / whether one might want something different later on? Then you would have a useless niche in the wall. Or a broom closet, depending.

We have been living with freestanding refrigerators for many years and, for practical reasons, never want to go back to built-in ones. But since no freestanding refrigerator fits into a closed wall with tall cabinets and we also don’t want to just place it “in the room,” the niche is a good option. In the hallway we use the space for built-in cabinets and a built-in wardrobe.

- Child 2 / Parents: The child’s room hardly benefits from the narrow entrance, the parents’ room might possibly benefit from a bit more space. I would shift the door to the child’s room slightly to the left and give the parents’ bedroom a wider entrance.

Good tip – on a second look it’s obvious. Thank you very much!

As a contractor, I wouldn't want to mess around with the floor plan either! There are too many retaining walls and too much fill for my taste. The terrain needs to be taken into account. This won't work as is!