Floor plan single-family house, approx. 200 sqm without basement - assessment

And regarding the stairs and hallway on the upper floor ... yes, I also use quite a few square meters there, but then I don't need a second staircase, which also consumes quite a few square meters.

Again, it's your house, you have to be happy. You have heard my concerns. You should now simply take a look at the cost planning. Perhaps it will make you rethink one thing or another.

Oh man, something like this just keeps bothering me.

Have you ever thought about who is supposed to clean and maintain all of this? For example, water points:
- Kitchen
- Cloakroom on the ground floor
- Guest bathroom on the ground floor
- WC in the garage
- Bathroom on the upper floor
- Utility room on the upper floor

Then the storage areas in the garage and on the ground floor as well as, according to your last statements, partly also in the party room. I usually always pay close attention to sufficient storage space in floor plans, but I do see this storage space requirement as something worth checking, especially regarding its distribution.

And again about the pantry .. you are planning a freezer there and definitely a window, so make sure the room is at least about 140 cm wide, otherwise the freezer door cannot be opened.

2nd attempt
Well, the thing is really huge. Are you sure you can afford that?
I didn’t look at the centimeters now, since they are only sketches anyway. Many walls can still be moved in favor of the neighboring room, etc.
I don’t find it bad at all that the hallway becomes large – but I’m probably the only one who thinks so. I love it when you come in and there is space at first. You can take off your clothes in every direction, throw your stuff around, etc. It’s just a matter of taste.
Some of the rooms upstairs have skylights – I didn’t draw them in now – you have to imagine them yourselves.
By the way, the guests will appreciate being able to go downstairs to pee and not have to hold their “session” right next to the party couch. That’s why the toilet stays downstairs.
Maybe you’ll have fun with it.

Maybe it’s possible to squeeze everything a bit so it’s not too bloated. Don’t forget, you always have to deduct about 10-15% from the square meters because the program is too dumb.

If I were to show a new, different, almost finished plan from an architect here now, there would probably be little praise, purely because of the "mood" here.

Just as a side note: It can always be that a criticism is unfounded, e.g. due to personal taste or because boundary conditions are not known or not present to the forum members. However, this is not the case regarding the present design.

If you sort the posts again, it becomes clear how you approached the planning. And here lies your problem.

You have tried a lot yourselves for 1 year and together with a construction supervisor, then received opposition in the forum, support from acquaintances, then spoke to an architect who is a colleague, whose first draft you did not like, and now you are finally "dizzy".

I think you are not aware that your demands and the planning task are not simple. Your spatial program with your requirements is demanding, the consideration of later use as a two-family house increases the complexity, and the client situation is somehow not simple either…

In my opinion, you should critically review the time invested so far, the drafts and the reactions. Write down everything that is important to you as a requirement for the planned living, and then commission a freelance architect. It is normal that the first draft ends up in the round file. By the 2nd to 3rd draft it is possible to foresee whether the cooperation makes sense. It does not cost the earth with a phased contract and will move you forward.

If you fail to convince someone, you call them resistant to advice, unwilling, and deny them any sense of space? I will think carefully about what I will reveal about myself in this forum.

You say the kitchen is at the top of the plan, and you don’t want to look at the wooden fence to the east while working in the kitchen. I mention that then you do look there when sitting on the sofa, and you write that you don’t see the wooden fence to the north ... do you realize that?

Yes, I do realize it! Because I know my conditions, requirements, and wishes well.
If I have the kitchen window exactly to the north, then I look through the window at the wooden fence. In the living room, however, there is NO window to the north. So I cannot look at the wooden fence through it. I can only look toward the south into the garden. Of course, then I also see the wooden fence around my property.
But again, don’t take every word too literally, but rather try to understand what I meant. This is not about finding loopholes and details just to criticize the floor plan.

And again about the pantry... you plan a freezer cabinet there and definitely want a window, so make sure the room is at least about 140 cm wide, otherwise the freezer door won’t open.

We have already simulated exactly that pantry. We manage with 1.35 m. The door can still open well and there is space behind it.

In general: But if narrow rooms are okay, and 2.8 m is enough for me to put a bed, then what is really so wrong with the floor plan? I haven’t noticed any huge improvements.

I must say the secondary rooms are even somewhat of secondary importance to me.
What bothers me is that despite having over 200 sqm, I only have such a small living room. That would be one point.
On top of that, I don’t want the house to be even bigger.
So, if the living room is to become larger, something else has to become smaller.
But that cannot be the kitchen.

The water points in the ground floor bathroom, kitchen, and upstairs bathroom I consider standard. Many houses also have an additional kids’ bathroom upstairs, so +1.

I find it good to have a water tap in the utility room, we have seen that with acquaintances as well. They manage fine with it.

An additional bathroom for the party room I would also (like many others) have in the basement. This wouldn’t be so objectionable in the basement.
Whoever has their laundry room in the basement also has water connections there. Since my laundry room is upstairs, it may have connections there too.

So I find the number of water connections plausible for such a large house. The one in the utility room can be debated, the rest is "standard".

I think I pretty much understand how high the requirements are. At the start, some still wrote "it’s nothing special" and "it should be easy" (loosely paraphrased, not taken too literally).

That’s why as an outsider you don’t really get far against me, or it’s hard to convince me of something else.
But believe me, if I found it better, I would also adopt it.
Currently, however, I don’t see dramatic improvements. So what exactly is so bad about my design?
I WANT the second staircase. I think you should just come to terms with that.
I WANT the passage room for coats, etc.
I WOULD LIKE to have a kitchen island.
And if the passage gets too narrow, then the kitchen island will be 20 cm narrower!

I look at my design critically, you do too, make counter-proposals.
But for me, nothing significantly better comes out. Certainly sometimes thought about differently and thus not bad. But when I read through everything here again, my design isn’t that wrong.
You don’t like the slants, okay.

I have presented a design with a straight corridor and other changes.
I wanted to hear opinions about that. Not much came out of it.
They didn’t address the pros and cons of the new corridor arrangement but kept referring back to the old plan.
So everything just goes in circles here.

We have been planning for 1 year, at least half of it based on "with basement," so that can be thrown out. Then we got married and put the plans on hold. Then came the honeymoon, and when we wanted to start again with renewed energy, most of our free time went to taking care of our mother-in-law with cancer and her family.
She sadly passed away on December 2, 2014. During that time, we also couldn’t plan at full speed.
Now we want to finish the matter and eventually start building.

As I said, if I add even 1 m to one side, I solve some of my problems. But then I’m at 250 sqm and more.
For cost/maintenance reasons or whatever, I’d like to stay around 200 sqm with the same requirements.

PS: What does the architect’s design cost me? If it’s 2-3 (percent?), certainly several thousand euros, or where am I on that?