Floor plan with setback - yes or no?!

You are building a house for yourselves and 2-3 children. That’s how I would plan.

Separating the living room as a bedroom and remodeling the upper floor is still always possible. Attic as expansion reserve.

At the moment you have a huge box with a lot of storage space and one room too many on each floor. That costs money for nothing.

The staircase position causes hallway space especially because it is not continuous.

You are right and we have meanwhile realized that at the current time/in the near future it was planned too generously. Let’s see how we can optimize everything to still have enough space for later. The thing with the empty rooms on every floor is unfortunately true. We just really wanted an area for ourselves ... when the children grow older and constantly have friends/partners visiting, we want everyone to have their privacy.

Unfortunately, I don’t understand the criticism expressed several times now about the staircase design. So I don’t know what is meant? At least on the ground floor the staircase has to be positioned that way for the possible separation later. And isn’t it much more wasteful of space if the stairs are in the middle of the room? I don’t quite understand .. maybe you can enlighten me.

Normally, stairs are placed in a stairwell, even though it is no longer like it used to be when one had a stairwell, but rather part of the living area. However, it makes sense to align all the stairs to all the floors on top of each other, because this consumes less floor space than having two separate stairwells, since the stairs from the ground floor to the first floor are located differently than the stairs from the first floor to the attic.

That is what is meant by this.

[A QUOTE="Altai, post: 327555, member: 47702"] A friend has a real two-family house, one apartment on the ground floor, one on the upper/top floor, a total of 180m² of living space. He now lives there alone, or with the two younger children when they are not with their mother. Previously, his father had the lower apartment; he has since passed away. The eldest daughter studies 400km away and the hope that she will come back home afterwards and move into the apartment downstairs, in my assessment, will not be fulfilled. She has a boyfriend at her place of study and has already made first contacts with potential employers through internships, she likes it there... He does not want to rent it out, because that would mean bringing strangers into the house... From this perspective, I would not overemphasize the possibility that the children will stay living there when planning... Who knows what will happen then? You first build for here and now! Especially if the budget is limited. Although the OP emphasizes that they see no problem there, there was almost a factor of two between wish and reality (or rough estimate)... I would build the house that YOU NEED NOW and in the next one or two decades. [/A QUOTE]

I totally understand what you mean. At first, we were also unsure whether we really wanted it that way, especially since you only build a house once in your life and actually for yourself and according to your own wishes. In the end, we decided to go for it anyway, and that for two reasons:

- In our latitudes, you see that every second house is being extended/added to/done some tinkering (and that even though houses here are already very generous), simply because buying land + a house can never be financed, and even if financially possible - there are practically no building plots available; and before something ugly gets tacked onto my little house in 20 years - better to think ahead right away
- With a really well-thought-out and somewhat creative planning, we simply hope to combine our own dream with some foresight for later use, that will be a long process but we are just at the beginning of our planning

Normally, stairs are placed in a stairwell, even if it is no longer like the stairwells people used to have, but rather part of the living area. However, it makes sense to align all stairs to all floors above each other, because this uses less floor space than having two separate stairwells, since the stairs from the ground floor to the first floor are positioned differently than the stairs from the first floor to the attic.

That is what is meant by this.

ok, many thanks for the explanation!

So basically, it's the exterior that you haven't fallen in love with yet, but despite the quick sketch, the layout is already close to what you actually want to build?

I just feel that quite a few things don't fit with this exterior design of the house, and it seems too massive, restless, and overloaded. But that's actually not our main concern at the moment.

It's really the ground floor layout that we've kind of fallen for, but we just don't know if it's an unfortunate love.

We find it difficult with today's usual open-plan design... it's beautiful, of course, but also totally impractical when living/dining/cooking all happen on one level. With the setback and the sunken living room, at least for us, it created the feeling of bringing a bit of "distance" between the different areas without losing the "free and open" character of the whole. But precisely because we're so uncertain, we're just hoping for inputs and opinions here.

It is really actually the EG floor plan that we have kind of fallen in love with, but just don't know if it will be an unhappy love

I don't find it successful—especially with your considerations. Regarding the staircase location: because of the corner solution, a long hallway is needed. The kitchen, which in a household with many children should normally be centrally located, has the longest traffic route. Everything has to pass by the living room, even though you are looking for privacy. Your recess is neither fish nor fowl, it restricts a terrace in the passage area. There is no cloakroom and no ample space for 4-5 people by the entrance. Where you need less, a turning circle has been created, which feels like a dead end. The pantry is too narrow to be walked through. A corner bench might work on the edge, but there is no space for a free-standing table. The counter is narrow with its 60 cm. I have already said something about the central open space. Building blocks are not planned in front of the terrace door, nor in a passage area. A bathroom should be sufficient for guests and later as a parents’ bathroom. And the room intended to become a bedroom later should also be planned with at least 12 sqm and can be placed in the first years so that it can serve as a playroom.