Floor plan with setback - yes or no?!

I also saw a solution over the weekend where a child (with partner) builds a semi-detached house with the parents. The parents' half was somewhat smaller, but both halves were stylistically the same. The entire building was harmonious. The "children's part" (who is already grown up) would be that way from my point of view as well.
The parents had a living area, bedroom, bathroom, unfortunately only a very narrow kitchen without natural light, I didn't like that. Otherwise, an 80m² two-room apartment.

Maybe one can also consider whether such a solution is possible? Now the family house that one needs, and one already plans the retirement residence regarding location on the property etc. and builds it when the time comes?

Thanks for your idea – I had already thought about it too, but unfortunately my husband doesn't like the idea at all. He believes in expanding only upwards! Friends of ours are currently expanding an existing house that way, I think that's a great solution!

Two more questions for you -

do you have a tip for a free planning program? We want to make some drafts ourselves first before going back to the planner. Is it even sensible to go back to the same planner or is he already too "set in his ways" with his current plan? I also want to mention that we came to him with our drawn plan and he (very much) oriented himself on our draft.
- Is that good or bad? Or should one only give the planner a textual draft of their ideas so that he can create his own thing without "preconceptions"?

Would be grateful for your tips on how you approached this!

The best free plan program is not online, but usually on the desk or in a drawer: graph paper, pencil, eraser.

Such a program often pretends through pretty pictures that what is consistent – but the reality is different.

Graph paper, first draw the building envelope there, write the room program (has already been mentioned here several times) and then start scribbling on it. Eventually, a basic shape will crystallize. Then it’s time to bring the furniture into play. Cut out corresponding scale-accurate paper models; you can then freely and happily move them around (and no program I know makes it that easy).

And when you are pretty much done, you can e.g. program the whole thing with Sweet Home 3D – then you can look at it in 3D and virtually walk through the rooms. But that only makes sense when the actual planning is already quite far advanced. It takes quite a lot of time to enter everything correctly (!!!) into the PC.

A roll of tracing paper has proven very useful for us, which you can always place over the current plan and try out different variants without having to start over every time – I can only warmly recommend that.

Bay windows, corners, projections: all a question of cost – if you are calculating now, that would be the first thing I would save on.

Houses with a simple, rectangular floor plan are not necessarily boring boxes.

If we had been able to do what we wanted, our house would look completely different (proper Bauhaus with a staggered storey, flat roof, cubist, reduced). Now, due to the given framework conditions, we have a rectangular house with a gable roof – God knows that’s not what we once imagined. But I don’t find our house boring at all.

So be open to everything and don’t reject something in advance just because you found it dull so far, but look at everything impartially. At that stage, visiting show home parks is always interesting. There you can experience live what suits you, what doesn’t work at all in reality, what surprisingly is even great, and what unfortunately isn’t as cool as you might have imagined. I would definitely recommend that to you!

Then later use the basement room as a bedroom or you separate and build the dining table into a kind of conservatory as an extension.

I would plan anew
1. Room program
- which rooms do I need,
- what use now (possibly also later, although that is secondary)
- special furniture (size important)
e.g. work-guest-craft-gamer room,
desk and shelf for your husband, guest bed, 1 cupboard for your craft stuff, cutting table 2x1 m, etc location in the house doesn’t matter
Bedroom
You want or have a bed that you really like. But the frame is not 2x2 m but really thick and suddenly the bed is 2x2.2 m
You need 3, 4 or 5 meters of wardrobe
That results in a room size

2. Sketches graph paper, ruler and pencil 1cm = 1 meter is enough
then try it out
draw in the furniture
move walls, throw everything overboard

There is information on the internet about how much space a table or stairs need.

Is the planner from a general contractor?
Pre-drawn plans make the work easy. Just paint over them, consider statics, and done. Client happy, little work

I would go to the planner with a room plan in which all requirements are written down. Not wardrobe, but how many linear meters you need, not kitchen, but kitchen with peninsula, etc.
You also state there that you don’t want a bay window etc.

do you have a tip for a free plan program?

Sweed Home 3d

Everyone has their opinion, I for example say yes to:

Such a program often pretends through pretty pictures that everything fits – but the reality is different.

Nonsense – and a 1mm pencil stroke pretends nothing?

Use real measurements, for example outer wall 36cm
inner 17.5cm

You have to find out the rest yourself (for example you can search for stairs here).
Otherwise, Google "kitchen island measurements" and you'll roughly know how to draw in what.

best regards

do we have to completely discard this plan now

it is better to start over than to do patchwork and make repairs.
Take a look here:
https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/leitfaden-zur-hausplanung-auf-dem-Grundstück.30891/