Great that you’re on board :)
For 9.5 x 12 I would try to build 7.5 or 8 x 12, to achieve a recess on the ground floor in the west of the building volume by one meter (1.5 meters), then have a 3 meter terrace in the west there.
Possibly extend this a bit into the garden behind bushes. That’s how I would start planning. Whether it will turn out like that is another matter.
I have to ask stupidly again sorry (wife, you know)...
Since we’re now quite sure that the house fundamentally has to be built like my parents’ – how do I handle the planning now – I feel like I’ve spent half the day leafing through some house catalogs. Nice houses, but none like my parents’, so everywhere I’d have to change something somehow. Do I now go to company XY and say – hey, my parents’ house is like this. I need exactly the same (except inside, since that’s flexible). What does it cost me if you build something like that, etc.? Or do I first have to go to an architect or someone else who puts all that on paper with the exact dimensions, etc. (and they don’t do that for free and need to be paid) and then go to company XY with that so they can roughly calculate if it even fits our budget?