House design - Single-family home - Can be separated into a two-family home in the future

Hello,

we (a family of 5) are planning to build a single-family house in Lower Saxony next year. The house may possibly be divided in 15 years in such a way that my wife and I will live on the ground floor and sell the upper floor or keep it for the next generation family.

It is about a building gap, there is no development plan.
Plot size is 911 sqm.
House exterior dimensions: 12.5 x 10 m

Roof type: gable roof
No basement, ground floor and attic with knee wall 1.5 m
Number of people: my wife and I, 3 children aged 7, 10, 13
Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor
Office: family use or home office?
Number of overnight guests per year
Open or closed architecture
Conservative or modern construction method
Open kitchen: no
Number of dining places
Fireplace: not yet known, probably not.

A conservatory is planned on the west side of the living-dining room, facing south and west
Garage: planned as a prefabricated garage, carport: opposite the north side (side door of the utility room)

House design
Who designed it: do-it-yourself
Preferred heating technology: gas condensing boiler

Please give your opinions.

Hello,

in my opinion, the floor plan provides a good basis.

However, I would consider the following points:

Ground floor:

The bottom of the stairs is located in the dirty area behind the door – you will always bring street dirt upstairs here.

I personally find the door between the hallway and the utility room along with the door immediately adjacent to it into the kitchen somewhat odd – wouldn’t it be better to place the first door between the kitchen wall and the "wall stub" – thus creating a corridor similar to the one upstairs leading to the office? Basically, doors that open into a corridor/hallway area always carry some risk of accidents, especially with children...

I also think the bathroom layout could be improved. After opening the door, you look directly at the toilet – the shower and bathtub give the impression of being placed somewhat arbitrarily in the room.

Here I recommend playing around a bit with an online bathroom planner – especially given the decent room size, there are certainly more elegant options.

The door from the kitchen to the dining area and possibly also the door from the hallway to the dining area may clash with the furnishing – a sliding door might not be the worst idea here.

Upper floor:

Bathroom: see ground floor.

The hallway, especially the part leading to the office, may become very dark if you don’t use skylights.

How you might separate the stairwell to be able to rent out the upper apartment is also somewhat unclear to me. That won’t really work without some unusual corners in the walls.

You should also consider, once you have the partition plan, water meters or the possibility to install them, a separate electricity meter for the upper floor (or the preparation for installing one), as well as a way to record heating costs separately.

Best regards,

Dirk

Overall, it fits quite well; personally, I would probably put my bedroom upstairs. It would bother me to have to walk from the bedroom through the entire hallway to the bathroom, possibly passing by the street shoes in winter when it’s really dirty.

And later, your children are already relatively grown up, when they stay up late in the evening and maybe sit in the living room with visitors, but you are already in bed and might have to go out to the bathroom again, the visitors want to leave... well, I wouldn’t be very eager to run into them in the hallway in my nightgown...

If you don’t have overnight guests very often and don’t use the office constantly, I would probably plan a multifunctional room on the ground floor (so office/guest), possibly reduce the bathroom a bit (then a shower bathroom is enough) and create a parent area upstairs from guest/office with its own bathroom (so one children’s bathroom, one parents’ bathroom).

If later a child wants to move downstairs, that would also work or if one moves out, you can also separate guest/office again.

I don't know if I missed it, but where is the equipment supposed to go? Into the utility room, it could get quite tight if the heating, hot water tank, washing machine, WT, house connections, electrical, etc. all have to fit in there.

Unfortunately, a site plan with access routes, etc., is missing once again.

The bathroom on the upper floor does not work. The shower is below the 2-meter line, and even below the 2-meter line, a shower only works poorly because water splashing upwards lands directly on the ceiling.

What is the attic supposed to look like if it is an independent apartment? Water connections for the kitchen.

Technology, I wonder about that too, especially since access to the kitchen is supposed to be through the utility room.

... and then about the two dining areas: I would plan the living room separately, for example, by separating it from the large open-plan kitchen with a sliding door. This way, you have two well-usable rooms. The kitchen becomes very tight with the dining area, especially when the children also bring friends home for meals – the living room also becomes cramped because the second dining area is squeezed in there... so all in all ... not quite optimal yet.

I would position the staircase as a separate and unheated part in front of the house from the outset – this way, a later division is also easy to manage – right now you can only install room doors – and then later change them to apartment doors.

For the parents' area, I would plan a bedroom with an en-suite bathroom, possibly also with a walk-in closet – this also works better if you remove the staircase.

Electrical and plumbing systems would also need to be planned separately from the start, as well as with the necessary connections upstairs for washing machine & kitchen. I would also plan a balcony for the upper apartment, which then covers your terrace below – whether you build it right away or only when you divide, you can still decide.