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

although we rarely use the bathtub but maybe more as we get older

In twenty years, the bathroom will be renovated or modernized anyway, so I would wait with the tub. People usually don’t voluntarily switch between being a shower person and a bather (or vice versa), and it’s not really a senior bathroom as such. People around sixty often still dare to build again today, and that will probably become "even more normal" in the future.

The plan has not been submitted yet but the architect must have it by Wednesday morning at the latest,

Oh dear. You can’t make that look nice that quickly anymore. I don’t know what such a house is supposed to be in Lower Saxony. To me it looks like a prefab house from 1990, unimaginatively plain, a set square design with failed proportions. But above all: like one that can’t decide stylistically between Bavarian and High German. As if someone from Düsseldorf married into the Allgäu.

The conservatory and carport look stuck on. Plus the front door canopy looks like it was bought in a different store than the carport. The conservatory is out of proportion; no conservatory specialist would plan it that way, and in depth it’s borderline. The carport is wider than one side of the house’s roof, which looks very disproportionate and stuck on. I would have at least rotated the roof pitch and moved it a bit: so that its roof could extend over the utility room door, for example.

Technically, although I can’t quite imagine the staircase without a wall beside it, everything looks perfectly buildable, no question. But visually it has about as much esprit as clothes men buy by themselves. That the architect is supposed to be one – I can hardly believe.

The windows bother me:

In the south, the lower ones are too close together, while the upper ones are further apart. I would mediate that so that there is an equal distance in the middle. I am not always for symmetry, but against deliberate asymmetry.
And of course, I also have something to criticize in the west: the outer windows, meaning to the left of the plan view, are wider than the middle windows. That may not be a big difference, but big enough that it has always irritated me somewhat in the views until I compared the dimensions in the floor plans.

The bathroom on the ground floor would benefit if you take the solid arrangement – shower and tub on one side, the rest opposite. That way, you can still leave 20/30 cm in width in the bathroom and allocate it to the later bedroom on the ground floor.
Because: it will later be difficult to furnish this room as the main bedroom. Just try it out...
The hallway is already almost a bit too wide.

In the upper floor, as a separate apartment, it would bother me that no outdoor area is planned at all. In this respect, for further (garden) planning, I would consider which piece the tenant can use later or plan a terrace window for a later balcony addition?
Of course, you also have to plan a parking space for later now – not to build it yet, but to plan the space. Once you have spread out in the south, it hurts to rip out the planting again just because you want to rent.

Otherwise: solid, almost a bit boring. But if you want it that way, it's okay.

Hello 11ant, do you mean by the failed proportions only what you mentioned about the conservatory and carport, or are there also failed proportions inside the house?

Hi ypg,
South windows: Of course you are right, but if we move the windows downstairs further apart, there is no reasonable place for a sideboard with a TV in the living room. If we make the windows upstairs more central, they are no longer centered in the rooms.

West windows: We would like to have 2.01 windows in Child2 as well as in the kitchen, but that then severely restricts the kitchen layout. I have now uploaded a picture with the detailed planning.

Bathroom downstairs: I have now uploaded a picture with the current state of the furnishings, as we were not satisfied with it. Would you please explain on the picture what you mean?

Upper floor connection to the outside: Does a floor-to-ceiling window solve the problem? If yes, where?

So the picture with the kitchen.

In the south, the lower ones are too close together, while the upper ones are farther apart. I would mediate that so that there is an equal distance in the middle. I

Exactly. The window in the dining room under the one in the bedroom; and the one in the living room 1.01 m wide, as a patio door, centered under the one in the children's room.

West window: We would like 2.01 m windows in Child2 as well as the kitchen, but that then restricts the kitchen layout a lot.

One could reduce the distance between the windows by 25 cm: give both children upstairs 2.01 m, and downstairs the office 2.26 m.

I would adjust the passage dining room / conservatory to 2.01 m.

Hello 11ant, do you mean by the failed proportions only what you mentioned about the conservatory and carport or are there also failed proportions inside the house?

I certainly would have written more if I had meant more.

About the bathroom: on the right side first the shower, then the bathtub. On the left side, washbasin, toilet by the window (or vice versa). Place the door in between, the space is available. Everything else just takes up space, room, and light. Mobility is restricted. The ground floor lacks a terrace door. Even if the conservatory is excluded from the thermal envelope, there can be heat blockages. Despite protection, the conservatory is avoided. For the upper floor, you need to consider how privacy will be arranged later. Where should the future living room be? The summer seating of the ground floor and upper floor should be placed differently so that there is also privacy.
Regards, Yvonne