Ideas for single-family house design with basement

, but you just planned the bedroom in the west, and actually children's rooms are better suited there. North is at the top of the plan.

... why does it actually bother you if a child looks towards the neighboring property to the west/southwest?

In my opinion, you are still quite at the beginning of the design process, so it is actually a bit early for the elaboration in CAD. I share your criticism (and that in the green forum); fixing the weaknesses or unmet wishes will lead to a new design. I also find the entrance situation not successful yet, the cloakroom too dark. Fundamentally, I would reconsider the building shape, I could imagine a subtle "L" or staggered cubes, which would also make the kitchen brighter.

I’ll simply take up Wanderdüne’s remark at the end and also think that two drafts are not much at all. The architect can definitely be pushed for more.

Nevertheless, it must also be said that almost all requirements have been well implemented. You have to keep in mind that your plot is not exactly easy. Not narrow at all, but between houses each with two full stories facing north, a spatial program of (I roughly estimated this at the beginning with at least 110 sqm per floor) at least 220 sqm... Whether you really need a 30 sqm eat-in kitchen or the children’s rooms have to be 20 sqm, not to mention the dressing room, and the bedroom still has to reach 20 sqm... it is probably not up to us to judge this.
But I think if you reconsider at least 5 sqm here and there (you also have a large luxury basement), you have more freedom and space to design something different on this “small” plot area. After all, you have to walk through these spaces several times a day...

At the moment, the building somehow looks like a block in the gap between buildings. But you want this spatial requirement. The office came about like that, I have already considered whether simply moving the wall would help, but an extra meter in depth doesn’t help the living room (this seems to have already been realized).

Thoughts: children and office on the upper floor and a staggered attic for the parents with a terrace?
Or office in the basement (south side) with large windows?
My thinking is to relieve the individual floors in order to possibly plan less compactly, to the right make room for a wider garage and even have access to the garden.
The budget should allow for a few edges and corners.

The view would be secondary for me on this plot: firstly, no child stands in front of their window enjoying the view, secondly, these replacement blinds will be clipped onto the windows anyway, and thirdly, you have to accept some limitations: but you certainly have good proximity to the city. For me, some sun would be more important.

Regards, Yvonne

Hello everyone,
I’m so glad that quite a few of you have replied after all.

@ Manu
I’m surprised that you like it so much. I’m still not satisfied with it.
The large study on the ground floor basically came about because we said we could do without a storage room on the ground floor (originally we had planned a storage room and a pantry). Instead, we want to accommodate a large cleaning and storage cupboard in the study. But maybe it would be better after all to have at least one separate room (without a window, but with shelves up to the ceiling… just think of how much could fit in there :eek:).
A large eat-in kitchen is my real wish. That’s also the main problem with the whole floor plan, because they face the back and should be as wide as possible. But I think, since we are building anyway, I want to make that work. I really don’t want the bar seating, the planner just added that. But I would really like a large work/cooking counter. The problem is simply that they take up incredible space and actually fit much better in an open kitchen-dining-living area.
We currently have an L-shaped kitchen and I don’t like it anymore. I would really prefer the peninsula from which I can look into the room or at the dining table and the garden while chopping, preparing, and cooking.


Yep, the kitchen really seems to be the biggest problem. I’ll sit down again and think about what I would like the most and what I would still find good.
Kids’ room 2 – the window then faces a high grey wall at six meters distance. I don’t find that very appealing and it will probably be dark too. Towards the street, there is much more space and view because it’s a very wide street with parking bays and the buildings opposite are also set back quite far from the street.

@BeHaJa
If the bedroom is moved into kids’ room 1, it faces the street. I absolutely don’t want that. I’m extremely noise sensitive. We currently have the bedroom facing the street and when the window is open, I get woken up at five by people scraping ice off their car windows, slamming car doors, and starting their engines (and we live on a purely residential street and a dead end!!).


You’re right, we have already considered, for example, moving the kitchen one meter closer to the garden. But with offset cubes, the hipped roof would no longer work, right? We will probably have a brainstorming conversation with the planner. So far, we have hardly talked about the designs (and there are only two so far!), it was mostly about organizational things first (soil survey, timetable, budget, contract, etc.).


Well, it’s not that dark after all. Currently we live in a rented apartment with the living room and kitchen facing northeast (bedroom and bathroom facing south, unbearably hot in summer). In summer, that’s really practical because the terrace is always shaded from 10 a.m. onwards. At my parents’ house (south-facing), you can’t even stay on the terrace in summer under the awning because it’s way too hot.
We will definitely have enough sun in the garden. The large trees in the west will be completely removed (already coordinated with the neighbors and the removal application is in progress).
I would have preferred a slightly larger plot and especially smaller neighboring houses, but you’re right, we have a perfect location for us. And we searched for three years because we are limited to a very small area (the best residential area in our city) and there is practically no supply (we only got the lot by chance and luck; it was not on the open market). And you don’t even want to know what we paid just for the lot!

Kids' room – what do you mean by replacement blinds, those pleated blinds directly in the window? We wouldn’t need those if the kids’ rooms faced the street, because no one can look in from opposite and then we could put up nice curtains (every window will have a shutter anyway). Hm, regarding the view... my former kids’ room (about 12m²) had two large windows. One in front of the desk with a wonderful plane tree outside and one in front of the bed, where I could also always look out. And I really enjoyed doing that. But a 10-meter-high grey wall six meters from the window would really be awful.

We will definitely sit down again and consider what we really want and what is nice to have but also dispensable. Originally, I thought 200m² would easily be enough; I need to hold back my husband who always wants everything bigger, faster, further (except for the kitchen, that one I want).

@everyone
Thanks so much for your contributions!!! You really gave me a lot to think about.

If the kitchen furniture is realistically drawn in there, then the house without a bay window has an INTERNAL dimension of approximately 10.2 m * 14 m.