Large single-family house with 4 children's rooms - convertible into 2 residential units

If you are already so far along with the planning that you are designing a bathtub with a door, first draw in the turning circles for the rollator and wheelchair. These are already extremely tight if someone still needs to assist. Reinforce the wall installation during construction so that a grab bar can be planned.

And place 2 armchairs with reclining function and standing aid in your living room. Seniors also do not want to sit in a small room 24/7. Have you once drawn your existing or desired furniture to scale in the floor plan with clearance space? For example, the freezer in the utility room is usually deeper than the obligatory 60 cm and you need a large one for 4 - 6 or even 8 people. Do this and you will most likely see where it gets tight. Especially with things that distinguish you from us, like Aunt Ilse’s farmhouse cabinet, the shoe collection, or the library that you can equip with your books. Your supplies will also burst, and the pots and pans will be huge. Don’t forget that now with all scenarios and if, when, then,

And I would plan larger windows in the dining and living areas. The eye doesn't stop at the edge of the table even when sitting. The feeling of space is enhanced by large windows.

Walk through your house. The children come home from school (by the way, I know a family of 6 who have a cloakroom), change shoes, hang up jackets, open wet umbrellas, scarves and hats, school bags, sports bags, and that times 4 + 2-4 adults. And everyone has more than one pair of shoes and a jacket. Plus visiting children and possibly their parents because you are friends with them. Where should all that stuff go? With limited mobility, shoes and co. on the floor are tripping hazards.

That is what was meant by family scenes. This morning, and we were only two, the following was still in the cloakroom: bag for ballet this afternoon, booster seat (for carpool), violin case and school bag for this morning, next to it my bag for work and another basket with bread and eggs that I have to take to my parents. This evening the booster seat will be put away, the ballet bag will disappear into the cloakroom, the violin in the living room, and instead a bicycle helmet and a bag with change of clothes will come next to the school bag. Or another scene: Grandma is sitting at the table knitting, child 1 is doing homework, child 2 is just coming from school and wants to eat, children 3 and 4 are playing in the living room, and the medications for grandpa are being counted out and distributed into boxes on the dining table. Is the table big enough? Can 10 people sit at the table for a meal, one of whom sits in a wheelchair? For example, our dining table can seat 10 people with normal chairs, squeezed say 12 people for parties; with 2 wheelchairs it's comfortably 8 people, squeezed 10, but then you have to keep your elbows close to your body. In your planning, the space between the chair and the kitchen island is very narrow. It could be too tight for seniors, e.g., a senior comes with a cane up to the edge of the table and you push the chair from behind underneath. The way to the terrace will probably lead through the kitchen very often.

I quite like the quick counter-design, especially the 2nd terrace. The seniors have their private realm. Such a shared flat is certainly not easy for everyone. The cloakroom is bigger, it looks more open, cozy, and generous.

Just thinking aloud, can't your parental home basically become the "parents' house," so that your wife's parents can also stay there during their visiting times? In case of needing care, one room where you can just about fit a 160 cm bed isn't really enough.

I would also like to do that in our situation. Everyone agrees NO ... Although such a shared flat does have advantages, also for the parent generation. There are simply more people around. Loneliness should not be underestimated. Even if you are two and hardly get outside anymore, it makes itself noticeable. And it would be reassuring. There is always someone who can press the emergency button, etc.

Let's keep it brief. The house already only works for 4 children in a limited way, with 2 elderly people not at all, even if they are still agile and can walk on their own. There is a reason why the rooms and bathrooms in the nursing home appear so huge...

we plan to obtain quotes from various homebuilding companies based on the draft (tender)

My advisees use my experience to approach this step in two parts: in the first step, only a preliminary draft of building inquiry quality is used, and the participants are asked two questions, namely what it would roughly cost to realize the planning 1. as shown in the preliminary draft and 2. instead taking a proven building proposal from the "catalog" of their repertoire; the latter can be a "model house" or a "promotional house." In this way, one obtains a counterproposal with the essential advantage that this model has already passed its "general rehearsal(s)" successfully and therefore brings series maturity. Every individual design as a premiere carries the risk of teething problems and is also less precisely predictable in terms of price.

By involving typically three timber and three masonry companies, this step is also suitable to identify whether the design exceptionally offers reasons to be constructed significantly more cheaply in one building method than the other. Then, the architect can either further develop the preliminary draft specifically optimized for one or the other building method into the actual design. Or one takes one of the counterproposals as a new basis, and the further direction of the architect is then to adapt this to the specific building family. The "actual" tender is then a second part. According to the differing emphasis of the task, these two instruments in my services are called "setting the course" and "searching for a construction company." Many advisees have the course setting done by me or another independent building consultant, but it is basically also possible for laypersons to do it themselves; the trick lies, as described, in question 2.

Especially if this step is only done in one part, one receives many apples and oranges as answers and as a layperson is doomed to despair trying to tame this chaos with the very poorly suited tool "Excel spreadsheet."

What will definitely be disappointed in any case is the hope that the participants in the round inquiry would bring essential improvement impulses to the individual design or even fully debug it (out of the idea that they are professionals after all). But that goes spectacularly wrong: they only debug those errors that would break the neck of a building permit application. Otherwise, potential (and unfortunately much more likely with non-expert planning) botch is almost signed off 1:1. Dimensions are rounded to whole half centimeters, usually remaining fantasy dimensions that ignore the octameter rhythm (masonry construction) or the rafter axis dimension (industrial wooden construction). In masonry buildings, this shows itself in the form of stigmas ("botch pockets") in the disturbed masonry rhythm.

A self-planning building owner not alerted to these shortcomings signs faster – that is all that counts for the general contractor in the race for the contract.

In your case, you will receive offers for the depicted self-planning; a classic two-family house as stacked two-child-family apartments as per my suggestion will likely not be proposed by any of the participants. For large spans, they will plan beams and/or thicker ceilings but rather not tinker with counterproposals regarding the positions of load-bearing walls. Especially if you do cold acquisition and it is unclear whether you are doing this to a reasonable extent or as occupational therapy and whether you are even requesting offers or rather counteroffers, nobody will make the appropriate effort for your project. Preparing really useful offers takes time and therefore money.

For the majority of cold-requesting laypersons, whose "tender" is more "Russian roulette," it is precisely the good companies who only do the amount of work appropriate for such a gamble. This is also the explanation for the secret why the market is not gradually cleaned up from bad construction companies: they participate more frequently in the "price competitions" of literally "excel-lent" prospective builders and naturally win those more often, too. And if they are not dead, there will continue to be "butcher houses" ;-)

(...)
What will definitely be disappointed in any case is the hope that the participants of the round inquiry would contribute essential improvement impulses to the individual draft or even fully debug it (based on the idea that they are professionals, after all). But exactly this goes completely wrong with loud fanfare: they only debug those errors that would break the neck of a building permit application. (...)

One should not assume any ill intent or deceitfulness on the part of the companies here. You receive a draft and are supposed to name a price for it or show an off-the-shelf alternative model. And that is what they do because they are sure that the competition does exactly the same. If I sit down and file out the first points from the draft, the prospective builder says, "Thanks, but your competitor, who offered more cheaply, will build it."

Precisely because they are professionals, they know how it runs, how builders tick, how the competition ticks. Ultimately, everyone wants the contract, and in most cases with comparable performance, it comes down to the price.

When I sit down and refine the first details out of the draft, the prospective builder says, "Thanks, but your competitor will do the building, he offered it cheaper."

Worse, and we read this here regularly: the provider Schlampenhuber gets the contract not only secondarily because he is (apparently) the cheapest, but primarily because he (possibly untruthfully) says "no problem" to special requests, while the experienced, more thorough provider appears "less competent" to the customer with his cautionary notes. Jürgen does it this way, Willi does it this way, we want it too. The building contractor who says "that will warp," is dismissed as "just not capable" or "just wants to make money" by dimensioning the component more solidly.

Ultimately, everyone wants the contract and in the vast majority of cases, with comparable performance, it comes down to the price.

The price is often the only parameter the layperson "understands." "My" contractors do not want to win the contract through the price: necessary operational profit significantly helps to secure the company's existence. I want contractors who will live to see at least the end of the warranty period. Satisfied customers keep customer acquisition costs under control through their recommendations, which is why reputable providers seek partnership-based planning with the customer (or their expert advisor). Meaningful "more expensive" solutions can (but often must also) be explained. There are (precisely these banal described) reasons why the Fleischerhaus general contractors and excel-lent customers keep coming back to each other. Likewise, it is "not a bug but a feature" that solid general contractors see building couples of the "Krethi and Plethi Billigjakob" type as a cup they pass by "with a kiss on the hand." I also advise companies in addition to prospective builders, always keeping insolvency risks in view.

By the way, all attentive readers know this: behind many construction ruin stories is a general contractor who won the contract primarily because of a price-convincing offer.