Log cabin with a clipped gable roof by the forest - improve planning?

Somehow you have made quite a few compromises now.
No basement
Wellness area brought inside the house
No fireplace room, no library,
Very small bedrooms, mini walk-in closet

Do you really want it like this?
Compare the room sizes and the rooms

I will try again step by step, this did not happen arbitrarily:

I wanted the basement as storage space and possibly to create additional space for parents. However, in the planning the disadvantages clearly outweighed the advantages:
- Very expensive
- White tank required
- Core insulation limits supplier selection
- Sewage treatment plant becomes significantly more problematic
- Civil engineer has to work in rock
- The slope to get daylight will be elaborate
- The rooms would have to be planned directly as living space or converted later at great expense

This way we have the rooms on one level, one less staircase, and the apartment can be separated at any time, but until then it can be used as a guest apartment. We would need the second kitchen in a separate apartment anyway, but now we can also use it if the described child-garden problem arises or if we have a celebration in the garden and don’t want to use the stairs.

Wellness area inside the house:
It is no longer outside, but this makes the connections much easier, I don’t need an extra building permit, and it is equally usable for all visitors/residents. The large bathtub is also not in the children’s or parents’ bathroom, which we see as an advantage.

The fireplace room/library is no longer explicit, but the living room still fulfills these functions. The idea behind the separate fireplace room in the first design posted here came from the consideration that we wanted a second living room so that you could retreat with guests into a kind of “gentlemen’s room.” This will not happen now; the area with the Chesterfield sofas will be in the living room. Instead, there is the second living room downstairs, which will initially have the pool table and a fireplace.

Small bedrooms: Yes, that is a special wish. We only sleep in the bedroom and don’t need more than 12-16 sqm. Most people even have less in their houses. The bed fits in, we would rather allocate the space to children or other areas. I see it similarly with the guest rooms, although I plan even smaller beds there. Not every room needs 2.20m * 2.20m large play areas.

I need to take another look at the walk-in closet. Before the staircase moved there, we had 6m of closet space, which was rather too much for me.

I’ve also been tinkering all the time with a meaningful draft. Given the dimensions, I would probably deviate from a pure rectangle.

Can I summarize again:

- large kitchen
- table for 10 - 12 people
- quiet living area, possibly an extra library
- stove
- living unit for the parents, if possible separated from the rest of the house and also usable as an office/guest unit (should there also be a kitchen in it when the parents move in? I can’t remember anything about this in the first drafts)
- luxurious parents’ area with wellness
- separated children’s area with its own bathroom

Did I forget anything?

I am trying to put everything together:

Ultimately, there are only maximum dimensions due to the setback areas: maximum width about 27m, maximum depth according to the building authority about 40m – but we don’t want to build a gymnasium (watch out, irony).

Planning can take place within this rectangle. Driveway at the northwest corner, where the garage is currently planned.

We want:
- a parents’ area that is no bigger than necessary and where the walk-in closet is the central passage room. We only need space for a large bed in the bedroom, a 4-6m Pax closet in the walk-in, and in the bathroom two sinks, a shower for two (1m*2m) and a toilet.
- children’s rooms ideally on the same level as the kitchen/living room, about 20sqm in size, own bathroom with shower, toilet and sink.
- kitchen planned at 4.5m * 6m plus movement area on both outer sides, wood stove with baking compartment must be accessible
- dining area with table for 8-12 people
- living room with bookshelves and a small fireplace
- wellness area generally accessible, not through passage rooms, ideally with direct connection outside to jump into the pond
- guest room preferably separable as an apartment for the elders.
- a toilet near every entrance door, at the main entrance a shower option for athletes and dirty animals
- a utility room
- storage space for groceries and storage options
- glass on the south side
- bedroom preferably to the north

I think that’s it. Does that help you?
Thanks for your effort!

This design reminds me of a church converted into a monastery. I wonder who would want to walk these corridors.

We do, that's why we (so far) are satisfied.

Well, if it’s supposed to be a church, I want to remind you once again about the ceiling heights. 2.40m is nothing. Our house is a bit more than half the size of yours and we have 2.65m ceiling height. The bigger it is, the higher it should be, otherwise it looks like a barrack. I would set at least 2.70m for you.

The door in the corner: we’ll try again and ask both the kitchen studio and the architect. The first approach to put the door into the hallway didn’t please me either.

There’s not much to puzzle over. Move it 1m over and everything is fine.
If you test the distances in the kitchen, you will find that e.g. 1.20m is a good working distance to the “counter”. From that point of view the corridor would be too narrow anyway.

Basically, I understood that you don’t like it, that message got across. We like the approach of floor separation, but we were also told: Symmetry is the beauty of simple people. That’s how taste is, I don’t even find it bad.

Yes, symmetry is the aesthetics of fools. We know that saying too. But what’s the connection? I think it’s funny that out of all people, Yvonne with her skewed shed roof house is declared a symmetrical fool.
Ridiculous.

This arrogance deserves to endure some criticism:

I am by no means “pleased” with the design yet. I would start with quality of life. The mere keyword “walking distances” would fill pages here. Whoever has to carry the groceries to the pantry already has my sympathy.

After that it would start with the lighting concept — dark north-facing rooms for the kids, dark long hallways without light, storage space completely without light. Poor planning.

With such a luxury lump you want luxury in everyday life too. I do not want to carry my laundry through the whole house. Even if I have the money to let Anna from Poland do it, she constantly runs on my stairs through the living room. Annoying. Or is a laundry chute planned? Is there a laundry area outside? How do you get there from the utility room?
Then this disproportionate mini-dressing room (considering the rest of the house size). Why now?

What about a cloakroom at all? Is all of it supposed to be stuck to the wall on the long narrow corridor? It already reminds me of the endless cabinets we lined up at school.

Although the open living space is gigantic, it will only look long and narrow. The stairs are supposed to act as a room divider—but ultimately the space behind them will now be disproportionately narrow. What am I supposed to do with the narrow only 3m wide space behind the stairs in the living room? Keep in mind that no wall thicknesses are shown yet. Everything will be even narrower than it looks now, including the dressing room.

In this luxury liner there are now 4 WCs — hats off. But it’s a shame the guest WC downstairs did not get a window.

With so much money, wouldn’t you want to consider a separate room for the children’s nanny or the housemaid? Are they allowed to use the guest wing then, or is it for guests?

I agree with Climbee that with a house this size, a rectangle does not quite work. Why you insist on your own design still puzzles me. The project belongs, in my opinion, into good architects’ hands. That you can’t find one there puzzles me just as much.

So, had a boring meeting, so I could doodle.

However, this means I’m missing the latest info, e.g. that a basement is absolutely not possible (if I had to drill into the rock, I would cancel immediately, too).

Therefore, my draft is now naturally missing the cold storage room, which I had planned as a basement accessible from the outside. I’m more concerned with the concept.

With the size, I find a purely rectangular house difficult. I would also reflect the zoning in the floor plan, e.g. the area that the parents might eventually live in. Until then, it can be a guest/office area, but it is clearly structured and recognizable in my draft floor plan. From the entrance you can look directly into the garden, there is enough space for a coat rack. As long as the parents are not there yet, one could even consider not finishing the WC (marked with “?” in the plan) but just including it in the plan. Then it could still be used as a closet for the time being.

The kitchen roughly corresponds to your dimensions. For the stove, there are only two options: under the ridge or on an exterior wall. Here it could be placed on the wall to the cloakroom or as part of the kitchen line if it is mainly to be used for cooking. Otherwise, it could also be placed as a room-dividing element between living and dining, but then the way from the kitchen is longer. So first one needs to be clear on what has priority: a pretty stove where I watch the fire or do I want to cook my roasts there regularly?

Unfortunately, the meeting was too short for the upper floor *g*

But here I would plan the children’s area above the builder’s area (I have now used the parents’ area for the builders’ parents). Possibly, the children’s bathroom could still be located above the entrance area.
I had thought of the corner between living and kitchen as a covered terrace; this can be solved by having the roof overhang here so far and the terrace is open up to under the roof, or I extend the ceiling slab over this corner and use the room above either as living space or also as a balcony.
The staircase is prominently placed and especially if there is no basement underneath (then I would have arranged it differently, so the ascent is from the living area) that is great from a design perspective.
Upstairs you can (but don’t have to) plan a gallery with an open space above living and/or dining. In any case, the library can be accommodated in the middle section. Above the right part of the house I would then place the private area of the builders.

As long as there are no children yet, the two rooms can be used as a fitness room, additional bedroom, etc., or if you have more guests at times, as a second guest area.

What is important to me is simply that the zoning is reflected in the floor plan and you don’t just have a long stretched rectangle with the risk of a “church atmosphere” and long, narrow corridors.

Many glass fronts are planned to the front so that the view can be enjoyed.

So not to be considered final, but for thought:


The pink-outlined area is basically the “extension,” which should also visually stand out in the floor plan and contains the children’s area on the upper floor (that was my basic idea).

Oh yes, and as often desperately wished: with a corresponding roof overhang, you could also get from the garage to the entrance dry-shod.

Stairs as a design element could be imagined like this:





Here even fitting with the living area behind:

Cool, I think it’s funny that Yvonne, of all people, with her crooked shed roof house, is being called the symmetrical idiot.

Was that so misunderstood? I’m referring to myself – and only myself. We have now divided everything very consistently and ordered the "cubed-up" parts.

If you test the distances in the kitchen, you will find that, for example, 1.20 m is a good working distance to the "counter." Therefore, the aisle would be too small anyway.

Strange, all distances between the island and the kitchen are exactly 1.20 m in our case. Or do you mean the passage to the door? That is "only" 1.10 m, that’s correct. But of course, it’s an idea we need to consider. If I see it correctly, in your case the island also gets smaller right away, which is quite disadvantageous because it affects the cooking/preparation area.

Or is a laundry chute planned?

It is drawn in (with WA for laundry chute) I will write something about the height shortly, it seems to be quite confused here. Maybe I should start a new thread so that we can get the cross-references right.