Optimal use of a narrow building window

Why such small windows? Do you like living in a crypt? I think this will make everything very dark.

In addition, there are the notes from Yvonne, which you should definitely also consider.

Why don’t you design freely? Especially when the building plot is so tight, you can often get more out of a freely designed draft.

In addition, the bedroom and dressing room are not optimal at all. The bed does not fit there. Ok, it is a sketch, which can be discarded. But based on the sketch, you can see that you are thinking in a standard way, and that is not possible with a narrow floor plan. Straight stairs, double-row kitchen - everything has to be a bit different than in a townhouse. Take a look at houseboat designs and other architectural projects that can be built with a timber frame.

Thanks for your tips!

: Our wall construction is quite classic: 15cm aerated concrete + 18cm insulation + 1cm finger gap + 11.5cm facing brickwork

On the upper floor, the exterior facade is plastered, as shown in the pictures of the catalog house.

Regarding the kitchen, we haven’t really dealt with it much yet. The wide work surface that extends freely into the room could also be made narrower or shorter. Do you think one should do without this "wing"? Our current kitchen in our rental apartment is U-shaped and there is about 150cm of space between the two legs. We find that sufficient.

Regarding the bedroom and dressing room, we had planned the bed under the window. This has a parapet height of 1.555m. In the bedroom, there would basically only be the bed + nightstands and a TV. The dressing room is already quite large. It could possibly be shortened in favor of the children's rooms. It doesn’t necessarily have to be that large, it just turned out that way when drawing. Maybe one could build a small closet between the dressing room and children’s room 1?!

Which staircase would you recommend? Given the narrow floor plan, it would make sense to design the staircase straight and then have it rise along the length of the house. At first, we were missing a suitable arrangement here. Maybe some creativity is also lacking here. I will take a look at some floor plans of houseboats or row houses.



Do you mean by small windows the low windows with a parapet height of 1.555m? These windows are on the east side, where there are large oak trees anyway, and on the north side, where the carport partially protrudes. I actually find it quite nice visually and despite the windows you still have space to place furniture along the wall. We also looked at the house in the pictures in the model house park and it was actually quite bright. Are there any optimization suggestions?

The house in the pictures also has floor-to-ceiling windows, and the difference between floor-to-ceiling and the windows you favor is quite significant and makes a noticeable difference in the amount of light.
Think carefully about whether you really need that much wall space. At least on the side facing the forest, I would choose floor-to-ceiling windows. I’m a fan of large window areas anyway; it can never be bright enough for me in a house.
And I am not a fan of such standardized floor plans. My experience is that a freely designed floor plan, especially when the building boundary is rather restrictive, gets much more out of a house.
If I have a sufficiently large, preferably flat building plot, then I can easily place standard houses on it. That’s no art and it works, but if you are subject to restrictions, be it from the building boundary, from one side of the street, building regulations, development plans, an architect can usually get much more out of the project with an individual design.

I agree with you on that. However, we don't have an architect supporting us here, but a construction company that, besides catalog houses, also designs individual houses. I just don't know yet what feedback we will get from the company regarding our floor plans.

Regarding the floor-to-ceiling windows, we have included 6 single-leaf and 4 double-leaf floor-to-ceiling windows in the price as a base. That's actually quite a lot. The question is, how do we divide these? If you have concrete ideas, feel free to share them!

Our idea was, instead of the 2-leaf patio door, to have a lift-and-slide patio door with one fixed and one movable part.

If you are planning a custom house, you will also receive an individual cost estimate that exactly includes what you need/want.
I am not sure whether you want to stick as closely as possible to the standard offer to save costs or if it is more important to you to get a plan that exactly meets your needs while making the best possible use of your building envelope. Of course, it is also a question of budget.
The standard houses are usually cheaper if you take them exactly as offered. Any change becomes relatively expensive.
A custom-designed house is naturally more expensive at the beginning, but then you pay for what you want and don’t have to negotiate every change.
I find that understandable, because with the standard houses, the builders of course save on planning costs. However, it must be noted that the standard equipment of such houses is usually kept rather simple and cost-effective. Then you can state a nice final price as “turnkey” and attract customers that way.

But as I said, I am not so sure which direction you want to go. Is free planning an option for you?
And that builder, is he already set in stone? Especially when you have to plan a bit tricky, it is worth considering thinking about timber frame construction, as Yvonne has already mentioned. Much more is possible there. Or is that not an option for you at all?

We knew we wanted a wooden house but visited several providers and discussed our floor plan with all of them to hear how they deal with it, what works, what doesn’t, etc. That was quite interesting (one saw no static problems with our large open room, another wanted to install a support pillar there, etc.).

In the end, we ended up with a small craft business and will plan our house individually. We have a similar problem to you, namely a very restrictive building envelope (our house will be 8.40*12) and just wanted to realize quite a few things.
We also visited Baufritz, for example, which offers very high-quality wooden houses. With them, you can both plan individually and have standard houses off the shelf. The standard houses are very attractive in terms of price, but every little change really hits the cost hard. Individually planned houses would then be well above what we now have as a financial framework.