Our floor plan design for an affordable house

Stairs and Prices:
We liked the construction stairs. They could have been a bit nicer, though. The construction is very simple. Glulam beams as stringers, solid steps, all screwed together and done. In a DIY project, you should stay under €1000 with simple spruce. Choose a different railing variant to protect your children and to get a simple building inspection. We love it!

Whether it is like this or different – those who think outside the box find solutions. With your budget, you won’t get around thinking outside the box and doing things yourself at every corner.

20 pages of discussion, in the end it will fail because of the budget.

Don’t be mad at me, five years ago I built my house with that money but spent 6 months on the construction site from morning till evening. You say friends/family will help, but don’t they have to work too or is construction only on weekends? Will the craftsmen wait for you until you are finished with the EL to continue?
If you have already scrapped the floor plan 10 times within one week, I don’t want to know how long it will take to decide on technology, equipment, tiles or wall color.

Hmm, I already explained relatively early in the thread where we see savings potential. We certainly can’t spend 6 months from morning till evening on the construction site. But one year every weekend plus the annual vacation. Planned self-performances: drainage on the property, pouring the floor slab (actually!), building the roof structure (truss plates) (for these two points I really have no clue, but my father-in-law is sure that he and my friend can do it themselves with support), drywall & insulation, heating and sanitary installation including underfloor heating, floors (except tiles), possibly façade cladding, exterior work anyway (building terrace, building carport, could also be 2-3 years later).

I find scrapping the floor plan frequently quite normal. I know few families who haven’t thought a long time about the floor plan and moved things back and forth. Of course, that is THE core of the design, all furniture that you intend to take along must fit, etc. That doesn’t mean we don’t already know exactly what we want regarding equipment and technology .

It’s possible I missed it: Which heating technology do you want to install?
With six to seven m² for the technical room, it could be a bit tight, depending on what else is supposed to go in.
Our architect says we need at least (!) 12 m².

I like the currently favored floor plan quite a bit – we wouldn’t build it that way because we didn’t want what you want (tube-shaped arrangement of kitchen, dining area and living room, staircase in the living area), but since you have a different idea: I think it’s good.

By the way, everyone who doesn’t want to build a palace here also has the storage space discussion. For some it’s simply incomprehensible that not everyone has the same requirements regarding that. Don’t mind it.

That’s right on topic . We will install a gas condensing boiler. Not the most ecological, but a geothermal heat pump is ruled out immediately due to our very difficult peat soil and limited budget, an air heat pump somehow doesn’t appeal to us with its low efficiency in winter, also the unit outside... We pay 3,500 € for the condensing boiler and my father-in-law installs it (of course, the underfloor heating and the gas connection come in addition). The condensing boiler is about the size of a large refrigerator (drawn in the utility room at the very bottom), so it should fit. Our utility room is now over 8 m² in the last floor plan draft (attached again), the kitchen a bit more than 9 m², which is plenty for cooking and preparing, I think. At the moment we have 10 m² kitchen with the dining table included.

Thanks otherwise for your positive comment, even if you yourself would build differently . Great that there are people here who can abstract from that!

Am I right that not all windows are drawn in the plans yet?

Correct, in the attached floor plan the windows are now quite final. The elevations are still missing, I will gladly upload them when we have finished fixing them. After a lot of back and forth, we have now decided on external dimensions of 11.7 x 7.5 m.

Stairs and Prices:
We liked the construction stairs. They could have been a bit nicer, though. The construction is very simple. Glulam beams as stringers, solid steps, everything screwed together and done. In a DIY project, you should stay under 1000€ with simple spruce. Choose a different railing option to protect your children and get an easy building inspection. We love it!
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Whether it’s one way or another – those who think outside the box find solutions. With your budget, you simply can’t avoid thinking outside the box and doing it yourself at every turn.

Wow, I really like it! I’ll remember this! We’ll build some storage underneath, done.

When I read these extra costs, I am regularly glad that we liked and still like a (comparatively inexpensive) closed concrete platform stair the best.

We had concrete in mind so far, too. Approximately how much did your stairs cost? So far, we only have prices for wooden stairs, since we want to request concrete together with the composite floor (which hasn’t been calculated yet). I’d really be interested, especially since you have the same stair shape...

The two-flight stair as you planned is cheap because the start and end are close together. Where you planned the landing (which is basically a step), five winders would fit – so four more, or on each side it would be two risers shorter.

Ah, good, I didn’t know exactly how much space you can save with winders... we’ll try that again in the floor plan.

If the budget is tight, then the tips regarding "custom-made furniture" etc. only help to a limited extent... after all, that is not free either and is additionally not affordable, so it would have to be paid from equity. I think you have to make the best of what is available (here: budget), and that compromises will have to be made... that is only natural.

In the hallway, I have an 80cm wide and 2m high shelf, where all the shoes of the three ladies living in the house are kept (for shoes currently in use there is a little bench with compartments and a drip mat). A normal coat rack with a few hooks, no closet, holds the jackets currently in use. What is not in season goes into the wardrobe, luckily the clothes rail there is sufficient. The suitcase lives on top of the wardrobe, the travel bags are inside. Under the bed, I have stored various stuff in under-bed boxes. I managed to get a bit of clutter up into the attic, including the box with Christmas decorations. The utility room is 7m² and houses the heating, house connections, the washing machine, the cleaning and detergent supplies, and even the vehicle fleet (bicycles, scooters). At the moment, there are even some leftovers from wallpapering there, which will be cleared away soon, making it a bit more organized. I did not show the floor plan here back then, because there surely would have been a storm of protest regarding storage space. But what use is that, the house was not bigger (walls and roof were already standing, building line setbacks fully used), and my budget would not have allowed a different, larger property. Compared to our 70m² apartment, we improved practically in every respect and that was the goal. And that must also be the goal of the OP, the budget is fixed, the space is fixed, and now you have to get as much as possible out of it under the condition of an open floor plan. Not much luxury will be possible. Perhaps the built-in furniture can be acquired gradually after the actual construction is done and some recovery sets in...

I find the floor plan from #123 very well done. Compact, meets your wishes (for me it would also be too open). Everything accommodated. Thumbs up!

If the budget is tight, then the tips regarding "custom furniture" etc. only help to a limited extent... after all, that isn't free either and is additionally not affordable, so it would have to be paid out of equity. I think you have to make the best out of what is available (here: budget), and that compromises will be made... that is only natural.

In the hallway I have an 80cm wide and 2m high shelf, where all the shoes of the three ladies living in the house are kept (for those currently in use, there is a little bench with compartments and a drip mat). A normal coat rack with a few hooks, no closet, where the jackets currently in use hang. What doesn't match the season goes into the wardrobe, luckily the clothes rail is enough. The suitcase lives on top of the wardrobe, the travel bags are inside it. Under the bed I have various things stored in under-bed boxes. I managed to get some clutter up to the attic, including the box with Christmas decorations. The utility room is 7m² and in there is the heating, house connections, the washing machine, the cleaning and laundry supplies collection, and even the fleet (bicycles, scooter). At the moment there are still some leftover wallpapering materials living there, which can be removed soon, then it will be a bit tidier. I didn't show the floor plan here back then, because there definitely would have been a storm of outrage regarding storage space. But what good does it do, the house wasn't bigger (walls and roof were already standing, building distances were already maxed out), and my budget wouldn't have allowed a different, bigger property either. Compared to our 70m² apartment, we practically improved in every respect and that was the goal. And that has to be the OP's goal too, the budget is fixed, the space is fixed, and now you get as much out as possible under the premise of the open floor plan. There won't be much frills. Maybe the built-in furniture can be acquired gradually after the main construction is done and things calm down a bit...

That's exactly it! And we are currently using our storage space at home in a similar way. And I also think: After our 86m² apartment, anything beyond 100 m² with two children's rooms seems spacious to me. And the other argument: When the kids are eventually out of the house, I don't want to sit in a much too large empty house either. In addition, our building allowance hasn't been fully used yet and if we want, we could still extend later.