Purchase advice / Financial evaluation - 1950s house with attractive plot

We would definitely plan for transom windows above the bathroom into the hallway. Also makes sense coming from the apartment door. We will include this in the desired state.

Yes, it would be possible, see basement sketch. We had thought about it as well, but nothing we would do right now. The question is actually whether we first plan without a bathtub and then do something later in the basement.

Yes, we should expand this both in the basement and in the attic (as soon as the old tenants are gone).

We currently have no children; I think there will be no more than one (my wife is already 36). We are now planning for one children's room, meaning we would then use the current dining room as a children's room/home office. Everything else can be used spatially.

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In the latest draft, I have planned differently and moved the bedroom into the current kitchen so that the kitchen and living room are not so elongated but also wider. In addition, the living room could then be equipped with a fireplace. Where there is currently one shown in the living room (former bedroom), there is an unused chimney in the corner.

Attached are 3 floor plans again:
- 1x original state ground floor
- 1x basement (the two habitable rooms are marked in red)
- 1x newly planned ground floor with children's room

And 3 pictures showing how the new layout in the living room and hallway would look.

Hello everyone,

We have now approached an architect again who had some additional ideas. At the moment, we have narrowed it down to 2 options:
- Draft 1 goes in the direction we originally planned
- Draft 2 is also very interesting due to using the hallway as the kitchen → real space gain

A cost calculation is currently being prepared which will likely help us decide. Option 2 would probably be more expensive.
Option 1 could be carried out step by step to better manage the budget. With option 2, we would have to renovate everything at once so there is no intermediate step.

Next steps:
1) Have a structural engineer review the options
2) Decide on a design
3) Commission and execute

Anyone who wants to is welcome to share thoughts on the drafts. The garden is still at the bottom of the image.

I like Draft 1 much better. It brings together what somehow belongs together, namely eating/cooking. The sleeping/office rooms are also more accessibly structured, especially room 2 = office/child ... in Draft 2 it is not great if you have visitors in the evening and a child still has to go through the dining room to get to the bathroom/toilet.

For the bathroom in version 1, one should consider whether a separate shower/bathtub is really needed, whether a bathtub is needed at all, or if it would be better to plan, for example, a nice large shower with a bench on the right.

Hello,
here is a small update again:

Conversion measures
Construction measures for variant 1 have now been carried out. The wall in the living room was pierced and a large steel beam was installed (see picture). Unfortunately, there were some complications on the upper floor at this point, so that the wall on the upper floor sagged slightly when the wall on the ground floor was removed despite support (now two doors can no longer be closed properly and a few cracks have formed). However, stability is probably not affected.
We will enlarge the bathroom at a later date, as it was newly renovated in 2020 and otherwise we would not have enough money. We therefore prefer to invest in nice parquet flooring and a good kitchen.

Otherwise, we removed a lot of old pipes, old electrical wiring and especially the wallpaper (a lot of work).

Electrical work
We have already started the electrical work; a new fuse box including network cabinet has been installed. Now the rubble needs to be removed, then the electrician can continue working.

Kitchen
Attached is a draft of the kitchen. We like it very much now. We had several offers, including from Nobilia, but Häcker was able to match the price last, so after a lot of back and forth we have now decided on it.

Next, we will close the steel beams with bricks (reconstruct the wall), then the electrician, and then plastering, painter and flooring. The plasterer also recommended hanging the ceiling, as it costs about the same as plastering and they are unsure whether everything will hold. It will therefore be a bit more expensive than expected (20k+ for hanging and plastering the ceiling).

Why didn’t you leave the wall marked in red standing? It probably wouldn’t have settled there.

Why didn't you leave the wall marked in red standing? It probably wouldn't have settled there.

The thought was that the kitchen would be too cramped if the wall was still there. And we simply liked it better open. It's probably not serious now, we have to reinstall the door frame upstairs and eventually patch the cracks in the plaster / masonry during renovation.

Update: After the renovation work, we moved last weekend. The kitchen, 2 interior doors, electrical work (now 90% complete, media cabinet is currently being finalized), and the last baseboards are still missing. We are very satisfied with the result – it looks like new inside. The floor, in particular, turned out great. Below are a few impressions: