Realistic cost estimate: Single-family house with unfavorable development location

The need is exactly that: that you don’t have to commit now, but can keep your options open. Especially the decision for or against a second child isn’t one for us that you necessarily have to make in the first year of the first child’s life. How many of our friends first wanted only one, then two, then one again and ended up with three? And with few large rooms, I believe you’re less flexible than with several smaller ones. What would you do in our place?

The demand to build a "house for all cases" is nonsense. I think it’s okay to plan for a second child but nonsense to want to account for a disability 30 years from now. Maybe you should come back down to earth a bit and stop planning a separate room for the child for every minute of the day. The child won’t want that anyway. I was glad if I could keep my small room tidy. A second one would have been a punishment.

For 500K all in, you have to set a limit somewhere. A walk-in closet is okay but a room like a ballroom only for shoes is rather questionable given the total size. With that budget, the upper limit in my opinion is about 145 sqm. Of course, that can vary greatly depending on the region. But if that’s about right, you still have a significant meeting with the red pen ahead. We must not forget what the headline says: unfavorable layout. You could also translate that as damn expensive.

I find all your objections good and justified, but I wonder to what extent they can be taken into account without ending up with a completely different house shape in the end. The two captain's gables are indeed a challenge, but we also want to be able to look at our house from the outside without having to cry from boredom, and leave them out if you want – but leaving out means losing space upstairs, and then there will still be smaller rooms?!

Strange idea somehow. I drive a Seat, which also looks pretty boring. Surely I would prefer to drive a 5-series BMW, but financially it's just not possible. I haven't died from it yet, and when I'm inside, which makes up 99% of the time with the vehicle, I don't see the exterior anymore.

You will have to decide whether you want to admire your house from the outside for 10 minutes every day, but make compromises inside that won't make anyone happy in the long run.
Or whether you'd rather be happy inside for 23 hours a day and maybe think when looking at the house, "Not what we actually wanted, but you can't have everything."

Or you come up with another 200,000 EUR. Then you can have both.

we also want to be able to look at our house from the outside without having to cry from boredom

But does the second captain's gable really make the difference? You have chosen a certain exterior form, placed the staircase centrally, and are now trying to arrange the rooms around it. That might work with 250 sqm, but not with half of that.
If you want an interesting house, you can also work well with color or the outdoor facilities.

omit it if you want – but space and omitting means losing space upstairs and then there will be even smaller rooms?!

The captain's gable is expensive. Every projection and recess costs money, the roof construction becomes more complex,... for the same money you get more square meters if the house is enlarged in a normal way.

Above all, the captain's gables pretty much destroy any flexible room planning. Because you are almost automatically forced into the grid that you now have on the upper floor. This results in 6 rooms of 12m², with the office still having to give up space to the stairs.

That is rubbish, in every respect. The dressing room is much too large and, on top of that, impractically shaped for wardrobes. There remains 6 or 7m² of free space in the middle. For what purpose?

The office is actually almost too small for sensible work. And also extremely poorly shaped. Where is a proper desk supposed to fit? What is supposed to be in the corridor in front of the window? That is nothing.

And even if one child gets a playroom and bedroom. The bedroom is again much too large at 12m² for one person, the playroom, in proportion,

You also waste space in the bathroom. And forget about that "privacy wall" next to the toilet... you all know what I mean. And when it comes to the children no longer going to the toilet when you shower. Then the privacy wall is useless too. Then the bathroom is locked as soon as someone is inside.

It may be annoying, but 12m² for a children's room is borderline. Especially when you treat yourself to a 10m² dressing room. It also has something to do with the value placed on children when the space for the wardrobes is almost as large as the rooms in which a 16-year-old lives.

Is that 12m² in total, or 12m² of living space with additional space under the slant?

Otherwise, I personally found 14m² of living space, plus 1-2m² of floor space under the slants, quite appropriate so far; bigger is always possible, but this size seems fitting to me..