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

I was forcibly absent for about a week (no hope of getting in here, with all browsers and despite cleared cookies the error message "too many Redirects" always appeared) and now "have to" deliver a lot of mustard afterwards - for the sake of clarity "at a gallop" instead of with individual quote fragments:

First of all, congratulations to the client on the doodle floor plan, that's exactly how you do it. In terms of content, it is still very much in need of improvement, but that is due to the glaring lack of basic groundwork. The drawing style, on the other hand, is exactly the one I also recommend to laypeople - because there are good reasons why professionals do it exactly this way. Pay attention to how often Yvonne uses pencil drawings here.

Regarding the delusion that only a Janus captain can save the house from the abyss of boredom, I can only "cry out loud." I hereby point out for the last time my willingness to be available for a personal consultation.

Currently, I see the implementation of the building dream stumbling or failing essentially at two points, namely
1. the head-in-the-sand regarding the significant non-design-related ancillary costs (infrastructure) and
2. the (aside from the high prioritization of distractions) complete lack of a conceptual approach in the planning process.

It is nothing less than pure madness to want to cure this by going to a draftswoman,
here an architect is clearly needed!!!

Hi ,

Nice to read from you again, I was already wondering where your thunderstorm was :D I’ll write you something about the personal consultation soon - but personally. I’d like to open your point about the house being boring up for discussion - does anyone have ideas on how to achieve a similarly cozy effect if everyone is bashing the captain’s gables? Considering North German coziness, please. We’re sticking to the idea that even if you spend most of your time inside your house, we still want to simply like looking at it from the outside.

Regarding 1: what, why is that? We have, of course, discussed that with our financial advisor and planned a buffer accordingly.
2: I believe everything will proceed more or less in an orderly fashion, we found a very competent construction company and after a long phase of “gathering information and weighing things up” things are now moving quite fast. Let’s see if in a year the place is standing or if we’re still discussing stairs here :D

does anyone have ideas on how to achieve a similarly cozy effect, if everyone is so down on the captain's gables?

Hi there! :)

We find this variant (g00gle says "dormer") very nice – it also costs less because no projections are necessary. You have more usable space and you are not so dependent on the footprint of the captain's gable in terms of the floor plan...

Nice to read you again, I was already wondering where your thunderstorm was

You don’t get a thunderstorm from an 11th grader, but rather a tooo-rooo :-)

I’d like to open your point about the house’s dullness up for discussion – does anyone have ideas on how to achieve a similarly cozy effect if everyone disparages the captain’s gable so much? Considering North German coziness, please. We stick to it: even if you spend most of the time inside your house, we still just simply like to be able to look at it from the outside.

We find this version (g00gle says "Zwerchhaus") very nice – it also costs less since no projections are necessary. You get more usable space and you’re not so dependent on the footprint of the captain’s gable in the floor plan...

The desire for an outside-looking-good-too appearance is absolutely understandable – just the thought of only a single suitable means is frightening (and far from the truth). Whether the captain’s gable rises from a bay window or a dormer makes only a slight difference, which also costs a bit more (for both variants) for the roof structure. The bigger cultural architectural difference, in my view, is rather in the number of captains per roof. This element got its name from the eponymous commanding officer of a seafaring vessel, who is in fact never duplicated there. Whether you orient it classically towards the street or entrance side, or to the garden side – basically "representational in driving direction" or "family and leisure in driving direction" – I like to see this as a zeitgeist-related attitude question. But whether the "captain" is regionally North German singular, or rather Disney-North German creates a cross-ship roof structure, seems to me a considerable difference. Tiled or shingled instead of reed-thatched, so what – but whether North or Baltic Sea North German, originally in the N3 broadcast area the captain’s gable belongs singularly. Interpreted as North German down to Gütersloh or even further south, it adorns the villa of a Münsterland meat baron more like a clown nose. In any case, it is not needed compulsorily as an ingredient for an exciting building form. It’s not disparaged here, its overestimation rather is.

1: why what for that? We have of course discussed this with our financial advisor and planned a buffer accordingly.

At least here this wasn’t clearly perceptible – at least not in the true dimension. "Behind the water meter" there may be friendship prices – before it not.

2: I think everything will go its fairly regular course, we have found a very competent construction company and after a long time of "gathering information and weighing options" things are now really picking up speed.

Then don’t speak of a technical drafter, because even with the most competent construction company, this does not replace the architect (who is still bitterly urgently needed here). The defects are not in the neat drawing here, but on the level of conception. And unfortunately: what Gretchen does not learn, Grete never will. How simple the world would be if house planning were about moving walls. Do yourselves a favor, and combine a general contractor internal planning only with a tried and tested catalog model basis from the same general contractor.

Thanks for the idea :) However, I really don't know if that wouldn't complicate the floor plan design in the same way as a captain's gable :oops:


Well then, bring on the less overrated house beautification measures :D I can understand your point that "classically" only one gable belongs there, but the fact remains that we find good arguments for the gable on both sides and would only give it up if we find something similarly nice to look at. And we have really, really leafed through catalogs... Actually, I can't imagine that our concern is so crazy that no one has ever implemented it before.


Yes, we actually have a "knot" in our heads because we don't really understand which walls can be "moved"/shifted without compromising the structural integrity. But luckily, experts can tell us that. My idea would be to "simply" make two large rooms out of the three small rooms upstairs (marked as Child1/2/office). But as 11ant already says, simply moving walls is not...

However, I don’t actually know whether that doesn’t complicate the floor plan in the same way as a captain’s gable does.

The version shown is a captain’s gable—just in the less common variant without a risalit. A captain’s gable never complicates the floor plan; it even relaxes it (to the extent that it adds more standing height in specific places). What complicates a captain’s gable is roof truss construction. Accordingly, it gets its name from only adorning captain’s houses, because one cannot afford it on the wages of an ordinary sailor. What really complicates attic planning are essentially always the same two points: first, when the attic is planned after the ground floor; and second, that though a pitched roof is a hybrid of roof and (outer) wall, lay planners—unfortunately including draftsmen—regularly subdivide the floor area just as they would with a straight-walled storey.

Actually, I really can’t imagine that our concern is so crazy that no one has ever implemented it before.

No, technically there is nothing crazy about it at all—the gable and its ridge beam don’t care whether they have a counterpart opposite or not. Taste-wise, I am merely of the opinion that the yodel folklore (of a second captain for reverse sailing) should remain the domain of newcomers who thereby demonstrate their regional cultural lack of education. And, as the name suggests, it is an expensive affair—I have never seen two captains on the payroll of any ship. That’s why it’s such a popular nouveau riche accessory.

Yes, we actually have a "knot" in our heads because we don’t really understand which walls you are allowed to "paint"/move without affecting the statics. [...] But as 11ant already says, simply moving walls isn’t possible...

I believe Katja was referring to the aspect that the cheeks of the captain’s gable do not necessarily have to continue in a straight line into the interior walls. I did not speak of moving walls, but rather that it is an impermissibly reductive view to regard floor plan planning as shoving walls around.

The structural dimension is only another vast field of its own, which, incidentally, is regularly underestimated expensively even by contractors. Nevertheless, I meant more the naive attitude with which the consumer client approaches the thematic group planning. Purely graphically considered, an economically structurally functional floor plan and one that is only structurally functional at a disproportionate cost are hardly distinguishable from each other. This phenomenon is increasingly being evaluated not only among laypeople but also among the "CAD architect generation."