Your desire for doing everything yourself is admirable, but you yourself write that there actually isn’t any time for it. If I may list what you want to do yourself:
- Tiling (untrained, mind you – Hola!)
- Electrical work (probably still unsure, but would like to do it)
- Painting (ever primed and painted a whole house? On 5 floors, no less! :eek)
- Floors (floorboards, PVC, and tiles – hats off!)
- Entire landscaping (paths, earthworks, stairs, etc. – Tschakka!)
On top of that, you want to get sanitary fixtures and the floorboards cheaply. All that with 3 kids in tow. Wow!
How many vacation days do you have per year?
I had to witness a family separate during a renovation. That should of course not happen.
Priming and painting is no stress.
Flooring will be tough but must be done for cost reasons. I will try tiling under professional guidance, and if that doesn’t work, a pro has to do it.
I won’t do any electrical work myself! I’m not good with electricity. What I just don’t want to pay much for is a LAN cable from room A to B and then changing the standard, inventing WLAN, or needing internet in room C. So, phone, TV, and internet I like to do myself. So far in rental apartments through ducts and ceilings. Empty conduits would be worth gold here!
Nothing needs to be done with the exterior grounds to move in at first. A new fence/hedge around it has to be done. That can be done with various techniques and people in a weekend. I’m good at that, so I’m not worried.
I work 34 hours over 4 days, and my wife, except in the morning, can take care of the kids. We have a 3-day weekend, vacation days, and after work must suffice to get some things done.
As I said, tiling will be a test and flooring will be a lot. The rest doesn’t worry me. I have done too much gardening and too many moves with painting behind me.
Overall, maybe that sounded a bit wrong: I find your budget quite good for a nice little house. You can do something with that. But the wishes, in my feeling, are still about 70 to 80k over that. So trim down a bit and everything will be peachy – apart from the floor plan.
Thanks for that! The most critical comments have been the best so far. Because of your comment alone, I took another practical look at the small stairs and hallways. The small hallways are OK for us. The small stairs still give me some stomach ache, but I rely on the architect and the example at my parents’. A bigger one doesn’t fit in the plan!
Here, people are reluctant to discuss a design that cannot be built anyway due to lack of liquidity.
Unfortunately, you haven’t uploaded the site plan. So we don’t know what the building envelope is or the property’s dimensions.
And you talk about a south garden, ops:
By the way, it’s about a 710 sqm plot, which can definitely accommodate a normally sized house or even a bit bigger. You don’t have to go minimal and pretend you only have 400 sqm.
So 10 sqm on the footprint, or even 50 sqm, doesn’t make a difference. With 700 sqm, you don’t have to look for living space underground.
I have uploaded the site plan. We see little possibility to build larger except building further on the only sunny area.
??? An airlock. Very nice...
The idea is not that it will be used much. Probably the door will be built as planned and usually one of the doors will be closed. The temptation to go through there is only on arrival and departure. That happens about 1-3 times a day. So 5-15 times all together. So it is not comparable to the stairs in terms of foot traffic.
Honestly: You have a knot in your head. I don’t mean that badly.
You plan your living room, which is supposed to be a retreat for single family members or all together, as a passage room, so retreat, chilling, and peace are absolutely forbidden there. To crown it, you put the staircase into the living room, which also connects to the basement.
Such knots usually have to do with socialization. In the house where I lived from 14 to 18, it was and still is the same. My parents still live there, and I see no difficulties. The living room is not really meant to be a chill room. Someone will almost always be there on a laptop, in front of the TV, or the stereo. Often mixed. That will be living space. If someone needs peace, they go to their room.
No! Definitely not! You just have to plan and not leave the hallway in the corner. It has the use that rooms open off it. Here the hallway is not considered at all in its function.
I’d say: there was a person involved who has some mental blockages and doesn’t even try to open them to see things differently.
You are standing in your own way!
I don’t understand that? I thought the “criticism” was that too many rooms open off too small a space? Can you explain that more precisely?
Yes, great! Seriously * they are cheaper, because no big technology is consumed there. You can even get by without heating.
And still the price for the house will rise if the footprint increases. Compensating the basement with usable space will be difficult.
Yes, great. Namely real living space above ground and not this little mole-like story. Even if you positively describe the “living space” by “real windows.” It remains basement space, which nobody likes to dwell in. At least not long term.
… * would you want to live in such a place yourself? As a student in a new development?
I’ll be honest: at every stage of my life (kid in an old building with awful old grouchy people / kid/teenager in a rowhouse development / adult or student with and without partner in an old building with rather difficult people), I would have rather lived in this basement. I believe the basement here could actually be rented out very well. It’s close to a unit. I think many students would prefer that over a shared flat or a dorm.
Oh… who wouldn’t? You are no different than anyone else here. You’re not smarter just because you want to omit hallways. You’re not cleaner or different because you take your shoes off.
Then I don’t understand how the apartment door can lead into the living room or the staircase into the entrance area. And hardly any alternative floor plans are found.
I don’t believe that. I haven’t counted your reasons why this and that is as it is.
You know: you first have to scent each other out where the design is supposed to go. What paths the client, that is the OP, has (e.g. financially) or wants.
I don’t get the feeling you want changes.
Of course I don’t want changes!
I want hints on difficulties I have not yet seen and then weigh them against the advantages I have seen in the current planning. If the difficulties outweigh, there must be changes. So far, I have always reasoned FOR ME that I still see more advantages (except for the basement e.g.). It can’t be the hope of commenting here that the blind is suddenly led to the light. As I said, we have dealt with the floor plan a bit. It was no sudden thought. And yes, my life shows me that my ideas are not often compatible with others’ ideas. But this is a large forum, and I hoped to find people here who can give hints without expecting them to be implemented exactly that way.
As described above, I actually looked again at a small staircase and hallway to make sure it fits that way.
I’ll be honest now: this design is one of the worse ones here in the forum: building a basement for 10/15 sqm footprint and thus more area than necessary, which you also want to rent out as an apartment*,
Then the staircase with noise and basement right in the middle of the living room, which restricts any openness… entrance to the kitchen through a storage airlock, … upstairs on the ground floor a bedroom only 2.80 m wide (I had that in my rowhouse) and so on…
Open (untidy) dressing area as a passage to the bathroom… none of that is well thought-out planning. It’s neither half nor whole. The principle of getting by with little hallway space (the principle is not new and not bad either) is not executed successfully here.
I have to shake my head again and again: placing a staircase in the middle of a cramped area takes away openness on all sides and only tightens it… only walls everywhere… living room furniture as stumbling blocks… what kind of tube is that between hallway and living room?
[*] I did not expect nor express the wish that MY floor plan should be liked by anyone here. My question was about “unnoticed” and “overlooked” – your list, for example, helps me a lot!
[*] I have already described the storage airlock above – it fits us that way.
[*] I have described the staircase in the living room. For us it is not a quiet room but the room where everyone arrives and is when they don’t want calm.
[*] The bedroom, for me, has the function of having a 1.40m bed with small storage areas, an outlet, and a closet. For me it could even be interior without a window. I go in and out in the dark often enough. For me it is the least important room. If I weren’t married, I would save that room first and install a quickly hung hammock in the living room or sleep in a tent in the garden.
[*] “Open (untidy) dressing area as passage to the bathroom” I don’t understand? That will be the room where the kids put and tidy their clothes themselves. If they shuffle into the bathroom in the morning, they get fresh things and that’s it. If it’s not used, a quiet room can develop there. Chair, small music system, small bookshelf. Or, if necessary, a small storage room. Clothes then go into the rooms.
[*] “Living room furniture as stumbling blocks” We deliberately drew in the largest possible table and sofa. That can also be smaller.
[*] “Takes away openness on all sides and only tightens it… only walls everywhere…” The living room itself should be open. The rest of the house doesn’t have to be. Which walls disturb you?
[*] “What kind of tube is that between hallway and living room?” What do you mean?