Single-family house for 4 people - Opinions

The remaining windows I find okay.

Don’t make a wave pool out of your lintel heights. Doing it "individually" – as an accent – e.g., in the staircase to follow the windows of the incline, is a different matter. Also, don’t forget that the lintel heights of windows and interior doors communicate with each other.

I also don’t like the living room in the 181W.

Why did you then introduce this design into the discussion?

We don’t need a city villa, we almost forgot we wanted to build a bungalow first.

Not forgotten. You could definitely also build the 181 W with a knee wall 180 as a gable roof house. In general, I recommend considering: the less your own planning expertise, the fewer points you should try to reinvent the wheel. Proven solutions mostly contain their genius in invisible places – therefore, the risk is very high that you unintentionally but no less effectively destroy them with seemingly insignificant changes. And you absolutely should avoid exactly this risk, because: your BT planner definitely does not have the right instinct to protect you from it.

Don't turn your lintel heights into a wave pool. Doing it "individually" - as an accent - e.g. to have the windows in the stairwell follow the slope, is another matter. Don't forget that the lintel heights of windows and interior doors communicate with each other.

Then why did you introduce this design into the discussion?

Don't forget. You could definitely also build the 181 W with a knee wall 180 as a gable roof house.

In general, I recommend considering: the less planning competence one has, the fewer points one should try to reinvent the wheel. Proven solutions predominantly contain genius in invisible places – therefore the risk is very high that one unintentionally but no less effectively destroys it with seemingly insignificant changes. And you should absolutely avoid this danger, because: your BT planner definitely does not have the right instinct to protect you from it.

I included the 181W design so that it is clear where I took this part from.

You are right when you say that you shouldn't reinvent the wheel. That's exactly what we are doing because we decided on variant 2. Basically, it is a combination of the Gussek House floor plans Lindenallee and Kiefernallee variant 1. We are indeed using a different staircase and always have to go through the dirt area when going upstairs, but we have a larger guest WC and can place a small bench by the stairs.

I think the couch is somewhat optimistically positioned away from the window - if I go by the plans, you have about 4.4 m room width - we have a similar amount and have it placed against the wall because otherwise it would be too close to the TV/on the opposite wall. Therefore, using the floor-to-ceiling window behind the sofa will probably be rather difficult.

I just wanted to mention it - sometimes furniture is drawn in the plan somehow and you then plan accordingly, but in reality, it doesn’t work.

A single-family house where the living room has windows on only one (!) side and one of them is even blocked by the sofa – to me, that is dark and boring. A mid-terrace house would have sufficed. It would be less boring with larger windows on two sides with nice plants in front or a terrace with stylish garden furniture.

That is definitely not true! We also have windows on only one side and it is more than bright!

that is definitely not true! We also only have windows on one side and it is more than bright!

Yes. Maybe it is bright enough but above all it is boring. Windows on two sides is a different feeling of life.

That is a matter of taste everywhere. Depending on the window, I certainly don't find it boring. Window space is automatically also a lost space for placing things, which the OP in my opinion will need.

Besides, I wouldn’t want to sit in a greenhouse. Also, you often don’t need as much light in the living room as in the kitchen or at the dining table.