Sketch with pen on paper - feedback welcome

Hello,

attached is one of my first attempts to draw a floor plan for the house to be built.
The plot is available, quite small, the building window is max. 7.50x15.00. The shown draft measures 7.50x12.50. Not shown: the entrance is from the north = street side.

What I tried to realize:
- open floor plan between living, dining and cooking
- protected/covered entrance area
- despite the open floor plan, to separate the entrance area a bit so that you don’t see straight from the front door to the couch and into the garden
- fireplace in the living area
- staircase with landing / avoiding a boring "U-staircase"
- kitchen island (became a peninsula)
- protected/covered terrace area in the southeast corner, exit through sliding door

What I am still not completely satisfied with:
- probably too little light in the hallway area, which is due to the garage not allowing a window on the west side
- staircase descent in a central location

What you don’t see but plays a role:
- we want to build with a basement
- single-storey construction, gable roof ridge/eave parallel to the street, so the staircase must arrive centrally in the upper floor so that you don’t run into the sloping ceilings

Now feel free to hit me with criticism so I can see what I haven’t thought of in order to further develop the design. Overall, I have the feeling that the hallway and staircase area still feel a bit tight.

Thanks in advance and greetings to all!

I actually quite like the floor plan, but where do you want to put the cleaning supplies and provisions? From experience, I can say that you don’t want to run down to the basement several times a day for that. Also: staircase in the living room - yes. Basement stairs - no. Cold air always drafts up from below. So I would either change the direction of the stairs and close the basement stairs with a door. What should the upper floor look like? After all, everything has to fit up there too. Also, I would paint the shed or put it somewhere else and instead integrate a west-facing window into the living room. Otherwise, you won’t have any evening sun in the house. The question is also whether the statics can handle that?

Hello and thank you for the comments.

Cleaning supplies/Storage: In the very first drawings, there was still a kind of storage room planned for this (necessarily, to bring the stairwell more towards the center), but it has now been omitted due to the changed stair layout. I agree with you that I should reconsider that.

Staircase up/down: I can't imagine a door, it feels outdated. I would also prefer the cellar staircase to be somewhat secluded, but I have not found a solution for that yet, since I do not want to relocate the stairwell into a hallway. Changing the running direction is not possible with this design due to the single-story structure and the roof orientation. However, I am also not completely satisfied with this spot myself.

To the west, at the border, there is the neighbor’s garage, next to it a rather large house, and behind the garage runs a wall along the border, so I wanted to keep the ground floor completely closed on the west side. An open floor plan means missing walls for placing furniture, and if there were also a window on the west wall, I would no longer know where to put the furniture. The shed is more like a second garage for storing a deregistered car, since the garage length is unfortunately limited to 9m.

Do you mean statics in relation to the open floor plan and missing interior walls? I haven’t really thought about that much, it is quite a small house. I have seen much larger open floor plans but honestly can’t judge that.

Best regards

Well, you will still have a few more walls. There are no ceilings that support themselves, nor self-hanging staircases. Besides, you don't want to breathe in the dust stirred up by the staircase, just as little as you want to sit next to a basement hole.

Maybe a planner can help you with the staircase situation. In principle, the whole thing doesn't look wrong. The question is, is it feasible? And what does it look like on the upper floor? A strip of light in the west would bring light but wouldn't restrict the placement of furniture too much.

Something fundamental:

I assume that one box means 20 cm for you.
Then you need to correct the following things: kitchen depth is at least 60 cm, stair width at least 100 cm, stair length (without landing) at least 370 cm, if you have a chimney for a fireplace, then it needs space.
Apparently there are too few windows; you should calculate at least 10% of the living area, in the living area even 20% can't hurt. Kitchen passages (between the work surfaces) at least 100 cm, the passage at the fridge is too narrow (someone should still be able to get through if another person is standing in front of the open door).
An entrance door measures at least 100 cm for an amateur drawing, rather 110. A dining table should not be planned under 180 cm.

And otherwise:
Clear view from the couch to the coat rack, which usually doesn't really radiate calm.
Clear view from the couch to the basement stairs... what do you want to carry through the living room from the basement?
Obstruction on the west side... you will always have a neighbor. To not see their stuff, plants like hedges and trees are excellent. The main thing is to get light into your house... you don't have to spend time on the west side.

As I said: a ceiling must rest on some points... I don't think you want to build a restless pool around the stairs with some stilts and columns. That also always means additional work and extra cost.

Once again, best regards, Yvonne

P.S. I prefer the pencil drawing on graph paper