Hello,
My wife and I visited a model home park for prefabricated houses yesterday, and we noticed that each house offered various features and floor plans whose practical benefits I don’t quite understand. That’s why I’m starting this thread, hoping you can explain the advantages of these choices or point out what I might be missing and why it still makes sense to design a house that way:
1. Almost every house had floor-to-ceiling windows installed. What’s the purpose of these? I imagine they would be terrible both in summer and winter. Wouldn’t it get extremely hot in summer? And in winter, don’t you constantly have to lower the blinds so that anyone passing by can’t look directly into the living room or inside the house? Also, isn’t the effort to clean those windows huge? Am I missing something? Do they have advantages that I don’t see?
2. There wasn’t a single house where the kitchen and dining area were separated from the living space; at best, the kitchen was separated from the dining area. I understand that having everything open makes the space appear larger and is better for hosting many people, but isn’t it very impractical? If I’m frying or cooking something in the kitchen, doesn’t the whole living room end up smelling like food? It would also bother me that as soon as my wife or I have guests over, the other person couldn’t sit in the living room and watch TV quietly, for example. This might sound a bit picky, but for me, it’s important that everyone can invite their friends without the other person always being within earshot or needing to get out of the way somehow. Why are open-plan ground floors so common? What are the real advantages?
3. The balconies on the upper floor are always accessible from one of the children’s bedrooms and the parents’ bedroom. Doesn’t that significantly affect privacy? I can’t imagine it’s great if my child can constantly knock on our bedroom door via the balcony, for example. Also, if you have two children, wouldn’t the one without a balcony be at a disadvantage?
I don’t want to bias you with my opinions here—I’m completely open to your views because I’d like to be convinced of the benefits. So I would like to know your reasons for including such features in your plans. Alternatively, has anyone built in a more “traditional” way and can speak to the practicality of these layout choices?
Best regards
My wife and I visited a model home park for prefabricated houses yesterday, and we noticed that each house offered various features and floor plans whose practical benefits I don’t quite understand. That’s why I’m starting this thread, hoping you can explain the advantages of these choices or point out what I might be missing and why it still makes sense to design a house that way:
1. Almost every house had floor-to-ceiling windows installed. What’s the purpose of these? I imagine they would be terrible both in summer and winter. Wouldn’t it get extremely hot in summer? And in winter, don’t you constantly have to lower the blinds so that anyone passing by can’t look directly into the living room or inside the house? Also, isn’t the effort to clean those windows huge? Am I missing something? Do they have advantages that I don’t see?
2. There wasn’t a single house where the kitchen and dining area were separated from the living space; at best, the kitchen was separated from the dining area. I understand that having everything open makes the space appear larger and is better for hosting many people, but isn’t it very impractical? If I’m frying or cooking something in the kitchen, doesn’t the whole living room end up smelling like food? It would also bother me that as soon as my wife or I have guests over, the other person couldn’t sit in the living room and watch TV quietly, for example. This might sound a bit picky, but for me, it’s important that everyone can invite their friends without the other person always being within earshot or needing to get out of the way somehow. Why are open-plan ground floors so common? What are the real advantages?
3. The balconies on the upper floor are always accessible from one of the children’s bedrooms and the parents’ bedroom. Doesn’t that significantly affect privacy? I can’t imagine it’s great if my child can constantly knock on our bedroom door via the balcony, for example. Also, if you have two children, wouldn’t the one without a balcony be at a disadvantage?
I don’t want to bias you with my opinions here—I’m completely open to your views because I’d like to be convinced of the benefits. So I would like to know your reasons for including such features in your plans. Alternatively, has anyone built in a more “traditional” way and can speak to the practicality of these layout choices?
Best regards
ypg schrieb:
What’s going on with you, Robin? Nothing’s wrong with me, they are simply completely different things, that’s all.
And as I also said, it’s all old wine in new bottles... there are few real innovations.
RobsonMKK schrieb:
Nothing is wrong with me, they are just completely different things, that’s all.
And as I said before, it’s all old wine in new bottles... there are very few real innovations. In our community meeting, the development plan was later changed from 1.5 to 2 full stories (with the same eave height). The explanation given was, “so that modern town villas can be built, which will look completely pure after 70 years.”
My thought was just, “strange, there are many town villas in our Stade that were built 70 years ago” [emoji23]
We are glad that we are now allowed to build a town villa. Even our 1.5-story house was square, so we could easily adjust it with the same floor plan.
Bieber0815 schrieb:
- Anthracite-colored windows (we don’t have those).Anthracite-colored windows: that’s a good one! Five years ago, no one really knew what “anthracite” was, let alone how to spell it—just a little joke.
We do have them! And exactly because I grew up in a house with black windows, and my first house also had those windows (both built in 1978). It was always something special compared to the white windows of others. Since anthracite was now being offered and it flatters the white render more than pure black, that’s the color we chose.
Now I have a house like almost everyone else...
Lanini schrieb:
I also have another topic to discuss: T-layout/T-wall in the bathroom?A T-layout fits very few bathrooms well, in my opinion, because none of them are big enough. So you end up building yourself a mini maze inside the house. In my view, there are also far too many corners and edges dominating the space if the T is not aligned properly with the room. It’s just not nice when you’re looking at or moving along the short side of a wall.
So: we don’t have that.
RobsonMKK schrieb:
And as I also said, it’s all old wine in new bottles... real innovations are few. ... nobody claimed otherwise, and your point is actually part of the thread and has been mentioned many times before (maybe you didn’t read it?)
@ypg you’re probably being a bit sarcastic again [emoji23]
Don’t worry, I’ve read everything here, but to me, there are neither real hypes nor true trends, just passing fashions. But like in fashion, the 1950s will eventually come back [emoji6]
To get back to the original poster and the show home estate: they try to showcase as much as possible with just one house. In my opinion, this doesn’t mean they intend to sell it exactly like that. It’s similar to a car dealership, where the display car usually has the maximum configuration, but that’s only to demonstrate what’s possible, not to sell the car exactly as shown.
Don’t worry, I’ve read everything here, but to me, there are neither real hypes nor true trends, just passing fashions. But like in fashion, the 1950s will eventually come back [emoji6]
To get back to the original poster and the show home estate: they try to showcase as much as possible with just one house. In my opinion, this doesn’t mean they intend to sell it exactly like that. It’s similar to a car dealership, where the display car usually has the maximum configuration, but that’s only to demonstrate what’s possible, not to sell the car exactly as shown.
RobsonMKK schrieb:
@ypg you’re probably being sarcastic again [emoji23]
...But just like fashion, the styles from the 1950s always come back around [emoji6]
...At least I’m not biting [emoji56]
Simple kitchens with handle-free doors, mostly white but also colorful ones like pastel fronts, rounded corners, Smeg refrigerators, bar stools... it’s all retro [emoji23]
Similar topics