ᐅ Preliminary design from the draftsperson for our single-family house

Hello everyone,

our house construction is finally starting to get serious.

Provided the seller of the plot does not back out at short notice, we have an appointment with the notary in March to draw up the purchase contract.

A few weeks ago, we accepted an offer from a general contractor to visit the plot and the development plan together to see if our desired house could be built there. A draftsman reviewed everything with us, listened to and noted our wishes and ideas during a two-hour meeting.

Last week, we met at the office to review the first draft. Since then, we have decided to provide planners (we want to meet with 2-3 more companies to find the right one) with a list of our wishes and ideas for further discussions. Unfortunately, not everything that is really important to us was considered, and too much attention was given to things that are just “nice-to-have.” >.<

The planner recommended that we carefully think through his draft at home to see what we like and what does not work for us.

Before giving him our feedback, I would like to hear your opinions on this draft. Perhaps some of you with building experience will notice something we are unaware of, or you might challenge our thoughts, which would also be very helpful.

Here is the completed questionnaire first:

Development plan/restrictions
Plot size: 743m2 (8000 sq ft), 20m x 37m (66 ft x 121 ft)
Slope: yes, sloping downward to the rear, the draftsman estimates the height difference at about 3m (if we own the plot, we were advised to commission a soil report with leveling to allow the best possible house design. We will do that)
Site coverage ratio: 0.3
Floor area ratio: 0.6
Building envelope, building line, and boundaries: see attachment
Setbacks: 3m (10 ft) from neighbors, 7m (23 ft) to the street
Number of parking spaces: not specified; 2-3 desired
Number of storeys: 2 full storeys allowed
Roof type: only pitched roofs
Architectural style: open style
Maximum heights/limits: with downward slope development, eaves height max. 4.50m (15 ft) above finished floor level
Additional requirements: cistern mandatory with 50 liters (13 gallons) storage volume per m2 of sealed surface area

Homeowners’ requirements
Style, roof shape, building type: solid construction house, rectangular shape, no bay windows etc., gable roof
Basement, storeys: 1.5 storeys + basement, possibly with a small granny flat/apartment in the basement; ground floor and upper floor about 150m2 (1615 sq ft) total
Number of occupants, ages: 2 adults (31 + 31), planning 1-2 children
Space requirements for ground floor and upper floor:
Office: family use or home office?: both; to be integrated on the ground floor (also as a sleeping option if climbing stairs becomes difficult due to illness. I have some experience with this as an occupational therapist)
Guest sleepers per year: 1-2
Open or enclosed architecture: rather enclosed
Conservative or modern design: rather conservative?
Open kitchen, kitchen island: no, closed kitchen, if possible with a breakfast nook
Number of dining seats: daily use 2-4
Fireplace: chimney duct preferred to be included
Music/stereo wall: no
Balcony, roof terrace: no
Garage, carport: double garage preferred; otherwise, a single garage; my partner would like a door from the garage into the house
Utility garden, greenhouse: maybe a small utility garden for herbs etc.
Other wishes/special features/daily routine, also reasons why some things are wanted or not:
Shower/toilet on the ground floor (similar reasoning as guest room, and a second shower is practical if children are around);
A small pantry or storage room near the kitchen would be nice;
Walk-in closet (more like a dressing room) in the master bedroom is nice-to-have but not essential;

Because of the slope, we considered planning a small apartment/granny flat in the basement (e.g., in case the single mother-in-law cannot stay in her old house due to health reasons; she actually does not want to leave; or later for the child). Very important is a separate external entrance preferably without stairs (for wheelchair/walker use; and if rented out, so the tenants don’t have to share the stairwell).

House design
Who created the design:
- Planner from a construction company
What do you like most? Why?:
We really like the layout of the upper floor, especially that the children’s rooms are the same size; on the ground floor, we prefer the location of the kitchen and guest room compared to our own sketch (which I will also attach).
What do you dislike? Why?
Basement: That we hardly have usable basement, as the granny flat occupies the whole floor (except for the technical room); in the apartment’s living room, furniture placement is very difficult due to many doors; bathtub has to go, shower would be hard to access in this layout;
Ground floor: The large utility room (unfortunately necessary since no basement room is available, and actually a good solution for the door into the house); we would prefer an open kitchen, but it is probably not feasible with this floor plan?

For us, the biggest problem is the stairwell. On the one hand, I am not sure if the cloakroom will work for a family with children later. On the other hand, the idea of possibly having to share the stairwell with strangers (e.g., stumbling downstairs half asleep in the morning and meeting visitors to the granny flat?) is terrible for me - definitely not an option!
Cost estimate according to architect/planner: 391,000€ (KfW 55 standard, air-to-water heat pump, excluding groundwork estimated at 18,000€, painting, garage)
Personal budget limit for the house: approx. 300,000€
Preferred heating technology: geothermal (our building area requires case-by-case decision), otherwise air-to-water heat pump

If you had to give up on some details or extras
- You could do without: some square meters, especially the upper floor seems quite generous; door from garage into house is not a must, same as pantry; fireplace; granny flat
- You cannot do without: closed kitchen, very reluctant to give up the ground floor office/guest room, separate entrance for granny flat

Why is the design as it is now?
Draft by the draftsman
Which wishes were implemented by the architect: door from garage into house, closed kitchen, walk-in closet, granny flat in basement (though different than expected)

What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?

Do you see any other critical points? Are we worrying about problems that aren’t really problems?
I fear we may want too much for our budget, where do you see potential savings?

I hope I haven’t forgotten any important points; feel free to ask.

Thanks in advance for reading this long post. I look forward to constructive criticism and suggestions of any kind.

PS: The slope is not as steep as it looks in the exterior views; the draftsman’s software couldn’t display it differently.

Here are some of our own floor plan experiments (2 variants of the ground floor and one upper floor) and a photo of the plot taken from the street.

Just to clarify:

The granny flat downstairs is intended to accommodate your mother-in-law, who may have mobility issues and would have to use your main staircase, which obviously isn’t ideal.

The plot is mostly north-facing, so the granny flat would get very little natural light if I’m reading this correctly. Your terrace faces west to southwest, but there doesn’t seem to be much space left between it and the fence, right? Access to the garden would essentially be through the granny flat.

To me, this setup seems to have disadvantages for everyone involved. What does your mother-in-law think about it? Does she really want to move out of her house? And do you plan to take care of her then?

kaho674 schrieb:
Just to clarify:

The granny flat is intended to accommodate the mother-in-law downstairs, who may have difficulty walking and would then have to use your main staircase, which would obviously be inconvenient.

The plot faces mostly north, so the granny flat would get very little natural light if I understand correctly. Your terrace faces west to southwest, but there isn’t much space left to the fence, right? The garden access would basically be through the granny flat.

This all seems to me to have disadvantages for everyone involved. What does the mother-in-law think about this? Does she really want to move out of her house? And are you planning to take care of her?

The idea of the granny flat came up because of the slope of the site. A basement makes sense in this case, and we thought we might be able to create some additional living space. In our opinion, it wouldn’t necessarily need to be fully finished right away, but the utility connections should be planned and installed from the start.

At the moment, the mother-in-law is quite fit but lives in a very old house without central heating. She wants to stay there for now. However, we could imagine that she might change her mind if she can no longer manage the stairs carrying oil cans for the stove. Of course, we could only provide limited care ourselves since my partner and I both work full time.

Otherwise, renting out the space is also something we could consider. In that case, however, using the main staircase would be impossible for us.

The orientation is indeed mainly toward the north. For that reason, the planner designed the terrace on the side, which we still find hard to visualize. We need to go onto the property with a tape measure and check how it relates to the neighboring lot.

We are also still figuring out the garden access...

After the first draft, we feel even more uncertain than before... **sigh**

I think the ground floor doesn’t have the character of a single-family house at all; it feels more like an apartment.
The house itself also looks more like a multi-family building...

When building on a slope, I would always consider placing the living or common room in the basement level so it can have direct access to the garden at ground level. The front areas in the basement would then be used as storage or utility rooms.
However, since the street side is also the south side, this is tricky. You could place the entrance on the east side near the garage, with the terrace facing southwest... The in-law apartment should have its own separate entrance. It’s a difficult layout.
I would put this design aside.

Also, I wouldn’t make a construction budget based solely on a house design, but rather on the detailed scope of work and a good partnership feeling.

The plans suggest that the street is located to the south or southeast. This orientation is rather unfavorable for bright rooms given your hillside location. Additionally, on the south side, you have a hallway, WC, utility room, and kitchen—basically rooms where sunlight is not essential or where privacy is a priority.

I find the basement flat quite problematic. The staircase is rather narrow, the bedroom is shaped like a corridor (which might cause issues if wheelchair accessibility is required), the kitchen is too narrow, and there is no space in the living room for furniture. Also, there is no option to have a separate external entrance. I’m not sure whether the bathroom there can be made suitable for seniors or people with disabilities.

The ground floor wouldn’t work for me either. The utility room is too far from the kitchen, and the kitchen itself is too small to fit everything. We have the exact same size, and I store many items in the dining hallway because otherwise, there is no room to work in the kitchen (baking supplies, microwave, storage cabinets for electrical appliances like a deep fryer, pantry items, etc.). The floor-to-ceiling window in the kitchen is nice for access to the terrace but takes up a lot of usable space. The path through the dining area is only about half a meter farther, so I would carefully consider whether it’s worth it. Your living room also offers little space to arrange furniture, and the seating distance from the TV is far too large for me (4 meters maximum). Furthermore, the table actually obstructs the flow, as it must be placed somewhere near the doors to the terrace, the hallway, or the kitchen. I don’t know if that’s an issue for you, but hosting a longer dining table for birthdays is very difficult in this layout. The recess towards the study or utility room is wasted space and creates an awkward corner in the central room.

Using the utility room as a passageway to the garage isn’t bad because groceries can be easily unloaded there, but of course, that also reduces usable space. If it’s also meant for vacuum cleaner storage and general storage, it will be tight. Moreover, you won’t always get out of the car with dry feet. Without dedicated space for shoes there, dirt will be carried into the utility room and even into the living room since you don’t enter directly into the hallway.

Upstairs: For me, the bedroom is too large, especially with an additional walk-in closet of 7m² (about 75 sq ft), which is rather generous—bigger than the guest bathroom. Why do you need so much closet space in the bedroom? I would carefully plan the bathroom to see if it really meets your needs. The shower will probably be larger, but a double sink is unlikely to fit. Storage space and cabinets will be difficult, too. You may need this because although you have plenty of hallway space, there is no opportunity to place a wardrobe or dresser there. The children’s rooms are a good size, but the doors prevent placing a 3m (10 ft) wardrobe in either room. I would design the staircase so that the stairs rise along the exterior wall, not in the center. This would give you more space in the upstairs hallway, shorten the route from the ground floor upstairs (even if only by a few steps), and create the possibility of a closet or storage room in the basement at that location.

Your own drafts don’t appeal to me either. The upstairs hallway has a lot of unused space. The entrances to the children’s rooms will not work well. On the ground floor, you have planned two awful living rooms and squeezed in a narrow stylish wall, including a fireplace. Where does the chimney actually go upstairs? In one draft, the pantry is very far from the garage, and the only terrace access is through the kitchen (which would be inconvenient with guests); plus the living room is in the northeast, so it gets no sun, while the hallway takes up a large amount of space. In the other draft, the pantry is quite small because it has three doors, leaving almost no storage space. The hallway requires a lot of space, and the access to the guest bathroom is blocked by the shoe cabinet/wardrobe? You are also not yet decided on the design of your open-plan kitchen/living area, so you have initially allocated a large number of square meters. You can poorly design 20m² (215 sq ft) or create a functional open kitchen/living space on only 13m² (140 sq ft). Think carefully about this, as well as the bathroom, what your priorities are. A 9m² (97 sq ft) room for an office or guest room is too small. You can make an office work if you don’t use it daily. A guest room can be squeezed in somehow, but a space that serves both functions is not possible. Even a double air mattress requires 4m² (43 sq ft). If a desk and a small shelf are also in there, no walking space remains, nor could the door be opened properly.

I would first think about the orientation of your plot, specifically:
- In which rooms is south or west sun important, and where is sun less necessary
- Where will the terrace be located? Will only the upper terrace be used, or also the garden below? And how will you access it conveniently (also with equipment, food, tables/chairs, etc.)?
- How likely is it that the mother-in-law will actually move in, and does she then need a full apartment (including kitchen)?
If she moves in for care, she really only needs a bedroom and bathroom. I would arrange this on the ground floor so that these two rooms share a small separated hallway. That amounts to around 30m² (320 sq ft), not 60m² (645 sq ft). With two children, you can only accommodate one downstairs, and the other will be left out. Also, a child does not necessarily need a 15m² (161 sq ft) kitchen and 25m² (269 sq ft) living room. If that’s what they need, they should rent an apartment.

Also think about where your main rooms will be. If you rarely watch TV and don’t have a fireplace, what will you do in the living room as a couple? Would you then perhaps spend most of your time in the kitchen talking? Or you might prefer to eat in the living room because you value that time together, and the cozy living room will be used instead of spending 60% of your leisure time in the kitchen living area next to dirty pots (sarcasm). Even small practical matters like where to iron can be tricky in practice. Also consider your expectations for the office: Does it make sense to have it upstairs near the children’s rooms? Will it be annoying if the mother-in-law is moving around downstairs all the time when you need quiet to work, or is it actually an advantage that the distance is short?

These would be my first critical questions. Otherwise, the planner’s design, except for the basement flat, is very conservative. It’s not tailored specifically to you but rather quite traditional. I would leave out the fireplace; I don’t really see room for a stove in any of your plans. Your sloped site involves many compromises but also possibilities. Look for ways to use this to your advantage rather than just trying to compensate for the downsides.