Hello everyone,
After following this forum for what feels like forever, I finally have to “lay all my cards on the table.” Some time ago, we bought a plot of land in rural Lower Saxony right next to our current apartment, and now we want to slowly but surely start the house building process.
I’ve filled out the questionnaire as much as possible. For roof style, number of floors, building setback lines, etc., I only have information from an old preliminary building inquiry made by the previous owner of the land. However, a lot has changed since then (several houses with two full floors, etc.), so I can well imagine that two full floors won’t be a problem.
I’ve attached the floor plans for the ground floor (GF) and upper floor (UF), as well as a relevant excerpt from Google Maps. The two floor plans are not oriented to north, so I added a north arrow there. The Google Maps image is oriented north. The red frame roughly marks the property. The small red box on the street marks the lowered curb for the driveway access. The larger red box roughly indicates the area where the house including the carport is planned to be located. I hope this is enough for now?
Zoning Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 1978 sqm (about 0.49 acres)
Slope: No
Building setback lines and building boundaries: 6.0 and 19.0 m (about 20 and 62 feet) from the street-side property boundary (still being clarified, a lot has changed recently)
Number of floors: 1.5 or 2 (still being clarified, a lot has changed recently)
Roof style: Gable roof
Homeowners’ Requirements
Style, roof shape, building type: Gable roof
Basement, floors: No basement, 1.5 or 2 floors
Number of residents, ages: 4 people (33, 32, 5, 2 years old)
Room requirements on GF, UF:
GF: Kitchen with dining area, living room (can be separated), office, guest bathroom with shower, utility room, small storage space
UF: 2 children’s bedrooms, bathroom, storage room, master bedroom
Office: Family use or home office? Home office
Number of overnight guests per year: Negligible
Open or closed architecture: rather closed
Conservative or modern style: a “middle ground”
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with island, living room can be separated
Number of dining seats: 6 permanently
Fireplace: No
Music/stereo wall: No
Balcony, roof terrace: No
Garage, carport: Carport for one car and possibly a simple parking space in front of the house (cars are for us purely practical items)
Kitchen garden, greenhouse: Unclear
Other: The kitchen island is intentionally only 1 meter (39 inches) deep. This seems like a comfortable depth for us since both of us can easily reach the far end (we’re both not very tall, about 170 cm (5’7”), and we tested by placing a 1-meter-wide wooden board on our current countertop). A nice side effect is that this frees up more space for the dining table. Overall, we still plan to discuss the kitchen layout further in the other forum.
House Design
Who designed the plan: Do-it-yourself with the probably usual approach (we looked at many floor plans from friends and prefab house providers)
What do you like most and why? We’re quite happy with the design. We really like the sliding door in the dining area and the large window in the living room because of the direct connection between garden and indoors. The sliding door between living and dining rooms allows retreat to the living room when guests are over (it’s not a big deal that you still have to walk through the dining area). The staircase should be separated from the living space but not located in a direct dirt/splash zone. The children’s rooms are sufficiently large and have south-facing windows overlooking the garden.
What do you dislike and why? We’re still tinkering with the exterior and window positions. Especially upstairs, the window layout is far from finalized. For the stairs, I grabbed a floor plan from a stair builder that fits (concrete stairs); I hope the dimensions are also realistic in real life?
Personal budget for the house including fittings: 300k, the average price per square meter given by our banking contact pretty much matches the costs of several friends currently building (rural Lower Saxony, about 1650 - 1850 €/sqm)
Preferred heating system: Heat pump with horizontal loop collector
If you had to give up anything, which details / features could you do without?
- Could do without: Honestly, not much
- Cannot do without: Office, sliding door, kitchen island
Why does the design look like it does now?
We looked at many floor plans from friends and prefab house suppliers. Changing existing plans mostly didn’t help, so in the end we spent nights drawing our own plans (which is fun, anyway).
What do you think makes it particularly good or bad?
We managed to fit our entire room program into our limit of about 150 sqm (about 1,615 sq ft). When mentally going through our typical day, the floor plan works quite well and all rooms seem sufficiently sized.
What is the most important / fundamental question about the floor plan summed up in 130 characters?
Since we are still happy with it after letting it “sit for a while and reviewing it again,” the question naturally arises whether we have overlooked something fundamental. Does anything stand out as a problem that wouldn’t work? Something we would regret for the next 30 years? More specifically: is the kitchen with the dining area too narrow or too long and narrow?
I look forward to hopefully plenty of feedback.
Thanks in advance!
After following this forum for what feels like forever, I finally have to “lay all my cards on the table.” Some time ago, we bought a plot of land in rural Lower Saxony right next to our current apartment, and now we want to slowly but surely start the house building process.
I’ve filled out the questionnaire as much as possible. For roof style, number of floors, building setback lines, etc., I only have information from an old preliminary building inquiry made by the previous owner of the land. However, a lot has changed since then (several houses with two full floors, etc.), so I can well imagine that two full floors won’t be a problem.
I’ve attached the floor plans for the ground floor (GF) and upper floor (UF), as well as a relevant excerpt from Google Maps. The two floor plans are not oriented to north, so I added a north arrow there. The Google Maps image is oriented north. The red frame roughly marks the property. The small red box on the street marks the lowered curb for the driveway access. The larger red box roughly indicates the area where the house including the carport is planned to be located. I hope this is enough for now?
Zoning Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 1978 sqm (about 0.49 acres)
Slope: No
Building setback lines and building boundaries: 6.0 and 19.0 m (about 20 and 62 feet) from the street-side property boundary (still being clarified, a lot has changed recently)
Number of floors: 1.5 or 2 (still being clarified, a lot has changed recently)
Roof style: Gable roof
Homeowners’ Requirements
Style, roof shape, building type: Gable roof
Basement, floors: No basement, 1.5 or 2 floors
Number of residents, ages: 4 people (33, 32, 5, 2 years old)
Room requirements on GF, UF:
GF: Kitchen with dining area, living room (can be separated), office, guest bathroom with shower, utility room, small storage space
UF: 2 children’s bedrooms, bathroom, storage room, master bedroom
Office: Family use or home office? Home office
Number of overnight guests per year: Negligible
Open or closed architecture: rather closed
Conservative or modern style: a “middle ground”
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with island, living room can be separated
Number of dining seats: 6 permanently
Fireplace: No
Music/stereo wall: No
Balcony, roof terrace: No
Garage, carport: Carport for one car and possibly a simple parking space in front of the house (cars are for us purely practical items)
Kitchen garden, greenhouse: Unclear
Other: The kitchen island is intentionally only 1 meter (39 inches) deep. This seems like a comfortable depth for us since both of us can easily reach the far end (we’re both not very tall, about 170 cm (5’7”), and we tested by placing a 1-meter-wide wooden board on our current countertop). A nice side effect is that this frees up more space for the dining table. Overall, we still plan to discuss the kitchen layout further in the other forum.
House Design
Who designed the plan: Do-it-yourself with the probably usual approach (we looked at many floor plans from friends and prefab house providers)
What do you like most and why? We’re quite happy with the design. We really like the sliding door in the dining area and the large window in the living room because of the direct connection between garden and indoors. The sliding door between living and dining rooms allows retreat to the living room when guests are over (it’s not a big deal that you still have to walk through the dining area). The staircase should be separated from the living space but not located in a direct dirt/splash zone. The children’s rooms are sufficiently large and have south-facing windows overlooking the garden.
What do you dislike and why? We’re still tinkering with the exterior and window positions. Especially upstairs, the window layout is far from finalized. For the stairs, I grabbed a floor plan from a stair builder that fits (concrete stairs); I hope the dimensions are also realistic in real life?
Personal budget for the house including fittings: 300k, the average price per square meter given by our banking contact pretty much matches the costs of several friends currently building (rural Lower Saxony, about 1650 - 1850 €/sqm)
Preferred heating system: Heat pump with horizontal loop collector
If you had to give up anything, which details / features could you do without?
- Could do without: Honestly, not much
- Cannot do without: Office, sliding door, kitchen island
Why does the design look like it does now?
We looked at many floor plans from friends and prefab house suppliers. Changing existing plans mostly didn’t help, so in the end we spent nights drawing our own plans (which is fun, anyway).
What do you think makes it particularly good or bad?
We managed to fit our entire room program into our limit of about 150 sqm (about 1,615 sq ft). When mentally going through our typical day, the floor plan works quite well and all rooms seem sufficiently sized.
What is the most important / fundamental question about the floor plan summed up in 130 characters?
Since we are still happy with it after letting it “sit for a while and reviewing it again,” the question naturally arises whether we have overlooked something fundamental. Does anything stand out as a problem that wouldn’t work? Something we would regret for the next 30 years? More specifically: is the kitchen with the dining area too narrow or too long and narrow?
I look forward to hopefully plenty of feedback.
Thanks in advance!
Oh, I probably should have been more explicit in the original post: We are not exactly sure yet how the kitchen will look (whether it will be a standard kitchen unit along the wall behind the cooktop island, or with tall cabinets, or something else). The only thing that is basically fixed is the cooktop island. That’s why we have already included it in the plans. I’ll update the post quickly.
A House That Feels Cramped:
- Staircase too narrow (2m rough opening becomes a ladder)
- Kitchen too tight – only 1m (3 feet 3 inches) between the kitchen island and the wall units, which is not enough for comfortable movement
- Dining area too cramped – you can’t get into the “living” room (which, by the way, I think is a very nice name) without bumping into chairs or squeezing past them
- Distance between sofa and TV too short – this one is debatable; the standard is about 4m (13 feet), but 3.78m (12 feet 5 inches) in smaller houses is acceptable
- Guest bathroom sink too close – practically unreachable
- Space in front of the wardrobe too narrow – opening the wardrobe door 80cm (31 inches) and selecting clothes without falling backward onto the bed is nearly impossible. Doing this with two people is a lifelong punishment
- Top of the staircase very tight – with 1.18m (3 feet 10 inches), just below the minimum acceptable width – still manageable, but not comfortable
- Staircase too narrow (2m rough opening becomes a ladder)
- Kitchen too tight – only 1m (3 feet 3 inches) between the kitchen island and the wall units, which is not enough for comfortable movement
- Dining area too cramped – you can’t get into the “living” room (which, by the way, I think is a very nice name) without bumping into chairs or squeezing past them
- Distance between sofa and TV too short – this one is debatable; the standard is about 4m (13 feet), but 3.78m (12 feet 5 inches) in smaller houses is acceptable
- Guest bathroom sink too close – practically unreachable
- Space in front of the wardrobe too narrow – opening the wardrobe door 80cm (31 inches) and selecting clothes without falling backward onto the bed is nearly impossible. Doing this with two people is a lifelong punishment
- Top of the staircase very tight – with 1.18m (3 feet 10 inches), just below the minimum acceptable width – still manageable, but not comfortable
Is it no longer possible to edit posts, or am I just missing the button?
- We were already almost afraid that 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) width would be too narrow for the staircase (but hope is known to be the last to die).
- Distance between the kitchen counter and island: I had read everywhere about 120cm (47 inches), mainly with the reasoning that you can open drawers facing each other at the same time. If I move the island a bit further into the room, I get 1.10m (3 ft 7 in). I’ll try to simulate that later in our kitchen.
- Oops, that wasn’t intentional; hopefully, the "Living" room name fits better with the kitchen. Actually, the living room is more of a cozy lounge and relaxation area. Here too, I followed the dimensions you commonly find: 120cm (47 inches) from the table to the island and 130cm (51 inches) from the table to the living room sliding door. Is that really too tight?
- Just measured: we currently have 3.80m (12 ft 6 in). That’s enough for us.
- The shower in the guest bathroom is planned as a walk-in with a simple curtain that likely stays open most of the time. This way, the sink is easily accessible.
- In the bedroom, I could rotate the bed and place it on the other wall, creating much more space in front of the closet. Or push the bed closer to the wall without the closet (I’d have to lie there then, my wife would get the wider passage). Right now, there’s 40cm (16 inches) between the bed and the wall, which is okay for me ).
- Okay, back to the staircase, I see there’s still work to be done.
Overall, it seems more like a lack of house length rather than width. Am I seeing that correctly?
Thanks in advance!
kaho674 schrieb:
A house that feels cramped:
- Staircase too narrow (2m (6 ft 7 in) rough opening ends up like a ladder)
- Kitchen too small – only 1m (3 ft 3 in) between the island and the wall cabinets, which is too little for real freedom of movement
- Dining area too tight – you can’t get into the "Living" room (by the way, I think that’s a very nice name) without bumping into or squeezing past the chairs
- Distance between sofa and TV too small – okay, this is debatable – the standard is about 4m (13 ft), 3.78m (12 ft 5 in) is acceptable in smaller homes
- Sink in guest bathroom too cramped – practically unreachable
- Space in front of closet too tight – opening the closet door 80cm (31 in) and choosing clothes without falling backwards onto the bed is basically impossible. Doing this together with two people would be a lifelong punishment
- Top of the staircase landing very tight – at 1.18m (3 ft 10 in) just below the minimum limit – it’s doable but not pleasant
- We were already almost afraid that 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) width would be too narrow for the staircase (but hope is known to be the last to die).
- Distance between the kitchen counter and island: I had read everywhere about 120cm (47 inches), mainly with the reasoning that you can open drawers facing each other at the same time. If I move the island a bit further into the room, I get 1.10m (3 ft 7 in). I’ll try to simulate that later in our kitchen.
- Oops, that wasn’t intentional; hopefully, the "Living" room name fits better with the kitchen. Actually, the living room is more of a cozy lounge and relaxation area. Here too, I followed the dimensions you commonly find: 120cm (47 inches) from the table to the island and 130cm (51 inches) from the table to the living room sliding door. Is that really too tight?
- Just measured: we currently have 3.80m (12 ft 6 in). That’s enough for us.
- The shower in the guest bathroom is planned as a walk-in with a simple curtain that likely stays open most of the time. This way, the sink is easily accessible.
- In the bedroom, I could rotate the bed and place it on the other wall, creating much more space in front of the closet. Or push the bed closer to the wall without the closet (I’d have to lie there then, my wife would get the wider passage). Right now, there’s 40cm (16 inches) between the bed and the wall, which is okay for me ).
- Okay, back to the staircase, I see there’s still work to be done.
Overall, it seems more like a lack of house length rather than width. Am I seeing that correctly?
Thanks in advance!
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