ᐅ Large office space or a separate guest apartment?

Hello everyone,

The time is slowly approaching. Our municipality will be selling building plots in the new development area starting mid-March. Since we are a family with two children, we have a good chance of securing a plot.

I have been thinking about this for a long time and now need your opinion. Since I am a teacher, I definitely need an office. My husband is also working more and more from home, so the room could be a bit larger. The house is planned to be an energy-efficient house standard 40/40+. Maybe it would be better to build a separate apartment for the office right away? That way, we might benefit twice from the subsidy. Of course, a separate apartment costs more (50,000? 100,000?), but it also offers more flexibility...

Does anyone here use a separate apartment as an office? How large should the unit be? What is clear: bathroom + kitchenette + separate entrance. A room size of 16–20m2 (170–215 sq ft) would be completely sufficient for us (+ WC with shower + small kitchenette (2m2 / 21.5 sq ft)).

What do you think?

What exactly do you want to know now? Regardless of the floor plan and other requirements, it is impossible to recommend for or against a secondary apartment. At first, I also thought the idea was great for double funding and the flexibility of later use. However, I changed my mind because designing a floor plan is challenging enough. Adding a secondary apartment to the plan only makes it more complicated.

Where should the granny flat be located? Ground floor, basement
Sloping site
What does the zoning plan / building permit specify?
Usually, one parking space per housing unit is required, etc.

At first, we also wanted to build with a granny flat. However, that means the staircase to the ground floor cannot be located in this area, which often disrupts the floor plan.

My wife is a teacher and I also work from a home office (nothing special at the moment), and we have found a good solution for ourselves. My wife has an office on the ground floor, and mine is in the basement with a light well. So, plan the offices on two different levels to avoid too many restrictions on your floor plan.

Kati.com schrieb:

Does anyone use the granny flat as an office? How large does the unit need to be? Obviously: bathroom + kitchenette + separate entrance. For us, one room of 16-20m2 (170-215 sq ft) would be completely sufficient (+ toilet with shower + small kitchenette (2m2/21.5 sq ft)).
What do you think?

We built two separate living units, which are currently occupied by our boys. One will become an office once they move out, the other an art studio. Each unit has a bathroom, a kitchenette, and a sleeping loft. Planning this way from the start doesn’t limit the floor plan options. The size you mentioned, 16m2 (170 sq ft), would need to be supplemented by a bathroom, kitchenette, and space for a sleeping area and wardrobe to complete the granny flat as a studio apartment.

@hampshire I think your example/property is the absolute exception. Usually, the floor plan is very much compromised by the staircase in the granny flat. If the granny flat can be realized as a separate living unit on the ground floor, of course, that’s different. However, 99% of plots don’t allow this because the building envelopes are simply too small.