ᐅ Floor Plan Optimization, Single-Family Home, Urban Villa 12x12 m
Created on: 15 Oct 2021 00:59
L
Lia_Home
Hello everyone,
We visited several model homes, spoke with different construction companies, and reviewed a number of floor plans. Unfortunately, many of the designs didn’t meet our expectations. As a result, we drew the floor plan ourselves using a 3D home design program.
We are quite satisfied with the upper floor. However, we see room for improvement on the ground floor. For example, is the hallway too large or too narrow? Also, the layout of the guest room and the guest bathroom needs reconsideration. Would it be possible to convert this room (with shower toilet) into a small separate apartment?
Attached are both floor plans as well as two perspective images.
We look forward to your feedback.
Thank you very much! Lia
Building regulations/restrictions
Plot size: 821 m2 (approx. 21 m (69 feet) wide and 35 m (115 feet) deep, not quite rectangular)
Slope: none
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Building setback: 5 meters (16 feet) from the street, 4 meters (13 feet) from neighbors
Number of stories: max. 2
Roof type: hipped roof
Architectural style: modern
Maximum height restrictions: eaves height 6 m (20 feet), ridge height 8.5 m (28 feet)
Client requirements
Style, roof form, building type: modern, hipped roof
Basement, number of floors: 2 full floors
Household size and ages: 2 adults in their mid-30s, 1 child, 2 years old
Space requirements on ground floor: cloakroom, guest room, guest shower WC, utility/technical room, kitchen, pantry, living-dining room
Space requirements on upper floor: 2 children’s rooms, master bedroom, dressing room, laundry room, bathroom, office
Office: home office
Number of overnight guests per year: several times a year
Open or closed layout: open
Traditional or modern construction: modern
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with work island
Seats at dining table: usually 4-6, at celebrations at least 15
Fireplace: yes
Balcony, roof terrace: roof terrace above garage
Garage or carport: garage
Kitchen garden, greenhouse: no
Additional wishes/particulars/daily routine, reasons for including or excluding certain features:
- open space/void
- large west-facing windows due to no neighbors
- cloakroom
- covered entrance
House design
Who designed the plan:
- ourselves
What do you like most?
- spacious, open living and dining area
What do you dislike? Why?
Estimated cost according to builder: approx. 550,000
Hallway (takes up too much space?), guest room on the ground floor (too awkwardly shaped)
If you had to give up some details or extensions
- hallway space
Why was the design made this way? For example:
We arranged the rooms so they made sense to us and took room sizes into account.
What is your main question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
Are there any possible optimizations for the floor plan?
We visited several model homes, spoke with different construction companies, and reviewed a number of floor plans. Unfortunately, many of the designs didn’t meet our expectations. As a result, we drew the floor plan ourselves using a 3D home design program.
We are quite satisfied with the upper floor. However, we see room for improvement on the ground floor. For example, is the hallway too large or too narrow? Also, the layout of the guest room and the guest bathroom needs reconsideration. Would it be possible to convert this room (with shower toilet) into a small separate apartment?
Attached are both floor plans as well as two perspective images.
We look forward to your feedback.
Thank you very much! Lia
Building regulations/restrictions
Plot size: 821 m2 (approx. 21 m (69 feet) wide and 35 m (115 feet) deep, not quite rectangular)
Slope: none
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Building setback: 5 meters (16 feet) from the street, 4 meters (13 feet) from neighbors
Number of stories: max. 2
Roof type: hipped roof
Architectural style: modern
Maximum height restrictions: eaves height 6 m (20 feet), ridge height 8.5 m (28 feet)
Client requirements
Style, roof form, building type: modern, hipped roof
Basement, number of floors: 2 full floors
Household size and ages: 2 adults in their mid-30s, 1 child, 2 years old
Space requirements on ground floor: cloakroom, guest room, guest shower WC, utility/technical room, kitchen, pantry, living-dining room
Space requirements on upper floor: 2 children’s rooms, master bedroom, dressing room, laundry room, bathroom, office
Office: home office
Number of overnight guests per year: several times a year
Open or closed layout: open
Traditional or modern construction: modern
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with work island
Seats at dining table: usually 4-6, at celebrations at least 15
Fireplace: yes
Balcony, roof terrace: roof terrace above garage
Garage or carport: garage
Kitchen garden, greenhouse: no
Additional wishes/particulars/daily routine, reasons for including or excluding certain features:
- open space/void
- large west-facing windows due to no neighbors
- cloakroom
- covered entrance
House design
Who designed the plan:
- ourselves
What do you like most?
- spacious, open living and dining area
What do you dislike? Why?
Estimated cost according to builder: approx. 550,000
Hallway (takes up too much space?), guest room on the ground floor (too awkwardly shaped)
If you had to give up some details or extensions
- hallway space
Why was the design made this way? For example:
We arranged the rooms so they made sense to us and took room sizes into account.
What is your main question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
Are there any possible optimizations for the floor plan?
Lia_Home schrieb:
Is it possible to convert this room (with shower toilet) into a granny flat? Lia_Home schrieb:
The granny flat should meet KfW standards and be rented out to students / traveling project workers or possibly family members later. I tend to overlook the granny flat idea... but here I have to smile: You really don’t seriously want traveling project workers to sleep in your house and use your bathroom?
To answer the question: no, as drawn there is no granny flat with a kitchenette and private entrance here.
Lia_Home schrieb:
We would like to focus in this forum on your experiences and ideas for optimizing the floor plan. ... discussions about unrealistic fantasies are not welcome in this forum,
We would like to sincerely thank you all for your comments.
We would love to respond to each post individually, but that would likely become confusing. Therefore, we will try to summarize the most important points in this post:
We have identified the following main topics from your comments:
(Please let us know if we have missed any)
1. Children’s rooms adjacent to the open space / the open space itself
2. Budget / Costs
3. Dining area too narrow
We will also try to optimize this in the next update.
4. No children’s bathroom
We have discussed this point in detail and have deliberately decided against it, but thank you very much for the suggestion.
6. Architect
We are currently in talks with interior architects, but unfortunately, they are very busy.
Could you recommend architects/interior architects who might be a good fit for our building project?
7. Questions:
7.1
We have already addressed the budget topic, but we would appreciate concrete suggestions on how to avoid simply lining up rooms side by side.
7.2
We will try to include this in the next update.
The window in this area is intended to be a window seat. A fireplace will be installed on the exterior wall next to the window seat. This does not yet fit with the drawn window sizes, and we will show this more accurately in the next update.
That depends on which one you mean. There is a terrace planned on the garage roof, primarily accessible from the utility room so that we can dry laundry outside without carrying it through the whole house into the garden.
We are also considering adding access to this terrace from the bathroom.
The garden terrace will be located behind the open space and is intended to be accessed from the kitchen.
7.3
Could you please share your floor plan with us so we can see the size of your open space and how the living room is arranged in relation to it, the bedroom, and the bathroom? This would help us understand much better. Thanks in advance!
If we have not answered any of your questions, please draw our attention to them again.
We look forward to your feedback and wish you a pleasant weekend.
We would love to respond to each post individually, but that would likely become confusing. Therefore, we will try to summarize the most important points in this post:
We have identified the following main topics from your comments:
(Please let us know if we have missed any)
1. Children’s rooms adjacent to the open space / the open space itself
Lia_Home schrieb:
Regarding the neighbors, the building permit/planning permission window, the house/garage size, and the positioning on the plot, we will very likely post an update next weekend.
Some have commented that planning the children’s rooms next to the open space is impractical. We will take another look at this and address it in the next update.
2. Budget / Costs
Lia_Home schrieb:
The topic of costs is complex, with many different factors involved.
You are right; we will probably exceed the estimated budget.
We would like to focus in this forum on your experiences and ideas for optimizing the floor plan.
3. Dining area too narrow
We will also try to optimize this in the next update.
4. No children’s bathroom
We have discussed this point in detail and have deliberately decided against it, but thank you very much for the suggestion.
6. Architect
We are currently in talks with interior architects, but unfortunately, they are very busy.
Could you recommend architects/interior architects who might be a good fit for our building project?
7. Questions:
7.1
ypg schrieb:
Basically, little planning has been done here; the rooms are just lined up next to each other. In generous size, but definitely not reflected in the budget.
No one wants an 8-meter-long (26-foot-long) hallway… but there is a bottleneck in the dining area.
We have already addressed the budget topic, but we would appreciate concrete suggestions on how to avoid simply lining up rooms side by side.
7.2
haydee schrieb:
Please draw furniture to scale in every room and consider movement space.
We will try to include this in the next update.
haydee schrieb:
Large empty space in the living room.
The window in this area is intended to be a window seat. A fireplace will be installed on the exterior wall next to the window seat. This does not yet fit with the drawn window sizes, and we will show this more accurately in the next update.
haydee schrieb:
Where is the terrace planned?
That depends on which one you mean. There is a terrace planned on the garage roof, primarily accessible from the utility room so that we can dry laundry outside without carrying it through the whole house into the garden.
We are also considering adding access to this terrace from the bathroom.
The garden terrace will be located behind the open space and is intended to be accessed from the kitchen.
7.3
ypg schrieb:
It is a compromise between light and noise.
Bright and stylish for living, but also noisy due to sound transmission.
Personally, I can hear the TV from downstairs when I am in the upstairs bathroom, louder than the TV in the adjacent bedroom (tested). When living with two people, you can discuss it...
Could you please share your floor plan with us so we can see the size of your open space and how the living room is arranged in relation to it, the bedroom, and the bathroom? This would help us understand much better. Thanks in advance!
If we have not answered any of your questions, please draw our attention to them again.
We look forward to your feedback and wish you a pleasant weekend.
ypg schrieb:
I usually overlook the idea of a granny flat... but here I have to smile: You don’t seriously want to let traveling project workers sleep in your house and use your toilet, do you?
To answer your question: no, as drawn there is no granny flat with a kitchenette and separate entrance here. That is correct; we will include this in the next update.
ypg schrieb:
... discussions about unrealistic, unpaid-for dreams are generally unwelcome in this forum, Thank you for the note. We cannot and do not want to force anyone to participate in the discussion, but we ask for your understanding that cost issues should be kept separate from the floor plan discussion.
(Note: We have discussed this building project with several contractors and have received multiple cost estimates. We are aware of the repeatedly mentioned additional costs and have also addressed them with several banks regarding financing.)
Lia_Home schrieb:
The granny flat must meet the KFW requirements and is intended to be rented out to students, traveling project workers, or possibly family members in the future. Single-room worker hotels are not in demand.
Lia_Home schrieb:
We would like to focus in this forum on your experiences and ideas for optimizing the floor plan. Forget that quickly—construction discussions without a budget are pointless. What good is pointing out a cheaper bathroom door hung the other way or a different corner sofa arrangement when the main savings to be made are in the hundreds of thousands before the comma?
Lia_Home schrieb:
We have discussed this construction project with several building companies and have received multiple cost estimates. Maybe they all included significant "builder-supplied" items to the same extent? That would be nice, if a narrow range between offers already proved their accuracy ;-)
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
If you can easily set aside an additional 200,000+ EUR (approximately 220,000+ USD) beyond the costs mentioned so far, then everything should be fine. Otherwise, the floor plan and especially its optimization are inevitably tied to the budget, even though many homeowners want to separate these aspects.
Otherwise:
Unless I have completely overlooked something important, you will not receive approval for this, since roof terraces, unlike garages, violate the required setback distances.
Note: Don’t look for an interior designer yet, because you are still far from being able to answer the questions they would ask. Instead, look for an architect who specializes in exteriors to get a realistic cost estimate.
Otherwise:
Lia_Home schrieb:
A terrace on the garage roof is planned,
Unless I have completely overlooked something important, you will not receive approval for this, since roof terraces, unlike garages, violate the required setback distances.
Note: Don’t look for an interior designer yet, because you are still far from being able to answer the questions they would ask. Instead, look for an architect who specializes in exteriors to get a realistic cost estimate.
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