ᐅ House Floor Plan with a Separate Apartment – Suggestions for Improvement?

I guess I’ll have to come out of my determined forum coma after all, as it would have been almost like neglecting to help you by letting you walk into this disaster.

MarlenP schrieb:

We have this uneasy feeling that maybe we have forgotten something important or haven’t given it enough attention, since we were mainly focused on the compactness of the house during planning.

I couldn’t have put it better myself.

MarlenP schrieb:

We are currently in the final planning phase.

Decisively no – it’s hard to imagine being any further away from that.

From a layperson’s perspective, you probably feel quite well understood by the “architect.” Especially where you put him on the wrong track, he has galloped off without hesitation and apparently squeezed your wishes flawlessly into the building’s framework. However – don’t be misled by the indicated drainage pipes – absolutely nothing shown here even remotely approaches a final result. What is presented here is (apart from the already mentioned parking space issue and such) approval-worthy nonsense.

If this were actually built like this, you would cry bitter tears for the rest of your lives: after the shock over the actual room dimensions, you would have to pay for this breach of trust just as dearly as if you had received proper living value for your construction costs. The design is pure money waste to the benefit of the builder, a first-class planning failure (but unfortunately penalty-free since you formally get xyz cubic meters of house for it).

Your first mistake was yours – as you yourself have recognized, by focusing on the compactness of the design. That alone wouldn’t have been wrong (and even as a villa alternative, the requirements could have been well managed), but it would have needed a professional architect’s approach, which a general contractor’s yes-man is both unable to provide and also has a completely different mission, which is to:
1. squeeze the client’s budget as fully as possible with precision,
2. make the client feel that all their wishes are fulfilled for the money,
3. if necessary, also use cheap tricks to get the plan approved.

From these perspectives, he has fulfilled his task to complete satisfaction. But professionally, one must unfortunately say: “fail.” Conceptually, he took the wrong turn right from the start and botched the room layout to the max. Apart from the oversized concrete fire wall (which the structural engineer will also have some expensive things to say about), it is a scandal to design the senior living unit as a duplex and burden it with the mortgage of an extremely costly separate staircase. The already discussed crazy disproportion between the small multi-purpose “rabbit hutch” and the guest suite has been covered. At least your guests don’t bump elbows at the sink as you do yourselves. Also, your own bathroom’s biggest flaw, as has been mentioned, is the lack of redundancy. According to your information, two of your children are teenagers who currently fill that bathroom alone completely; child number 3 and the parents are squeezed into the guest WC’s hand sink. I have rarely seen such planning blunders – but if you care more about façade symmetry, you might hardly notice it. Regarding parking spaces – I assume you need three here, and you are “welcome” to quote the development plan more extensively (warning: no links!) – the planner has also failed spectacularly (and no, the building authority can count to three, whether you mark the parking spaces or not).

With the nominal target values of 140:70 sqm (square meters) for the two living units and the requirement for the senior unit to be only on the ground floor, a division of the ground floor roughly two thirds for the seniors would result. Your problem is not new by the way, see here at @Claudia-W: https://www.hausbau-forum.de/threads/Grundriss-2-familienhaus-mit-staffelgeschoss-zu-kompakt.42256/page-3#post-549893 – and also Yvonne’s suggestion

ypg schrieb:

I know a few houses, just on paper and actually built, where the family living room was placed upstairs. The ground floor had the entrance and living kitchen with terrace access; the granny flat could spread nicely on the ground floor, and the roof, which is already there, was put to use.
Would a gabled roof also be an option, @MarlenP?

is worth considering – preferably with an architect without quotation marks. Now give @K a t j a the planning basics 🙂

What is more imposed on the seniors here than offered had in the early days of automobiles the nice name “mother-in-law seat.” A visit lasting a few weeks is bearable there, but in the long run, Sophia (do you remember The Golden Girls?) would certainly prefer the “shady pine” here ;-)

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K a t j a schrieb:

I think the original poster is a bit speechless because of the feedback...

That is indeed true; I am speechless in two ways. First, because of the large amount of responses, and second, because of the criticism of our floor plan. To be honest, I am quite disappointed that despite several months of planning with our architect, we apparently did not achieve the best possible result. The current status of the building project is that we have already received the building permit (planning permission) and are now waiting for a start date from the construction company.

Most of the criticism was directed at the layout of the granny flat, but how should the floor plan of the main dwelling be evaluated?

Criticism of the granny flat:

1. Granny flat – Living/Dining/Kitchen is too small – we thought that two seniors, who are almost 70, would not need much more space. Everything they need is on the ground floor (first floor in UK). But is the Living/Dining/Kitchen area really too small? We looked at many floor plans of houses with granny flats, where the main room was not much larger either. Maybe you have example floor plans of single-family homes with a well-designed granny flat?

2. Granny flat – Staircase unnecessary – the granny flat was intended to be exclusively on the ground floor. The youngest son of my parents (my brother:-)) studies farther away and often comes home, sometimes staying for days or weeks. So that he has his privacy, and the parents have theirs, we planned the room on the upper level (first floor) with a bathroom with a shower.

haydee schrieb:

Cooking and eating should stay downstairs by the garden. Just not living areas.
It’s not that much to carry. Usually, there’s nothing in the living room that you would need in the garden.
You can take the bowl with snacks and glasses when you’re going anyway.

We had that idea too, but dismissed it for two reasons.
1. Converting the attic would have exceeded our budget. 2. We would have had three finished floors and therefore more stairs to climb (which would have been manageable if it weren’t for the first reason).

ypg schrieb:

I know some houses, just on paper and in reality, where the family living room was placed upstairs. On the ground floor was the entrance and the kitchen-living area with terrace access, the granny flat could comfortably extend on the ground floor, and the roof, which was already there, was used.

Do you maybe have the "paper houses" to post here?

ypg schrieb:

Would a gable roof also be an option, @MarlenP?

Basically yes, but a hip roof is our favorite.

ypg schrieb:

How fixed are you now with the plan? Would another option still be possible in terms of planning?

As I said, we have already received the building permit / planning permission. However, we could theoretically still submit a change request.

ypg schrieb:

To be honest, I’m looking for the family bathroom. Are you seriously sharing one shower bathroom among five people, while the basement apartment has two washrooms with two showers?? 😱

The bathroom is sufficiently large for us. We currently have a bathtub in the bathroom, but neither the children nor we have used it for years. That’s why we left it out.

K a t j a schrieb:

When I look at this calmly, it’s basically a big deception. The architect simply leaves out important details because they are not feasible. In my opinion, the terrace of the secondary apartment is also too close to the property line and would only be allowed in a few exceptional zoning plans. The garage is too narrow for two cars, and the furniture is much too small – it’s all polished up to secure approval. I would be very cautious here.

That doesn’t sound good :-(. Regarding the garage – only one car will be parked there. The remaining space will be used for bicycles, gardening tools, and so on.