ᐅ Hillside House in the Southwest Palatinate – Our Home Construction 2.0
Created on: 9 Sep 2022 18:13
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kati1337
Good evening everyone
I’m starting a small collection thread here for photos and progress updates on our second building project.
We’ve already moved to the Palatinate region to be closer to the construction site. Now we’re watching eagerly and happily as our (hopefully final) dream home takes shape near family.
One big challenge still ahead of us is the facade design. I really love the Nordic style with brickwork and mullioned windows. That won’t be possible here for two reasons: firstly, no one here can do bricklaying, and secondly, it would stand out too much. We will be going with a rendered facade. How to design the colors of the facade and windows to still create some country house / cottage charm is currently still a work in progress mentally.
Otherwise, I’m sharing our plans here and how it will eventually be built.
The support pillar marked near the kitchen island could be removed for a small extra cost, so that will be gone.
The room for “garden equipment” under the garage will get a partition wall for structural reasons.
It won’t be fully finished living space like in the house, but underfloor heating will be installed, along with a lockable door and a window. It’s meant to store garden tools but also some of the building services equipment, since the utility room (HAR) is quite small, and maybe be used as a party room.
We had three construction companies in the final selection. In the end, we chose the “doer” – a builder recommended to us here by friends and family. No website, no smartphone, but he is on site every day himself working in overalls. He has a very good reputation in this area and now rarely builds single-family homes. We were a bit lucky through personal connections and a very friendly initial phone call to get our foot in the door. So far we are very satisfied with this choice.
I’m starting a small collection thread here for photos and progress updates on our second building project.
We’ve already moved to the Palatinate region to be closer to the construction site. Now we’re watching eagerly and happily as our (hopefully final) dream home takes shape near family.
One big challenge still ahead of us is the facade design. I really love the Nordic style with brickwork and mullioned windows. That won’t be possible here for two reasons: firstly, no one here can do bricklaying, and secondly, it would stand out too much. We will be going with a rendered facade. How to design the colors of the facade and windows to still create some country house / cottage charm is currently still a work in progress mentally.
Otherwise, I’m sharing our plans here and how it will eventually be built.
The support pillar marked near the kitchen island could be removed for a small extra cost, so that will be gone.
The room for “garden equipment” under the garage will get a partition wall for structural reasons.
It won’t be fully finished living space like in the house, but underfloor heating will be installed, along with a lockable door and a window. It’s meant to store garden tools but also some of the building services equipment, since the utility room (HAR) is quite small, and maybe be used as a party room.
We had three construction companies in the final selection. In the end, we chose the “doer” – a builder recommended to us here by friends and family. No website, no smartphone, but he is on site every day himself working in overalls. He has a very good reputation in this area and now rarely builds single-family homes. We were a bit lucky through personal connections and a very friendly initial phone call to get our foot in the door. So far we are very satisfied with this choice.
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Benutzer 100110 Sep 2022 13:59I really like the floor plan—lots of storage options, well-balanced room sizes, and separate parent and children’s areas, so no shared walls directly between them.
However, two things about the house would bother me.
First, the window sizes and shapes are too varied; I have had bad experiences with that.
Second, the ytong blocks—you mentioned you had issues with the neighbors and noise in the garden. Why not use calcium silicate blocks or aerated concrete instead?
However, two things about the house would bother me.
First, the window sizes and shapes are too varied; I have had bad experiences with that.
Second, the ytong blocks—you mentioned you had issues with the neighbors and noise in the garden. Why not use calcium silicate blocks or aerated concrete instead?
Costruttrice schrieb:
Your house elevations immediately reminded me of a Mediterranean-style house. I could picture it in cream white with white sash windows.
Have you already decided on the roof color?The roof will be black. We had to decide that quite quickly, as our builder ordered many items very early due to the current situation and supply issues. He recently mentioned at the site how much building material he currently has in stock. He said it used to be no problem to quickly go to the building supplier if something was missing. Today, he has to keep everything in large quantities on site and order things like roof tiles well in advance.I can also imagine cream white. We’re currently getting quotes for what window muntins would cost. He said that’s quite rare here and not very common in this area.
11ant schrieb:
I always say that for customer-focused builders, the home budget is almost typically a low priority. But that someone like that “rarely builds single-family homes anymore”—respect!From what he said, he mostly does projects like medical practices and smaller multi-family rental buildings. I don’t know the details for sure.Offtopic schrieb:
I really like the floor plan, lots of storage options, balanced room sizes, separated parents’ and children’s areas with no directly shared walls.
But two things about the house would bother me.
First, too many different window shapes. I’m a bit biased here.
Second, Ytong blocks—you had problems with the neighbors and noise in the garden. Why not use sand-lime brick or aerated concrete?We also liked the separate areas / no shared wall between parents, kids, guests—it was important to us. Our first child wakes up very quickly and hears everything. 😀We did discuss the type of masonry. At first, I wasn’t too happy with it either, but the builder recommended Ytong because the house is partly built into a slope. He said that where the house is embedded into the hillside, he couldn’t use the other masonry type, so they would have to use two different types of blocks. That wouldn’t be ideal if we later want to adjust the yard’s elevation on the sides, like terracing differently. So we decided to go with Ytong for the entire build.
However, part of the house is almost fully built into the slope, so we’re hoping to be somewhat protected from outside noise. Also, the masonry blocks here are different than at our first house. In Lower Saxony, the house had a brick veneer—thin Ytong blocks, insulation, and then brick outside. Here, the Ytong blocks are much thicker.
The builder said he’s never had complaints about noise issues. On the other hand, it also seems uncommon in this area for people to play their construction radios in their gardens. Or maybe the sound distribution is different because the terrain isn’t all flat?
We’ll see.
The thickness of the stone is not decisive; rather, it is the sound insulation value that matters. The only person who currently benefits from not having to use two stones is your builder.
I truly hope you will be happy this time, but I don't understand why, after the last disaster, you didn't look into this more thoroughly and simply trusted such a statement.
It's good that he didn’t have any noise complaints, but he is not a highly sensitive person (HSP), and neither are his clients.
I truly hope you will be happy this time, but I don't understand why, after the last disaster, you didn't look into this more thoroughly and simply trusted such a statement.
It's good that he didn’t have any noise complaints, but he is not a highly sensitive person (HSP), and neither are his clients.
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Costruttrice10 Sep 2022 17:40kati1337 schrieb:
I could also imagine cream white. We’re currently getting estimates for what muntins would cost. He says he rarely sees that; it’s not very common in this area.I can really picture that working well with your house! But I would choose internal muntins—that is, muntins between the glass panes. Right now, in our temporary apartment, we have windows with muntins, and the cleaning lady cursed quite a bit last week…Do you already have a move-in date?
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