ᐅ House Floor Plan with a Separate Apartment – Suggestions for Improvement?
Created on: 31 Aug 2022 12:31
M
MarlenP
Hello everyone,
we plan to build a house with two residential units on a 472m2 (5,079 sq ft) plot of land (Unit 1: 143.39m2 (1,543 sq ft) / Unit 2: 69.57m2 (749 sq ft)).
The second unit is intended for my parents, while the main unit is for my family, which includes my spouse and three children (ages 7, 13, and 17).
Since our plot is relatively small, we want to build a compact house to maximize the garden space.
We are currently in the final planning stage and would appreciate your feedback on our project.
We have a feeling that we might have overlooked some important aspects or not paid enough attention to certain details because our planning focus was mainly on the compactness of the house.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 472m2 (5,079 sq ft)
Slope: no
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.6
Building envelope, building line, and boundary
Perimeter development: south and east
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2
Roof type: hipped roof
Architectural style:
Orientation: south/west
Maximum heights / limits: 10m (33 ft)
Additional requirements
Client Requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type: urban villa
Basement, number of storeys: no basement
Number of occupants and ages: Unit 1 – 5 people (ages 43, 38, 17, 13, 7); Unit 2 – 2 people, both over 60
Space needs on ground floor / upper floor:
Office: family use or home office? -
Number of guest stays per year: 2-3 times per year
Open or closed layout: open
Traditional or modern build style: modern
Open kitchen, with or without island: open kitchen, no island
Number of dining seats: 5
Fireplace: no
Music / stereo wall: no
Balcony or roof terrace: no
Garage or carport: garage
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Other wishes / special features / daily routines, also reasons why certain features are included or excluded
The house should be compact but still feel spacious.
House Design
Planning by:
- planner from a construction company
- architect: by the architect
- do-it-yourself
What do you particularly like? Why? It is a relatively small house with two residential units.
What do you dislike? Why? Maybe some rooms (children’s rooms and the rooms in the secondary unit) are too small?
Price estimate according to architect/planner: approx. 600,000€
Personal budget limit for house including fittings: 650,000€
Preferred heating system: district heating
If you had to give up something, which details or expansions
- could you do without: basically nothing – we have already minimized everything.
- could you not do without: the planned number of rooms
Why did the design end up like it is? For example:
Standard design from the planner?
Which wishes were implemented by the architect? Yes
A mix of many examples from various magazines…
What makes it particularly good or bad in your opinion?
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
We wanted the house to be as compact as possible. Maybe we focused too much on compactness and neglected other important aspects.
What do you like about the house, what do you not like so much, and what would be unacceptable?
we plan to build a house with two residential units on a 472m2 (5,079 sq ft) plot of land (Unit 1: 143.39m2 (1,543 sq ft) / Unit 2: 69.57m2 (749 sq ft)).
The second unit is intended for my parents, while the main unit is for my family, which includes my spouse and three children (ages 7, 13, and 17).
Since our plot is relatively small, we want to build a compact house to maximize the garden space.
We are currently in the final planning stage and would appreciate your feedback on our project.
We have a feeling that we might have overlooked some important aspects or not paid enough attention to certain details because our planning focus was mainly on the compactness of the house.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 472m2 (5,079 sq ft)
Slope: no
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.6
Building envelope, building line, and boundary
Perimeter development: south and east
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2
Roof type: hipped roof
Architectural style:
Orientation: south/west
Maximum heights / limits: 10m (33 ft)
Additional requirements
Client Requirements
Architectural style, roof type, building type: urban villa
Basement, number of storeys: no basement
Number of occupants and ages: Unit 1 – 5 people (ages 43, 38, 17, 13, 7); Unit 2 – 2 people, both over 60
Space needs on ground floor / upper floor:
Office: family use or home office? -
Number of guest stays per year: 2-3 times per year
Open or closed layout: open
Traditional or modern build style: modern
Open kitchen, with or without island: open kitchen, no island
Number of dining seats: 5
Fireplace: no
Music / stereo wall: no
Balcony or roof terrace: no
Garage or carport: garage
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Other wishes / special features / daily routines, also reasons why certain features are included or excluded
The house should be compact but still feel spacious.
House Design
Planning by:
- planner from a construction company
- architect: by the architect
- do-it-yourself
What do you particularly like? Why? It is a relatively small house with two residential units.
What do you dislike? Why? Maybe some rooms (children’s rooms and the rooms in the secondary unit) are too small?
Price estimate according to architect/planner: approx. 600,000€
Personal budget limit for house including fittings: 650,000€
Preferred heating system: district heating
If you had to give up something, which details or expansions
- could you do without: basically nothing – we have already minimized everything.
- could you not do without: the planned number of rooms
Why did the design end up like it is? For example:
Standard design from the planner?
Which wishes were implemented by the architect? Yes
A mix of many examples from various magazines…
What makes it particularly good or bad in your opinion?
What is the most important/basic question about the floor plan in 130 characters?
We wanted the house to be as compact as possible. Maybe we focused too much on compactness and neglected other important aspects.
What do you like about the house, what do you not like so much, and what would be unacceptable?
S
Sunshine38715 Sep 2022 23:36MarlenP schrieb:
This is indeed a compromise solution, but on the other hand, quite a bit of living space is sacrificed just for a utility/technical room.
Yesterday, I visited a house in a development area where the utility room was moved into the garage. So it is possible. But I will talk again today with a technician from the local utility company to get some clarity on this.
That’s already quite good,
From your point of view, what else is not optimally solved in this floor plan (apart from the granny flat)? Could you maybe list the individual points?
Sure. So the original idea of having a second staircase in the granny flat leading upstairs to two rooms contradicts common building rules. A granny flat should of course not take up too much valuable living space, and having a second staircase does exactly that. That’s why Katja’s proposal with the granny flat on one level makes a lot of sense, as it creates a barrier-free apartment, which is especially useful for seniors, and you get more generous rooms upstairs for your money, since you already want to invest quite a bit in the house.
We don’t want to rush things now; we have already spent quite some time planning (some of it even wasted). So a few weeks more or less don’t matter anymore.
That’s really good. Then you can find a nice floor plan.
We don’t want to think about selling yet. But I think what you say sounds quite serious (maybe rightly so), but could you please specifically say what you don’t like about the floor plan, and if you were to redesign it, how you would do it (like in post #56)?Yes, of course, that was a bit harshly put, but it is just a well-intended warning for you. Because what is the target group for a single-family house with a granny flat? The family with grandparents who usually prefer to live on the ground floor, and a family of four who want to have enough space upstairs for a mid six-figure amount but don’t want to pay the price of an entire house for the size of a 5-room apartment. If you already have two rooms upstairs, then it would be better to build it as a proper semi-detached house, which always retains its value and is easy to rent out. The two units don’t have to be the same size, but at least one semi-detached unit would have 3 rooms and your unit 5 rooms. This is definitely a classic model that always holds its value and not just for your personal use. But designs like Katja’s are very common and you often find them on the internet. A granny flat on the ground floor and the rest of the house as a separate dwelling is popular with families.
I think Katja’s design is quite well done, because two semi-detached houses would naturally cost you more.
11ant schrieb:
Fine, go ahead and include the third semifinal design "198 / Yvonne" in your selection, but then make a decision, finito, enough! (Or do you really want to risk the general contractor canceling the contract because the client can’t decide)?
Of course, no one has to follow my advice, but the business of contractors is not to watch their clients wait endlessly like in a play. Your contractor’s already burning out their brakes!
(and I’m wondering if I should just say a heartfelt “do whatever you want” and leave your thread for good — my popcorn bowl is almost empty anyway). Haha, the elephant is losing patience. I have to disagree there. No, there is absolutely no reason to make any decision now that isn’t 100% right for you. Sure, everyone is getting restless and stressed, but so what? I wouldn’t throw away my hard-earned money just because someone else wants to rush things. Honestly, don’t let those men drive you crazy! It’s your house. Let them run circles. Just ignore them. :p
K a t j a schrieb:
There is absolutely no reason to make any decision now that you are not 100% satisfied with. Pareto did not just assume but proved that insisting on upgrading from 99.75% to 99.99% is disproportionate. It is also proven that the quality of a series of dice roll results does not significantly improve beyond a certain length of the series. Therefore, obsessing over the hope that the next roll will finally bring three sixes will only lead to fatigue and disappointment, without any additional "gain."
I have therefore—without underestimating your or any other further designs and without arbitrariness—selected two designs to recommend as a starting point for further—but, as explained above, not infinitely many!—refinement stages. On the one hand, the one from Yvonne in post #116ff., because, in my opinion, it successfully incorporates the recently added foundational segmentation slices and the latest reflection on the exaggerated claim about sibling needs; and on the other hand, the one from @Würfel* in post #89, due to what I consider an extremely favorable ratio of quality improvement to minimal invasiveness of changes compared to the initial proposal.
Methodologically somewhat inconsistent, as a concession to childish fun and as a delaying tactic before falling asleep to request one last fairy tale, I have "allowed" the design from Yvonne in post #198 to be included in the counting rhyme "decision."
K a t j a schrieb:
Haha, the elephant is running out of patience. By the way, it is correct to say "dem 11anten." No, the islander does not lose calm (and Hoffmann is the last to die). It is just sometimes a strain on the patience of the operating room nurses when the patient keeps begging for yet another fairy tale even on the table. That is why anesthetists were invented ;-).
So my concern is by no means only about the yawning audience but also about (not endlessly endured) blocking of the operating team, mind you, against the background that further delay alone (and not even combined with further grinding through new attempts, turning over each stone one by one) will not be rewarded by any significant approach to an optimum. The realization that a thousandth-of-a-percent absolute satisfaction on earth is unattainable was eventually accepted even by @Shiny86—albeit, in my opinion, agonizingly late. There are "role models" one simply does not have to top “no matter what.” And I am thoroughly convinced that the original poster will suffer more bitterly from the disappointment of the lack of further success than the merely bored audience, which can always switch to other threads. I really see it as more likely that @Hitokiri-1978 will be struck by the lightning of insight in his racing simulator than that the original poster will discover the Amber Room in the forty-seventh decimal place of the next draft. I honor your modeling enthusiasm, but please don’t raise any false hopes for her!
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
So much text to say so little. And again: no. The decision is too important to get nervous because of pressure from a few men. If you don’t roll four of a kind, you can always stop playing.
And no, I play the way I want, as long as I’m allowed to.
But I still like you. 😉
And no, I play the way I want, as long as I’m allowed to.
But I still like you. 😉
K a t j a schrieb:
The decision is too importantLet's put it this way: it’s important to make a decision (at some point) 🙂ypg schrieb:
Let's put it this way: it's important to make a decision at some point.I just nudged @Shiny86 via private message to see if she wants to share her experience about starting construction with only 98% satisfaction...https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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