ᐅ Single-family house, 2 stories without a basement – floor plan, costs, feasibility?
Created on: 8 Jul 2014 21:13
M
macpet
Hello Forum,
After a long time of debating whether it makes sense to start a thread without owning land yet, I decided to go ahead and open it. You can’t start early enough. And once the right plot is found, the process might move a bit faster.
A brief introduction: We are a family with two children (daughter, 3 years old; son, 3 months old). We currently live in a small terraced house over three floors with a basement plus an attic accessed by a hatch, a single garage, and a parking space. 125 m² (1,345 sq ft) of living space plus 30 m² (323 sq ft) garden, of which 14 m² (151 sq ft) is paved terrace. This home will serve as our contribution towards the new house. We also have a building savings plan. The budget of 450,000 € all in should not be exceeded, but more details are in the cost overview attached.
Now, about our ideas for the new home.
It should be a house with a simple cubic form, no basement.
I will recover the costs of the basement with a larger footprint and a big garage.
The pantry and the utility/heating room are located on the north side, considered the cold side.
The garage is also positioned on the north side, at the corner.
There should be no skylights, but many fixed windows.
The staircase should be accessible without entering the living area so that the children can reach their rooms later without disturbance.
It should be possible to enter the house via the garage without going outside.
The front door will be on the north side.
There should be two children’s bedrooms arranged apart from the bathroom and master bedroom.
Also, the bathroom should be separated from the children’s rooms to minimize noise.
The bathroom should have a bathtub, toilet, bidet, shower, double washbasin, and an infrared cabin.
Everything should be usable without disturbing others, which is why there is just one bathroom and no separate children’s bathroom that might be unused after the kids move out but still needs cleaning. So one person can shower, another can use the toilet, someone else can be in the infrared cabin, and so on.
All combinations are possible and implemented.
Even practical details like toilet placement near a window or enough light for the different tasks have been considered. The infrared cabin, for example, needs no light because it has internal lighting.
The laundry room, where the washer and dryer stand, should be separated from the living and sleeping areas.
There should be a laundry chute connected to the bathroom, so dirty laundry is neatly stored and dries best in the heating room. Many place washer and dryer upstairs, but where to store and dry laundry then?
So, a large heating room that also functions as a drying room.
Short distances for all utility lines were a goal as well, which is why the heating room is located directly under the bathroom.
The open kitchen is designed with a double L-shape, something I haven’t seen before but find very practical on the plan. You can go from the garage to the pantry with groceries, then take the rest into the kitchen and put the first items directly in the fridge. From the kitchen, you can access the terrace again via the open L—either to the herb garden or to the shady side in the afternoon for coffee.
The two legs of the L are about 1.3 m (4.3 ft) apart so that two or three people can cook without getting under each other’s feet but also without having to walk too far.
The hallway on the ground floor is also not too small and can be accessed directly from the front door or garage, so you can change shoes immediately. You don’t have to walk across the stairway path and risk carrying gravel up the wooden stairs.
The upstairs floors will be mostly oak wood, except the bathroom, which will have tiles. Perhaps the walk-in closet will have a carpet?
The basement is tiled except for the living area in the lounge; the kitchen will definitely be tiled.
Visually, I would prefer wood flooring in the entire living area, but practically that’s not feasible, not even with a Berbel extraction hood. The last 12 years have shown this.
It very much depends on cooking habits. If you only eat there or make occasional coffee, then wood flooring in the kitchen would work.
You can invest a lot of time in the floor plan decisions, but I think it’s worth it.
The staircase also requires careful planning and isn’t always easy to position with all the given dimensions.
Lighting shouldn’t be too sparse, and probably some glass doors will be needed.
I have also avoided large sliding doors in the living room because of the cost.
In the last 12 years, we managed well with our 1 m (3.3 ft) wide terrace door. The rest of the equipment is stored in the big garage.
The window arrangement should also create a harmonious exterior look; I’m a fan of symmetry, even if that’s “the art of the unwise.”
I included a central ventilation system initially but ended up going with a decentralized ventilation system.
You can really overthink or make it complicated here as well.
A wooden house without any ventilation system likely wouldn’t work, while with brick construction it might, but that’s a personal feeling.
I welcome any advice here too, just like for any other part of the planning.
A pellet stove should also be installed in the living area with a water connection.
I made it a load-bearing wall because I see the biggest challenge regarding the structural support of the ceiling above. This wall could also be concrete, as it’s an interior wall—possibly with a steel beam extending outward from the wall. Unfortunately, that’s just a gut feeling at this point.
All sockets, network connections, lights, switches, etc. are already planned.
The lighting upstairs is designed with a pull-cord system, so the visible roof structure can be built at the same cost as a standard roof frame. The electrical setup is also more affordable with this solution, and power consumption is manageable. If more lamps are needed later, simply add them to the system. The selection is huge, from spotlights to ring lights.
The only drawback is that the lamps require occasional dusting.
I could go on about the placement of trash bins, pellets, and so on. I’ve been working on the plans for a while now and hope you notice something I might have missed.
Please share your opinions openly. After all, you only build once, and it’s impossible to do everything perfectly. But if you don’t mess up the major points, you can at least sleep well. Decisions like building without a basement can’t be undone, so everyone needs to decide for themselves.
This is my first post, and I hope it will be enriched for a long time and something useful will come out of it.
Some of my colleagues have built over the last five years using various construction methods, and I’ve witnessed the price increases with a heavy heart. However, exhibitors at trade fairs have repeatedly encouraged me that construction prices will return to a normal level.
It’s nice if you can do some tasks yourself, even simple ones. Labor is the costly part of today’s houses.
Thanks in advance for your replies, critiques, and opinions.
So now I have described the situation a bit and will try to upload some pictures and tables to get many opinions. I will add more images gradually, but this is the start.
After a long time of debating whether it makes sense to start a thread without owning land yet, I decided to go ahead and open it. You can’t start early enough. And once the right plot is found, the process might move a bit faster.
A brief introduction: We are a family with two children (daughter, 3 years old; son, 3 months old). We currently live in a small terraced house over three floors with a basement plus an attic accessed by a hatch, a single garage, and a parking space. 125 m² (1,345 sq ft) of living space plus 30 m² (323 sq ft) garden, of which 14 m² (151 sq ft) is paved terrace. This home will serve as our contribution towards the new house. We also have a building savings plan. The budget of 450,000 € all in should not be exceeded, but more details are in the cost overview attached.
Now, about our ideas for the new home.
It should be a house with a simple cubic form, no basement.
I will recover the costs of the basement with a larger footprint and a big garage.
The pantry and the utility/heating room are located on the north side, considered the cold side.
The garage is also positioned on the north side, at the corner.
There should be no skylights, but many fixed windows.
The staircase should be accessible without entering the living area so that the children can reach their rooms later without disturbance.
It should be possible to enter the house via the garage without going outside.
The front door will be on the north side.
There should be two children’s bedrooms arranged apart from the bathroom and master bedroom.
Also, the bathroom should be separated from the children’s rooms to minimize noise.
The bathroom should have a bathtub, toilet, bidet, shower, double washbasin, and an infrared cabin.
Everything should be usable without disturbing others, which is why there is just one bathroom and no separate children’s bathroom that might be unused after the kids move out but still needs cleaning. So one person can shower, another can use the toilet, someone else can be in the infrared cabin, and so on.
All combinations are possible and implemented.
Even practical details like toilet placement near a window or enough light for the different tasks have been considered. The infrared cabin, for example, needs no light because it has internal lighting.
The laundry room, where the washer and dryer stand, should be separated from the living and sleeping areas.
There should be a laundry chute connected to the bathroom, so dirty laundry is neatly stored and dries best in the heating room. Many place washer and dryer upstairs, but where to store and dry laundry then?
So, a large heating room that also functions as a drying room.
Short distances for all utility lines were a goal as well, which is why the heating room is located directly under the bathroom.
The open kitchen is designed with a double L-shape, something I haven’t seen before but find very practical on the plan. You can go from the garage to the pantry with groceries, then take the rest into the kitchen and put the first items directly in the fridge. From the kitchen, you can access the terrace again via the open L—either to the herb garden or to the shady side in the afternoon for coffee.
The two legs of the L are about 1.3 m (4.3 ft) apart so that two or three people can cook without getting under each other’s feet but also without having to walk too far.
The hallway on the ground floor is also not too small and can be accessed directly from the front door or garage, so you can change shoes immediately. You don’t have to walk across the stairway path and risk carrying gravel up the wooden stairs.
The upstairs floors will be mostly oak wood, except the bathroom, which will have tiles. Perhaps the walk-in closet will have a carpet?
The basement is tiled except for the living area in the lounge; the kitchen will definitely be tiled.
Visually, I would prefer wood flooring in the entire living area, but practically that’s not feasible, not even with a Berbel extraction hood. The last 12 years have shown this.
It very much depends on cooking habits. If you only eat there or make occasional coffee, then wood flooring in the kitchen would work.
You can invest a lot of time in the floor plan decisions, but I think it’s worth it.
The staircase also requires careful planning and isn’t always easy to position with all the given dimensions.
Lighting shouldn’t be too sparse, and probably some glass doors will be needed.
I have also avoided large sliding doors in the living room because of the cost.
In the last 12 years, we managed well with our 1 m (3.3 ft) wide terrace door. The rest of the equipment is stored in the big garage.
The window arrangement should also create a harmonious exterior look; I’m a fan of symmetry, even if that’s “the art of the unwise.”
I included a central ventilation system initially but ended up going with a decentralized ventilation system.
You can really overthink or make it complicated here as well.
A wooden house without any ventilation system likely wouldn’t work, while with brick construction it might, but that’s a personal feeling.
I welcome any advice here too, just like for any other part of the planning.
A pellet stove should also be installed in the living area with a water connection.
I made it a load-bearing wall because I see the biggest challenge regarding the structural support of the ceiling above. This wall could also be concrete, as it’s an interior wall—possibly with a steel beam extending outward from the wall. Unfortunately, that’s just a gut feeling at this point.
All sockets, network connections, lights, switches, etc. are already planned.
The lighting upstairs is designed with a pull-cord system, so the visible roof structure can be built at the same cost as a standard roof frame. The electrical setup is also more affordable with this solution, and power consumption is manageable. If more lamps are needed later, simply add them to the system. The selection is huge, from spotlights to ring lights.
The only drawback is that the lamps require occasional dusting.
I could go on about the placement of trash bins, pellets, and so on. I’ve been working on the plans for a while now and hope you notice something I might have missed.
Please share your opinions openly. After all, you only build once, and it’s impossible to do everything perfectly. But if you don’t mess up the major points, you can at least sleep well. Decisions like building without a basement can’t be undone, so everyone needs to decide for themselves.
This is my first post, and I hope it will be enriched for a long time and something useful will come out of it.
Some of my colleagues have built over the last five years using various construction methods, and I’ve witnessed the price increases with a heavy heart. However, exhibitors at trade fairs have repeatedly encouraged me that construction prices will return to a normal level.
It’s nice if you can do some tasks yourself, even simple ones. Labor is the costly part of today’s houses.
Thanks in advance for your replies, critiques, and opinions.
So now I have described the situation a bit and will try to upload some pictures and tables to get many opinions. I will add more images gradually, but this is the start.
W
Wanderdüne8 Jul 2014 21:35Quick question, in another thread it was mentioned:
"the planning has been going on for 1 year and about 1000 hours in CAD, slowly taking shape."
Are the plans attached really the result of one year of planning and one thousand hours working with CAD???
WD
"the planning has been going on for 1 year and about 1000 hours in CAD, slowly taking shape."
Are the plans attached really the result of one year of planning and one thousand hours working with CAD???
WD
Hello,
the hours are probably set at the upper limit and do not only apply to the CAD work but also to attending trade fairs and going through catalogs.
It’s simply not a dedicated architectural design program with a built-in library, so every door, window, electrical outlet, etc. has to be created from scratch, which takes a lot of time.
Also, I’m not from the construction industry and started from zero. Some people are faster, others more precise.
That’s why I’m writing slowly, and the drawings, like those seen in other forums, will still take some time.
Since the birth of our son three months ago, I haven’t been able to make much progress, not even in the evenings. But this will continue at some point.
the hours are probably set at the upper limit and do not only apply to the CAD work but also to attending trade fairs and going through catalogs.
It’s simply not a dedicated architectural design program with a built-in library, so every door, window, electrical outlet, etc. has to be created from scratch, which takes a lot of time.
Also, I’m not from the construction industry and started from zero. Some people are faster, others more precise.
That’s why I’m writing slowly, and the drawings, like those seen in other forums, will still take some time.
Since the birth of our son three months ago, I haven’t been able to make much progress, not even in the evenings. But this will continue at some point.
D
Doc.Schnaggls9 Jul 2014 12:04Wanderdüne schrieb:
In my opinion, planning without having a plot of land doesn’t make sense.klblb schrieb:
Absolutely right!Well, I wouldn’t put it quite that way.
For example, we created a rough plan before it was clear on which plot we would build.
This was very helpful during the land search because we knew what to look out for (for example, a road to the north, a slight slope facing south, etc.).
At that time, we didn’t yet suspect that it would turn out to be a family-owned plot that meets all our criteria.
We gave some thought in advance to the rough room layout, size of the living area, and possible orientations of the rooms.
However, I also consider a detailed plan with such an enormous amount of time invested (1000 hours..) without having a plot to be exaggerated.
Regards,
Dirk
I would have taken the opposite approach and explained my wishes to a professional and had them draw it up. The problem is that it’s easy to get lost in the details here, even though the overall concept might not be finalized or might not work as is. In the end, the structural engineer and the budget have the final say anyway.
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