Hello everyone,
we would like to share our design with you to get feedback and suggestions for improvements, as well as to identify any potential issues.
With the optimized design, we plan to approach construction companies for quotes. All the architects we contacted have long waiting times, and since we need to apply for funding in spring, that would not be feasible timing-wise.
What do we want to build?
A single-family house with a maximum of 160 m² (approximately 1720 sq ft) according to the living space regulations (with the terrace counted proportionally) in order to qualify for funding.
Development plan / restrictions
Plot size: 645 m² (approximately 0.16 acres)
Slope: yes, slight. The plot is about 28 m (92 feet) long and rises about 1.5 – 2 m (5 – 6.5 feet) from the street (south) upwards.
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.8
Building envelope, building line and boundary: The building boundary is 2.5 m (8 feet) from the front and rear (as viewed from the street). Roof overhangs may project up to 1 m (3 feet) beyond the building boundaries, provided the setback requirements of the state building code BW are met. Garages may be built outside the buildable areas.
Border development: Neighbor’s garage to the west on the boundary, see site plan. Both neighbors east and west have already built. On the opposite street side (south) is still a free building plot. North is a field with no planned development.
Number of parking spaces: 2, preferably a double garage.
Number of floors: 2 possible.
Roof shape: free choice.
Style: free choice.
Orientation: southwest (SW).
Maximum height limits: maximum height of 8.5 m (28 feet) measured from the ground floor level to the highest point of the roof structure (for roofs up to 7°, only 7.5 m / 25 feet height allowed).
Other requirements: ground floor height max. 0.5 m (1.6 feet) above street level; mandatory photovoltaic system (BW), mandatory cistern (~6 m³ (1580 gallons)).
Client requirements
Style, roof shape, building type: classic gable roof house, 30° roof pitch, 1.4 m (4.6 feet) knee wall.
Basement, floors: no basement, 1.5 floors.
Number of occupants, age: 3 persons, ages 32, 28, 0.
Space requirements on ground floor (GF) and upper floor (UF):
GF: living-dining-kitchen approx. 45 m² (484 sq ft), office/guest room approx. 10 m² (108 sq ft), utility/technical room approx. 8-10 m² (86-108 sq ft), shower bathroom approx. 4 m² (43 sq ft).
UF (all net floor area): bedroom approx. 14 m² (151 sq ft), bathroom with laundry room approx. 16 m² (172 sq ft), 2 children’s rooms approx. 16 m² (172 sq ft) each.
Office: family use or home office?
Since we currently plan for only one child, the office on the GF should serve as storage and guest room; the second "children’s room" will be used as an office. Approximately 15 guests per year; home office about 3 days per week.
Open or closed architecture: open.
Conservative or modern style: more or less modern.
Open kitchen, kitchen island: yes.
Number of dining seats: normally 4, extendable up to 12.
Fireplace: no.
Music/stereo wall: no.
Balcony, roof terrace: no.
Garage, carport: yes, preferably double garage at least 6 x 7 m (20 x 23 feet).
Utility garden, greenhouse: no.
Additional wishes / special features / daily routine, including reasons for certain choices or exclusions:
House design
Who designed it: Do-it-Yourself.
What do you like most and why?
What do you dislike and why?
Cost estimate by architect/planner: -
Personal budget limit for the house, including fittings: €520,000 (around US $570,000), excluding landscaping, must be reduced by personal labor.
Preferred heating system: not decided yet, no fossil fuels allowed, likely air-to-water heat pump.
If you had to give up something, on which details or expansions could you do without:
What could you not do without:
Why is the design the way it is?
We approached three construction companies, received some good but too large plans, and some standard plans that did not fit at all. Therefore, we studied floor plans intensively and tried to create a design with as few compromises as possible. Because of our wish for a side entrance and the living-dining-kitchen area arranged as an L-shape on the southwest side of the house and the two children’s rooms facing south without dormers or small gables, we couldn’t find 1.5-story designs from prefab house providers that fit.
After considering many other designs, we ultimately drew this one ourselves, which we basically like best and is just acceptable in size. The bay window for the stairs will probably cause extra costs, but we hope to compensate by omitting a flat roof and extending the roof line.
The ground floor ceiling height is an assumption; the stairs are planned for a floor height of 2.83 m (9.3 feet), with 26 cm (10 inches) tread depth and 18 cm (7 inches) riser height.
In addition to comments and suggestions on the floor plan, we also have the following questions:
Thank you very much in advance for your help! I will gladly provide any information available if needed.
Please be kind, this is my first post and
we would like to share our design with you to get feedback and suggestions for improvements, as well as to identify any potential issues.
With the optimized design, we plan to approach construction companies for quotes. All the architects we contacted have long waiting times, and since we need to apply for funding in spring, that would not be feasible timing-wise.
What do we want to build?
A single-family house with a maximum of 160 m² (approximately 1720 sq ft) according to the living space regulations (with the terrace counted proportionally) in order to qualify for funding.
Development plan / restrictions
Plot size: 645 m² (approximately 0.16 acres)
Slope: yes, slight. The plot is about 28 m (92 feet) long and rises about 1.5 – 2 m (5 – 6.5 feet) from the street (south) upwards.
Site coverage ratio: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.8
Building envelope, building line and boundary: The building boundary is 2.5 m (8 feet) from the front and rear (as viewed from the street). Roof overhangs may project up to 1 m (3 feet) beyond the building boundaries, provided the setback requirements of the state building code BW are met. Garages may be built outside the buildable areas.
Border development: Neighbor’s garage to the west on the boundary, see site plan. Both neighbors east and west have already built. On the opposite street side (south) is still a free building plot. North is a field with no planned development.
Number of parking spaces: 2, preferably a double garage.
Number of floors: 2 possible.
Roof shape: free choice.
Style: free choice.
Orientation: southwest (SW).
Maximum height limits: maximum height of 8.5 m (28 feet) measured from the ground floor level to the highest point of the roof structure (for roofs up to 7°, only 7.5 m / 25 feet height allowed).
Other requirements: ground floor height max. 0.5 m (1.6 feet) above street level; mandatory photovoltaic system (BW), mandatory cistern (~6 m³ (1580 gallons)).
Client requirements
Style, roof shape, building type: classic gable roof house, 30° roof pitch, 1.4 m (4.6 feet) knee wall.
Basement, floors: no basement, 1.5 floors.
Number of occupants, age: 3 persons, ages 32, 28, 0.
Space requirements on ground floor (GF) and upper floor (UF):
GF: living-dining-kitchen approx. 45 m² (484 sq ft), office/guest room approx. 10 m² (108 sq ft), utility/technical room approx. 8-10 m² (86-108 sq ft), shower bathroom approx. 4 m² (43 sq ft).
UF (all net floor area): bedroom approx. 14 m² (151 sq ft), bathroom with laundry room approx. 16 m² (172 sq ft), 2 children’s rooms approx. 16 m² (172 sq ft) each.
Office: family use or home office?
Since we currently plan for only one child, the office on the GF should serve as storage and guest room; the second "children’s room" will be used as an office. Approximately 15 guests per year; home office about 3 days per week.
Open or closed architecture: open.
Conservative or modern style: more or less modern.
Open kitchen, kitchen island: yes.
Number of dining seats: normally 4, extendable up to 12.
Fireplace: no.
Music/stereo wall: no.
Balcony, roof terrace: no.
Garage, carport: yes, preferably double garage at least 6 x 7 m (20 x 23 feet).
Utility garden, greenhouse: no.
Additional wishes / special features / daily routine, including reasons for certain choices or exclusions:
- The kitchen should not be visible from the sofa (when sitting).
- The living-dining area with kitchen should be the “heart” of the house.
- The shower bathroom and stairs (and if possible the guest room) should not be accessible through the dirt zone at the entrance door.
- Sufficient cloakroom space.
- Washing machine & dryer in the bathroom on the upper floor, as laundry accumulates there, but separated from the children’s rooms by the hallway.
- Gable or dormer facing southeast (street side) due to the view.
- No dormers or more costly architectural features due to cost reasons.
- Terrace mainly on the southwest side to catch evening sun. It will later be covered with a pergola. A 3 m (10 feet) lift-and-slide door would be ideal.
- Ground floor ceiling height at least 2.5 m (8.2 feet), upper floor 2.4 m (7.9 feet) is acceptable.
House design
Who designed it: Do-it-Yourself.
What do you like most and why?
- Spacious living-dining-kitchen area with kitchen not visible from the living room.
- Light-flooded living spaces.
- Possibility to later separate the living room with, for example, glass elements.
- Space available for furniture placement in living room.
- Modern feel due to open staircase.
- Staircase accessible from living area (natural access to bathroom or bedroom).
- Visual axis from entrance to garden through window behind the stairs, without having a view of the entrance door from the rooms.
- Implementation of basic wishes (number of rooms, orientation, functionality, etc.).
- Minimal actual hallway area on ground floor.
What do you dislike and why?
- No separation from upper floor possible.
- Head clearance to the first landing of the stairs is critical.
- Overhang in front of left children’s room is wasted space.
- No window in the shower bathroom on the ground floor.
- Dirt corridor & relevant rooms are separated.
- If a second child comes, there is little storage space.
- With about 155 m² (1668 sq ft), relatively large (and therefore expensive).
- Exterior appearance, but we have not focused on this as a priority so far.
- Southwest terrace has a possible sliding door that is too small (currently 1.5 m / 5 feet), so this door is planned 3 m (10 feet) slightly to the south instead.
- No pantry; we would consider a small cupboard and fridge-freezer in the technical room if space permits.
- Very long driveway.
- Unfortunately relatively close to neighbor’s plot on the southwest side.
Cost estimate by architect/planner: -
Personal budget limit for the house, including fittings: €520,000 (around US $570,000), excluding landscaping, must be reduced by personal labor.
Preferred heating system: not decided yet, no fossil fuels allowed, likely air-to-water heat pump.
If you had to give up something, on which details or expansions could you do without:
- Large guest/work/storage room.
- Shower on ground floor.
What could you not do without:
- Laundry room on upper floor.
- Side entrance to the house.
- Generous living-dining-kitchen area.
Why is the design the way it is?
We approached three construction companies, received some good but too large plans, and some standard plans that did not fit at all. Therefore, we studied floor plans intensively and tried to create a design with as few compromises as possible. Because of our wish for a side entrance and the living-dining-kitchen area arranged as an L-shape on the southwest side of the house and the two children’s rooms facing south without dormers or small gables, we couldn’t find 1.5-story designs from prefab house providers that fit.
After considering many other designs, we ultimately drew this one ourselves, which we basically like best and is just acceptable in size. The bay window for the stairs will probably cause extra costs, but we hope to compensate by omitting a flat roof and extending the roof line.
The ground floor ceiling height is an assumption; the stairs are planned for a floor height of 2.83 m (9.3 feet), with 26 cm (10 inches) tread depth and 18 cm (7 inches) riser height.
In addition to comments and suggestions on the floor plan, we also have the following questions:
- Is the size of the living area including the stairs structurally feasible without issues?
- How complicated and expensive would ventilation for the shower bathroom on the ground floor be?
- Is the head clearance for the staircase sufficient?
- Are knee wall windows, as planned in the children’s room, worthwhile? We see advantages in improved lighting for a small seating area and ventilation possibilities via a tilt window.
Thank you very much in advance for your help! I will gladly provide any information available if needed.
Please be kind, this is my first post and
I think we are talking past each other.
I guess very few people would have anything against the panoramic view.
However, lift-and-slide doors are quite heavy to handle.
My parents have a 6-meter (20-foot) wide sliding door. The lever lowers very easily, and sliding it is smooth too. Even 80-year-olds can manage it. For a lift-and-slide door, for example, I only manage to operate it at friends’ houses with instructions.
The advantage of a lift-and-slide door is that it is better insulated and therefore fits today’s standards.
I think Silke has optimized the issue with the combination—whether intentionally or by chance: it’s worth remembering this setup.
Folding doors tend to be a bit more expensive after all.
I guess very few people would have anything against the panoramic view.
wiltshire schrieb:
I would have preferred a lift-and-slide door every one of the 18 summers we lived there.
motorradsilke schrieb:
But the fixed panel of the lift-and-slide door (which is located by the dining area) is a great large window. And we often open the sliding panel during the transitional seasons when you don’t want to sit outside yet.
However, lift-and-slide doors are quite heavy to handle.
My parents have a 6-meter (20-foot) wide sliding door. The lever lowers very easily, and sliding it is smooth too. Even 80-year-olds can manage it. For a lift-and-slide door, for example, I only manage to operate it at friends’ houses with instructions.
The advantage of a lift-and-slide door is that it is better insulated and therefore fits today’s standards.
I think Silke has optimized the issue with the combination—whether intentionally or by chance: it’s worth remembering this setup.
Folding doors tend to be a bit more expensive after all.
M
motorradsilke11 Jan 2025 11:08ypg schrieb:
However, lift-and-slide doors are quite heavy to handle.
My parents have a 6-meter (20-foot) wide sliding door. The lift function operates very easily, and sliding is smooth too. Even 80-year-olds can manage it. With a lift-and-slide door, I can only operate it properly at friends’ places with instructions.
The advantage of a lift-and-slide door is that it offers better insulation, which fits today’s standards.
I think Silke optimized the issue with that combination—whether intentionally or by chance: it’s a combination worth keeping in mind.
Folding doors are probably a bit more expensive after all. The combination is automatic. A lift-and-slide door always has a fixed panel and a sliding panel. That’s the only way I know it.
Yes, you do need instructions with us too. But once you have done it once, it’s quite easy.
My view from the dining area:
I would say that the main point is generally the underlying desire, which in most cases is to have a spacious view of something beautiful outside. How this is achieved seems less important to me than the fact that "the outside" is actually designed or naturally arranged in a way that makes looking out truly enjoyable.
In this sense, simply wanting a special door or any other construction feels too superficial or limited if I don’t understand the desire behind it, which should actually be fulfilled by that feature.
The lift-and-slide door has a central divider, the hinged door/fixed glass variant has a 1/3-2/3 division or three equal sections (two of which can be fully opened), the full glass wall with a separate door somewhere else in the room has no divider, and the folding door offers the nice possibility of feeling as if you are sitting outdoors.
I can understand all of these (I personally prefer the full glass variant with an extra door) as long as I recognize the individual wish behind them. However, I would consider it a poor decision to spend money on something that I could achieve just as well in a more practical and/or cost-effective way and thus not be able to afford other useful things.
I can say from experience that I have followed many expensive building trends in life, and now I carefully examine whether it is the trend or partly social pressure driving me, or if it is truly my individual goal or genuine need.
No matter how fancy a door or other component is, it alone cannot compensate for a lack of charm inside the building or in the outside view. For me, this question is therefore relative, and I find the sometimes checklist-like so-called must-haves to be less meaningful without the equally necessary context.
In this sense, simply wanting a special door or any other construction feels too superficial or limited if I don’t understand the desire behind it, which should actually be fulfilled by that feature.
The lift-and-slide door has a central divider, the hinged door/fixed glass variant has a 1/3-2/3 division or three equal sections (two of which can be fully opened), the full glass wall with a separate door somewhere else in the room has no divider, and the folding door offers the nice possibility of feeling as if you are sitting outdoors.
I can understand all of these (I personally prefer the full glass variant with an extra door) as long as I recognize the individual wish behind them. However, I would consider it a poor decision to spend money on something that I could achieve just as well in a more practical and/or cost-effective way and thus not be able to afford other useful things.
I can say from experience that I have followed many expensive building trends in life, and now I carefully examine whether it is the trend or partly social pressure driving me, or if it is truly my individual goal or genuine need.
No matter how fancy a door or other component is, it alone cannot compensate for a lack of charm inside the building or in the outside view. For me, this question is therefore relative, and I find the sometimes checklist-like so-called must-haves to be less meaningful without the equally necessary context.
M
motorradsilke11 Jan 2025 11:48I basically agree with you.
But here, everyone involved is an adult. In most cases, they have thought carefully about why they want something or why they don’t want something—whether it’s the lift-and-slide door, the basement workshop, or the bathtub. Everyone experiences beauty and importance differently. Therefore, in my opinion, no justification is necessary.
Our garden will certainly not be considered appealing by everyone, but we like it.
So it is good to present alternatives that others might not have considered. However, attempts to persuade, in my view, are out of place.
But here, everyone involved is an adult. In most cases, they have thought carefully about why they want something or why they don’t want something—whether it’s the lift-and-slide door, the basement workshop, or the bathtub. Everyone experiences beauty and importance differently. Therefore, in my opinion, no justification is necessary.
Our garden will certainly not be considered appealing by everyone, but we like it.
So it is good to present alternatives that others might not have considered. However, attempts to persuade, in my view, are out of place.
motorradsilke schrieb:
Our garden might not be appealing to everyone, but we like it. Yes, that is exactly what matters.
motorradsilke schrieb:
But here, all the people are adults According to my ID, I am apparently quite an adult. Still, I’m very aware that the trillions of euros invested in deeply influential advertising (also in the construction sector) don’t spare me, even if I wish otherwise or like to convince myself of that. Therefore, my point is really to carefully examine for yourself whether something truly contributes to a lasting improvement of your own well-being. When I walk through housing developments or see new homes inside, I tend to suspect that significantly more economically driven trends are being implemented than individual needs being met. For me, simply being an adult, meaning age alone, is not a qualifying factor or a safeguard against unnecessarily costly mistakes.
motorradsilke schrieb:
So it’s good to present alternatives that one might not have considered. But attempts to convince others are, in my view, out of place. Exactly.
Attempts at proselytizing should be avoided. However, I don’t find it wrong to try to persuade someone of a certain opinion, as long as the difference from proselytizing is maintained. If I were to spot what I consider a significant mistake, I believe it is appropriate to clearly point it out as such.
It may also be because I enjoy engaging with ideas, and the ideal outcome is when the other person actually convinces me of something I had never imagined before (not just persuades or talks me into it). If that were not the case, I wouldn’t have, for example, air conditioning, controlled residential ventilation, an electric car, etc.
As an older person now, I’m happy to be convinced by younger people and apply the same openness to my attempts in the other direction. Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly rare, as people are reluctant to give up their own positions or see doing so as a defeat rather than a gain. I had a very long, wonderful conversation about exactly this with one of our fellow discussants here just yesterday.
M
motorradsilke11 Jan 2025 12:45In my opinion, attempts to convince others like this cannot work in a forum because you would need much more background knowledge about the person you are trying to persuade, which they may not want to share publicly. Your example of an electric car is perfect for this. It (still) doesn’t suit everyone. And not everyone wants to share all their thoughts and facts on the matter. Unfortunately, this often leads to preaching.