ᐅ Ideas for the floor plan and possibly some additional tips?

Hello everyone,

I have been following the forum with great interest for a few weeks now, as I will soon become a builder myself.
We are planning a semi-detached house on a sloped site facing southwest. We will build turnkey + solid construction (KfW 70 standard) with a Vaillant heat pump system.

Attached is our floor plan, which I would appreciate some feedback on. Windows still need to be planned!
What do you think? Are the room sizes adequate?

Does anyone have any additional ideas? The bathtub, toilet, etc. on the upper floor will of course be arranged differently. The architect just added them as placeholders.

The window front on the ground floor balcony should probably be enlarged, right? Is the kitchen too large? We originally wanted a guest toilet + shower, but that doesn’t seem possible here, does it?

So many questions…

It would be great to get some tips.

Living in the house will be my wife, daughter and me (33, 2, 33), plus my parents-in-law in the basement (64 and 63).

THANK YOU 🙂

Heiko

Hello Heiko,

first of all, welcome to the forum!

Overall, it’s a nice floor plan, especially the basement apartment, which I think is very well designed.

What is the orientation of the building – where is south?

In my opinion, the kitchen is a good size. What I do find lacking on the ground floor is a small storage room where you can keep things like vacuum cleaners, beverage crates, etc.

You will only be able to fit a shower in the guest bathroom if you either reduce the cloakroom area (which I wouldn’t recommend) or create a niche in the kitchen (possibly directly on the exterior wall) where a small shower could fit.

To assess the upper floor, I still need information about the knee wall height and the roof pitch. The 2 m (6 ft 7 in) lines drawn are helpful, but without the other two details, it’s hard to make a judgment.

The different sizes of the children’s rooms (after all, a difference of more than 2 m² (more than 21.5 sq ft)) could potentially lead to disputes between the children later on (if another child is planned).

Are the windows in the bathroom and bedroom planned as floor-to-ceiling windows? Even with floor-to-ceiling windows, the lighting in these two rooms might not be optimal. Could roof windows be an alternative?

Best regards,

Dirk

Hello Doc. Schnaggles,

thank you very much for your great reply. South is at the bottom, so the balcony is on the west side. I had also considered the idea of a niche in the kitchen. However, my wife immediately objected (yes, always those clichés). Do you think having a shower in the guest bathroom is a good idea? Yes, the size of the children’s rooms could indeed be a problem. I need to check the knee wall and roof pitch. The windows on the upper floor are planned to be floor-to-ceiling. We don’t want skylights anymore. We have been living in an attic apartment for almost 10 years and are fed up with the rain 🙂 Especially as I need to keep the budget in mind here. Would it be possible to replace the floor-to-ceiling windows on the upper floor with a wide two-panel window? It’s on the east side anyway, so sunlight exposure is limited. We want to store beverage crates in the basement under the stairs. Possibly the vacuum cleaner as well?

Best regards,
Heiko

Hello Heiko,

Haha, women… 😉

But seriously. If you create an 80cm (31.5 inches) niche directly in the exterior wall from the guest toilet into the kitchen, you'll only lose the corner to the left of the sink in the kitchen.

Probably only one of those flimsy carousel cabinets or a very expensive LeMans corner cabinet would fit there... Otherwise, the kitchen should offer enough storage space given its size.

We have a similar niche integrated in our guest toilet as well, but in our case it opens into the pantry / storage room. I consider it worth it so that the shower is really only used by family members.

If possible, I would definitely make the windows in the bedroom and bathroom wider or even double casement windows.

It’s funny—we have been living in our attic apartment for 13 years now and, because of the rain, really wanted roof windows in the bedroom again. 🙂 In the end, we won’t get them either because triple-glazed skylights are so heavy that they can only be operated electrically, which makes them very expensive. Plus, after last year’s hailstorms, we also have concerns about skylight durability.

Regards,

Dirk

Doc.Schnaggls schrieb:


... To evaluate the upper floor, I’m still missing ....

... we are still missing ... 🙂

I also find the floor plan successful – not only for the main apartment but also for the basement level.
The kitchen isn’t too large; it might even be necessary to omit one cabinet to keep a comfortable passage between the furniture.
We also have a closed-off staircase, which makes for a wonderful storage room.
However, I would reconsider the bathroom; the layout isn’t ideal. You can hardly reach the toilet 😉 Moving the bathtub closer to the entrance could be an alternative.
The 2-meter (6 ft 7 in) clearance line of the roof should actually be marked somewhere.

I don’t think 2 square meters (21.5 sq ft) will cause issues for the kids. The square meters aren’t just placed randomly in the room, and size always needs to be viewed subjectively.

The door to the guest room on the ground floor should be built with a standard width; it appears to be about 78 cm (31 inches) now but should be as wide as the living room door.
I’ll look into the small details again later – Dirk has already commented on the windows 🙂

The 2-meter (6.6 feet) line is already marked!!! 🙂

This could cause some issues with the bathroom.....