ᐅ Floor Plan Design for KfW 40 Single-Family Home in an Established Residential Area with Fully Finished Basement
Created on: 11 Aug 2025 20:39
A
AnnaChris88
Hello everyone,
After reading many posts here and following the discussions closely, we would like to use the collective knowledge and your input to reconsider our design. Attached are the basic data.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 414 sqm (4455 sq ft)
Slope: hardly any – 1.5 m (5 ft) gradient from northwest to southeast
Site occupancy index: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.8
Building envelope, building line and boundary: entire plot buildable, including a 4 m (13 ft) wide strip along the eastern property boundary, parcel 743/22
Edge development:
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2 full stories mandatory
Roof type: 28-degree (28°) pitched roof mandatory
Architectural style: classic
Orientation: south/west
Maximum height / limits: none
Other requirements:
Owners’ Requirements
Style, roof type, building type: classic with pitched roof
Basement, floors: finished basement, 2 full stories
Number of occupants, ages: 4 persons (42, 37, 3, 1)
Room requirements on ground floor and upper floor: as in current design
Office: home office
Occasional overnight guests: few
Open floor plan
Conservative building method
Open kitchen with island
Number of dining seats: at least 6
Fireplace: no
Music / stereo wall
Balcony, roof terrace: originally planned above the terrace, canceled for cost reasons
Garage / carport: garage for storage purposes
Additional wishes / special features:
- There should be a large living-dining area separated from the stairwell by a door (sound insulation), a large kitchen with island, one bathroom with shower in the basement including two rooms to likely be used when the children move to the basement later; currently playing room and office/guest room, separate walk-in wardrobe from master bedroom, two large children’s rooms upstairs each larger than 15 sqm (160 sq ft)
House Design
Design by: architect and DIY
What do you particularly like?
- Ground floor is especially liked due to the combination of a large room with clearly defined areas
What do you dislike?
- Bathroom layout upstairs is not optimal so far, since window should actually be larger and face east
- Master bedroom should ideally be separated from children’s bathroom or walk-in wardrobe
- Window of guest WC faces north and not next to entrance door
Price estimate based on initial offer: €500,000–520,000
Personal price limit for house including equipment: €550,000
Preferred heating technology: heat pump with photovoltaic system
If you had to give up something, which details or additions
- You could give up: pantry on ground floor
- You cannot give up: separate walk-in wardrobe upstairs, shower bathroom in basement, door to hallway on ground floor
Why is the design like this? For example:
First discussion with architect and 7 rounds of “corrections” / revisions based on our wishes
We look forward to your feedback!!
After reading many posts here and following the discussions closely, we would like to use the collective knowledge and your input to reconsider our design. Attached are the basic data.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 414 sqm (4455 sq ft)
Slope: hardly any – 1.5 m (5 ft) gradient from northwest to southeast
Site occupancy index: 0.4
Floor area ratio: 0.8
Building envelope, building line and boundary: entire plot buildable, including a 4 m (13 ft) wide strip along the eastern property boundary, parcel 743/22
Edge development:
Number of parking spaces: 2
Number of floors: 2 full stories mandatory
Roof type: 28-degree (28°) pitched roof mandatory
Architectural style: classic
Orientation: south/west
Maximum height / limits: none
Other requirements:
Owners’ Requirements
Style, roof type, building type: classic with pitched roof
Basement, floors: finished basement, 2 full stories
Number of occupants, ages: 4 persons (42, 37, 3, 1)
Room requirements on ground floor and upper floor: as in current design
Office: home office
Occasional overnight guests: few
Open floor plan
Conservative building method
Open kitchen with island
Number of dining seats: at least 6
Fireplace: no
Music / stereo wall
Balcony, roof terrace: originally planned above the terrace, canceled for cost reasons
Garage / carport: garage for storage purposes
Additional wishes / special features:
- There should be a large living-dining area separated from the stairwell by a door (sound insulation), a large kitchen with island, one bathroom with shower in the basement including two rooms to likely be used when the children move to the basement later; currently playing room and office/guest room, separate walk-in wardrobe from master bedroom, two large children’s rooms upstairs each larger than 15 sqm (160 sq ft)
House Design
Design by: architect and DIY
What do you particularly like?
- Ground floor is especially liked due to the combination of a large room with clearly defined areas
What do you dislike?
- Bathroom layout upstairs is not optimal so far, since window should actually be larger and face east
- Master bedroom should ideally be separated from children’s bathroom or walk-in wardrobe
- Window of guest WC faces north and not next to entrance door
Price estimate based on initial offer: €500,000–520,000
Personal price limit for house including equipment: €550,000
Preferred heating technology: heat pump with photovoltaic system
If you had to give up something, which details or additions
- You could give up: pantry on ground floor
- You cannot give up: separate walk-in wardrobe upstairs, shower bathroom in basement, door to hallway on ground floor
Why is the design like this? For example:
First discussion with architect and 7 rounds of “corrections” / revisions based on our wishes
We look forward to your feedback!!
W
wiltshire21 Aug 2025 11:1111ant schrieb:
That sounds like “reference customer agreement” means an obligation to give a five-star review (?), and to me that’s a classic own goal ;-( That is one possible, but not a necessary interpretation. It’s obviously very easy to sow doubt.
Anyone who becomes suspicious does not have to concern themselves with it. The fact that @roteweste openly states they are a reference customer strikes me as credible transparency. I also don’t consider the omission of contract details to be a flaw.
I have also offered to let potential customers into my home as a reference customer so they can get an impression of the workmanship. Of course, that only works if the contractor actually delivers something worth showing. I offer a kind of free showroom and receive showroom-quality work in return. I did not sign any written agreement; this is not common with smaller companies.
With larger companies, there is an agreement and reference customer procedures. These usually state that you should not speak negatively (which is understandable) and may include compensation for referrals or certain benefits.
roteweste schrieb:
During the factory tour, the CEO told us that they don't put much emphasis on marketing (which I would agree with, given their conservative public image) and instead rely on customer recommendations. Not instead, but that is a marketing strategy. I myself survived for years by relying first on "the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree" and second on search engine discouragement, while competitors experienced extremely poor payment practices. The first means the simple truth that no one happily recommends a company to their worst enemies, but rather to their friends: pleasant customers bring in pleasant customers with similar behavior and conduct, including their payment habits; undecided customers know other undecided customers. The second means that advertising which can be found by anyone also brings all sorts of customers to the advertiser.
If a company associates "marketing" with handing out promotional balloons and therefore forgoes marketing in the sense of clear target group communication, that is poor business sense. Many competitors do have a strategy: for example, Kampa targets the descendants of customers who bought from the previous owner of the brand name about one and a half generations ago; Danwood and Scanhaus Marlow try to ride on the IKEA image with their brand names. And Xella does a humorous A/B test by selling the same aerated concrete blocks in yellow (Ytong) and orange (Hebel) bags simultaneously. VAG set an example, Seat and Skoda are "Volkswagen by Ratiopharm," and under the Audi brand you can pay more for the "double cookie" as the Prinzenrolle. You even have to walk through the rain if you visit both brand showrooms on the same site. Mercedes offered the smart (fortwo) in gumball machine glass towers. Marketing often means that shopping doesn’t have to be without humor. Even one-on-one competition in the Coke-Pepsi duel is still popular, while Aldi and Lidl prefer to open stores within sight of each other.
wiltshire schrieb:
For larger projects, there is an agreement and reference customer procedures. These include clauses that require not speaking negatively (which is somewhat obvious) and possibly receiving compensation for customer referrals or some kind of discount. True references also include clearly stating areas for improvement and/or complaint handling. The discount is compensation for the inconvenience caused by interested prospective customers contacting you. And my car should look a bit cleaner in the driveway when they ring the bell. It’s no longer about bribery for sweet talk—that was in the 1990s. In the 2000s, they did the "flags" thing instead.
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
11ant schrieb:
Find the contradiction ;-)
It sounds as if "reference customer agreement" means an obligation to give a five-star review (?), and in my opinion, that's a real own goal ;-( You just can’t share contractual details in public media. Everything else is fine.
11ant schrieb:
Not instead, but this is a marketing strategy. Of course, I expressed myself poorly. A company that acquires customers through recommendations from satisfied builders, in my opinion, is already in a pretty good position. I prefer that over a library of glossy catalogs, a show home in every prefab housing development, or a sample center palace. In the end, the customer pays for all of it anyway.