ᐅ Urban villa or classic pitched roof house? Advantages? Costs?
Created on: 24 Sep 2014 12:07
P
Panama17Hello everyone,
I’m currently going around in circles with my thoughts.
My dream has always been a classic gable roof house with 1.5 floors. However, I also find a townhouse with two full floors quite attractive. We already have a plot of land, and according to the development plan / planning permission, both options are possible, as the regulations are very generous.
As I said, my dream has always been a classic house with a gable roof. I simply find it visually very beautiful, and it feels cozy and comforting to me. The drawbacks for me would be that I don’t want too many sloping ceilings and I’d like plenty of natural light on the upper floor. So we would definitely install many or large dormers. I once lived in an attic apartment with only one vertical window; everything else was roof windows, which I found awful! Apart from the fact that you couldn’t really look outside properly anywhere, I also didn’t like the noise level during rain.
I also like the townhouse style; they are very trendy right now and usually stylish and elegant. The advantage here is that the upper floor would be a full story with straight walls and regular windows. But somehow, I find that a bit cold and less cozy. We wouldn’t convert the roof but would put a hipped roof on top. A townhouse would probably fit better into the neighborhood since there are two 2.5-story apartment buildings on either side of the plot.
Somehow, a townhouse makes more sense, right? But my dream and my gut feeling still remain...
Could someone maybe share some insights about cost differences between the two house types with roughly the same living area (as I said, the gable roof house would definitely include many and large dormers)?
I hope you could follow me and I look forward to some thoughts, tips, and experiences that might help me.
I’m currently going around in circles with my thoughts.
My dream has always been a classic gable roof house with 1.5 floors. However, I also find a townhouse with two full floors quite attractive. We already have a plot of land, and according to the development plan / planning permission, both options are possible, as the regulations are very generous.
As I said, my dream has always been a classic house with a gable roof. I simply find it visually very beautiful, and it feels cozy and comforting to me. The drawbacks for me would be that I don’t want too many sloping ceilings and I’d like plenty of natural light on the upper floor. So we would definitely install many or large dormers. I once lived in an attic apartment with only one vertical window; everything else was roof windows, which I found awful! Apart from the fact that you couldn’t really look outside properly anywhere, I also didn’t like the noise level during rain.
I also like the townhouse style; they are very trendy right now and usually stylish and elegant. The advantage here is that the upper floor would be a full story with straight walls and regular windows. But somehow, I find that a bit cold and less cozy. We wouldn’t convert the roof but would put a hipped roof on top. A townhouse would probably fit better into the neighborhood since there are two 2.5-story apartment buildings on either side of the plot.
Somehow, a townhouse makes more sense, right? But my dream and my gut feeling still remain...
Could someone maybe share some insights about cost differences between the two house types with roughly the same living area (as I said, the gable roof house would definitely include many and large dormers)?
I hope you could follow me and I look forward to some thoughts, tips, and experiences that might help me.
B
Bauherren201424 Sep 2014 13:38What advice can I give you? You have to decide for yourself if both options are possible. You’ve already outlined the objective pros and cons.
The additional dormers on a traditional gable roof house will, of course, come with an extra cost—how much exactly, maybe an expert here can tell you. For that reason, a one-and-a-half-story house with the same living area, and if the "townhouse" design avoids extra corners or bay windows, would likely be somewhat more expensive.
So I can only tell you how we decided: we chose the traditional gable roof house because we simply like it much better and, as you nicely put it, find it “cozier.” But that is just a personal, subjective view. We did briefly consider a "townhouse" because of the advantages you mentioned, but quickly dismissed the idea again.
Of course, the question is also what “a lot of daylight” means to you. You can also install floor-to-ceiling windows on the gable ends, so you might not need dormers at all. We ourselves have one dormer because the gable ends have regular windows, and the children each have a floor-to-ceiling window so they can look outside at their ages of 2 and 1 year. It also breaks up the boxy “house” shape (whether traditional or townhouse) a bit. In the bedroom and bathroom, I personally don’t need much daylight; a normal window is completely sufficient for me. But everyone has to decide that for themselves.
The additional dormers on a traditional gable roof house will, of course, come with an extra cost—how much exactly, maybe an expert here can tell you. For that reason, a one-and-a-half-story house with the same living area, and if the "townhouse" design avoids extra corners or bay windows, would likely be somewhat more expensive.
So I can only tell you how we decided: we chose the traditional gable roof house because we simply like it much better and, as you nicely put it, find it “cozier.” But that is just a personal, subjective view. We did briefly consider a "townhouse" because of the advantages you mentioned, but quickly dismissed the idea again.
Of course, the question is also what “a lot of daylight” means to you. You can also install floor-to-ceiling windows on the gable ends, so you might not need dormers at all. We ourselves have one dormer because the gable ends have regular windows, and the children each have a floor-to-ceiling window so they can look outside at their ages of 2 and 1 year. It also breaks up the boxy “house” shape (whether traditional or townhouse) a bit. In the bedroom and bathroom, I personally don’t need much daylight; a normal window is completely sufficient for me. But everyone has to decide that for themselves.
Personally, I find gable roofs more attractive and cozy. There are so many variations. We have a classic gable roof house, but with a knee wall of 1.50m (about 1.60m (5 feet 3 inches) inside, measured from the finished floor) and a roof pitch of 42 degrees. This way, we already have almost full standing height below the knee wall and very little sloped ceiling. Additionally, there is enough space in the attic to create, for example, a playroom.
We decided on a townhouse and are happy with our choice.
We visited several show homes and found the upper floor in one-and-a-half-story houses to feel quite cramped. With floor-to-ceiling windows on the gable sides, sloped ceilings, and doors, usually three walls of a room were unusable for placing a larger closet. In one show home, a child’s room was so impractical that the poor child had to sleep permanently in a 1.40m (4 ft 7 in) bed because there was no available wall space for a regular bed. The beds in the bedrooms were always placed under the sloped ceilings, and the bedroom closets could often only be opened easily because they luckily had sliding doors. I suspect this was a major factor that quickly made us rule out a gable roof.
Of course, by investing additional funds, you can create more space on the upper floor with higher knee walls, large dormers, or by enlarging the house. However, large dormers and high knee walls tend to diminish the feeling of coziness. Increasing the upper floor area also affects the ground floor, where the extra space might not even be needed.
In addition to aesthetic preferences, it’s worth considering which floors you want to allocate certain spaces to. If you need a guest or study room on the ground floor, a one-and-a-half-story house might be more appealing. If you need three children’s bedrooms and a master bedroom on the upper floor, then a townhouse would be preferable. For example, with two full stories upstairs, we were able to include a utility room for the washer, dryer, and storage. At the same time, we could keep the footprint of our house smaller than a one-and-a-half-story house, allowing for more space on the rest of the lot.
We visited several show homes and found the upper floor in one-and-a-half-story houses to feel quite cramped. With floor-to-ceiling windows on the gable sides, sloped ceilings, and doors, usually three walls of a room were unusable for placing a larger closet. In one show home, a child’s room was so impractical that the poor child had to sleep permanently in a 1.40m (4 ft 7 in) bed because there was no available wall space for a regular bed. The beds in the bedrooms were always placed under the sloped ceilings, and the bedroom closets could often only be opened easily because they luckily had sliding doors. I suspect this was a major factor that quickly made us rule out a gable roof.
Of course, by investing additional funds, you can create more space on the upper floor with higher knee walls, large dormers, or by enlarging the house. However, large dormers and high knee walls tend to diminish the feeling of coziness. Increasing the upper floor area also affects the ground floor, where the extra space might not even be needed.
In addition to aesthetic preferences, it’s worth considering which floors you want to allocate certain spaces to. If you need a guest or study room on the ground floor, a one-and-a-half-story house might be more appealing. If you need three children’s bedrooms and a master bedroom on the upper floor, then a townhouse would be preferable. For example, with two full stories upstairs, we were able to include a utility room for the washer, dryer, and storage. At the same time, we could keep the footprint of our house smaller than a one-and-a-half-story house, allowing for more space on the rest of the lot.
D
Doc.Schnaggls24 Sep 2014 17:19Hello Panama17,
Just because modern city villas are currently popular doesn’t mean you should build one if you dream of something different.
For example, we are building a "classic" one-and-a-half-story gable roof house. However, it has knee walls of 140 cm (55 inches) and a third gable facing south.
By using floor-to-ceiling windows and our third gable, we don’t need a single roof window, yet we exceed the minimum daylight requirements by far.
We wouldn’t want to miss the sloping ceilings, even though we are still living in our attic apartment at the moment.
As you say, it’s just much cozier for us to have a few, unobtrusive slopes in the attic.
Have you ever been to a large model home exhibition? There you can get a good impression of what’s possible with sloped ceilings.
Best regards,
Dirk
Just because modern city villas are currently popular doesn’t mean you should build one if you dream of something different.
For example, we are building a "classic" one-and-a-half-story gable roof house. However, it has knee walls of 140 cm (55 inches) and a third gable facing south.
By using floor-to-ceiling windows and our third gable, we don’t need a single roof window, yet we exceed the minimum daylight requirements by far.
We wouldn’t want to miss the sloping ceilings, even though we are still living in our attic apartment at the moment.
As you say, it’s just much cozier for us to have a few, unobtrusive slopes in the attic.
Have you ever been to a large model home exhibition? There you can get a good impression of what’s possible with sloped ceilings.
Best regards,
Dirk
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