ᐅ Floor Plan of a Single-Family Country House with Garage

Hi everyone,

I didn’t have much time earlier, so I’d like to quickly share our thoughts and the basic conditions regarding the floor plan. To keep it simple and concise, here are the main points:

• We are building with Heinz von Heiden and not with an architect.
• We took the original floor plan of the house and modified it ourselves to work with the sales representative on feasibility.
• Having a lot of space in the living/dining area is important to us since it’s the central living area, and we don’t want to constantly rearrange chairs.
• We plan to have a large U-shaped sofa and a big dining table in the living room, which leaves less space, but coziness doesn’t depend on size.
• The terrace gable extends up to the upper floor, creating straight walls in the bedroom above. We also find it very stylish, especially for the house’s exterior appearance.
• The fireplace position is not final yet; it will probably move closer to the living room door.

Regarding the upper floor:

• The bedroom is in the terrace gable, which has no sloping walls. The windows are floor-to-ceiling, and the ceiling is open up to the gable peak.
• It was important to us not to split the terrace gable into two rooms and create a niche from it instead.
• Next to the bedroom, which should only fit a bed and two nightstands (no view of a closet), is the walk-in closet area.
• The two children’s rooms should be the same size, not too small, and equally equipped to avoid conflicts later.
• The gallery with the open space above is a little highlight for us because we’ve always wanted it.

Overall, we are open to ideas or suggestions for improvement since the planning meeting with the architect, where everything will be finalized, is still upcoming. What are your experiences? Do you perhaps have similar floor plans?

Attached is a sketch of the house on our plot, showing the shed, carport, and sketched terrace.

Oh, and here are the details for creating this thread:

Client requirements:

• Gable roof, 45°
• 1.5 stories, no basement
• 4 people: 2 adults, a toddler, and a baby
• Occasional guests per year, maybe 2-3 weekends with family
• Rather open architecture, at least on the ground floor
• Construction style: country house meets modern
• Open kitchen, probably in a G-shape
• Seating for at least 6 at the dining table
• Fireplace: yes
• Garage/carport: yes, later on
• No balcony, no stereo wall, no greenhouse

House design:

• See above
• Heating: air source heat pump, underfloor heating in all rooms

If you have to give up something, which details or features would that be?

• Can give up: small, dark rooms
• Cannot give up: spaciousness, lots of light, open living feel

Thank you very much

That’s nice, but neither the U-shaped couch nor the large dining table fit in the bay window area – I can already see that this will be the generous mandatory 15 m² (160 ft²) of free space, just for Grandma’s beautiful rug.

Why do you need straight walls in the bedroom? Ironically, your wardrobes are next door where the sloping ceilings are – the plan shows 2 meters (6.5 feet) of wardrobe space...

That bed arrangement is not an option – it won’t fit. Are you going to have roller shutters? Otherwise, the bedroom will overheat during summer. I’m also not sure if you really want to have the panoramic view facing directly into your bedroom.

The position of the shower and the whole bathroom on the upper floor doesn’t impress me.

Overall, it’s a model house but with built-in flaws – I think it could be done better.

Hmm... The fact is that you can’t just change everything freely with this building concept (BU).
You are allowed to mirror the staircase and also swap the guest toilet with the utility room.
The staircase will always be located in the entrance area as standard... with a coat rack underneath.

The living area is only about 4 meters (13 feet) wide but 10 meters (33 feet) long. It definitely takes some skill to make the room feel cozy. With a total of 57 sqm (613 sq ft), there is plenty of living space, but probably only the middle area remains empty, where you cannot set up a kids’ play or hobby corner because it would be too prominent in the house.

I don’t understand how anyone places a big sofa in front of a floor-to-ceiling window, which you always have to shade for watching TV, possibly with shutters. Eventually, only the lower part of the window will be used. It would be better to move the patio window to the west. The advantage: afternoon sun in the room, direct access to the west-facing garden, and a more flexible room layout.

Where are guests supposed to sleep? In one of the children’s bedrooms?

As I said before: my neighbors have this house (without a bay window and dormer), and the three of them manage fine... It really comes down to cost when choosing this building concept.
Personally, I don’t like the standard layouts, and the flexible, free room design is lacking. For me, it feels too restrictive.
But that doesn’t mean someone coming from a small apartment wouldn’t be able to manage with these floor plans.

And if I’m repeating myself here: you could definitely create something better with this area—but not with this building concept.

What kind of path is that on the west side? The plot itself looks quite nice.

We had a very similar floor plan to yours in our old house, which was built by a prefabricated house manufacturer. And I pretty much agree with the others on all points. That bay area ended up just being annoying. At first, it was the kids’ play corner. Great for the kids, frustrating for the parents, because the living room no longer looked like a living room, but rather like a playroom. So, all the toys were cleared away. But then what to do with the bay? No idea. It was always empty. Sometimes there was an armchair, sometimes a plant, but somehow we never found the best use for it. Our new living room is about 20m2 (215 sq ft) smaller, and we don’t miss anything.

The bed upstairs just doesn’t work. Why do you need the huge glass front in the bedroom? It’s dark at night, and in summer you probably keep the shutters closed anyway. And during the day, people rarely spend much time in the bedroom. We had the bedroom in that spot, but with a regular window. In hindsight, we would have swapped the walk-in closet and the bedroom, because solid walls make much more sense in the wardrobe area.
One more thing I noticed: when you open the bedroom door, you have to be careful not to hit your head. Check where the 2m (6 ft 7 in) line runs and how you get around to the other side of the bed.

The open space above (void) is also pointless. It won’t look the way you imagine. It doesn’t even cover the entire front door width, or barely so. It will look like you want to have it – but actually can’t.

Where is the wardrobe supposed to go in Kid 2’s room? On the straight wall, there’s a window on one side and the entrance door on the other, which you can’t really move any further because then you would have that unnecessary open space.

As Manu already mentioned, and what I was referring to earlier, is the position where I have now placed the X. There will already be a slope there.

Thank you very much for the great response. We had probably hoped for more positive feedback, but we can still work on it.

We are especially open to changes on the upper floor. We are quite satisfied with the ground floor as it is, although we have considered adding a small half-height wall in the living area to visually separate the TV corner.

With Heinz von Heiden, we can also make larger layout changes since we purchased an additional structural engineering package that allows us to move all walls. For now, we want to keep the straight staircase if possible and also maintain the gable.

Now we need to find a more suitable layout for the upper floor. We have thought about moving the bathroom to the gable end—in other words, swapping the bathroom and bedroom—and then planning small windows in the gable. What do you think about this? Or do you have ideas for a completely different layout on the upper floor?