ᐅ Floor Plan: Preliminary Draft from the Prefabricated House Supplier is Available
Created on: 20 Aug 2015 21:49
K
krachbumms
Hello dear experts!
We now have the 5th preliminary draft from our prefab house provider on the table, and the list of our correction requests is noticeably getting shorter.
It’s time to ask the true experts for their opinions.
We won’t (or can’t) change the basic floor plan concept anymore, as we want/need to submit the building permit/planning application soon. But maybe you still have tips, warnings, or new ideas regarding details.
Secretly, I hope this thing will be approved more or less favorably by you – but many here have hoped the same and were bitterly disappointed.
Important to know:
Child 2 will not have a children’s room but a combined dressing room, storage space, and guest room.
Up to this draft, we had planned a 3.75x1.50m (12.3x4.9 ft) bay window (external dimensions) in the dining area, which we wanted to furnish as a dining nook with built-in seating by a carpenter.
Since we fear the costs might spiral out of control, we wanted to see if and how this could also work without the bay window. The final decision for or against the bay will be made once we know how much savings dropping it would bring. My impression: not super spacious, but it works.
I am particularly interested in your feedback on the following details (besides anything else you might notice):
- Narrow doors for the guest toilet and utility room on the ground floor – problematic or totally okay?
- Staircase: better open for light transparency, or with risers and a front wall so you don’t have to look under the stairs every time you come from the living room? How practical or useless is the storage space under an open staircase (without a front wall) in reality?
- How and exactly where is the best way to design the access to the living room: front / middle? Single or double doors? No door at all, just a wide open passage (also to bring light into the hallway)?
- We chose an extremely wide kitchen layout, partly because with the open floor plan you can basically see from the street all the way to the living room sofa. Additionally, there is an option to install roller blinds (Raufstores) in the kitchen (the bay window or dining room window will definitely get Venetian blinds).
- We have worked a long time on the layout of the sanitary fixtures in the upstairs bathroom and were never 100% happy. What is your opinion on the current state? Any improvement suggestions?
- There are nicer things than the niche under the sloped ceiling in Child 1 - definitely. But it’s there, and we wonder how to use it more sensibly: in a children’s room (e.g., as a sleeping place, cozy corner, later maybe a desk) or in a dressing room?
- We originally did not want floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street, but we fear dark rooms even more... The alternative would be windows with a low parapet – but these have only about 2.5 sqm (27 sqft) of glass area instead of 3.3 sqm (36 sqft)...
By now, we are so blind from working on this that I can hardly judge whether this outdoor view is harmonious or not...
Many thanks for your interest and all feedback!
-------------------------------------------
Development plan / restrictions
Plot size: 500 sqm (5382 sqft)
Building envelope, building line and boundary: 15m (49 ft 3 in) deep (excluding extensions), setbacks 3m (9 ft 10 in) from street and sides
Other requirements: 70s style constraints
Homeowners’ requirements: 2 adults, 1 toddler. Office on the ground floor, shower on the ground floor, at least one large built-in closet, high ceilings (275cm (9 ft) on ground floor), entrance on the gable side, “sunny” (house and garden should face the sunny side)
Style, roof shape, building type: classic-modern, gable roof, single-family house
Basement, stories: no basement, 1.5 stories
Number of occupants, ages: 2 x approx. 40, 1 x under 5
Space requirements ground floor / upper floor: total 120-150 sqm (1292-1615 sqft)
Office: family use or home office? Home office
Guest sleepers per year: 1
Open or closed architecture: open
Conservative or modern construction: rather modern
Open kitchen, kitchen island: yes (option should exist to convert to closed kitchen in the future if needed)
Number of dining seats: 1
Garage, carport: prefab garage 4x9m (13x30 ft)
House design
Who designed it: customized prefab house (timber frame)
What do you particularly like? The implementation of our requirements
What do you not like? The sloped ceilings due to the low knee wall (building regulation), windowless staircase, narrow entrance hall, rooms on the garden side of ground floor (office and living room) are rather small, niche in Child 1 behind the stairwell, inspection shafts directly in front of the front door
Price estimate according to architect/designer: 230-250K (technical completion excluding sanitary, painting and flooring)
Personal price limit for the house, including fittings: 350-400K including additional construction costs, interior finishing, garden, kitchen & more
Preferred heating technology: gas condensing boiler, underfloor heating, mechanical ventilation with humidity recovery
If you had to give up on some details or extensions, which ones?
- Could be given up: possibly the bay window, possibly the shower on the ground floor
- Cannot be given up: built-in closet, office on the ground floor
We now have the 5th preliminary draft from our prefab house provider on the table, and the list of our correction requests is noticeably getting shorter.
It’s time to ask the true experts for their opinions.
We won’t (or can’t) change the basic floor plan concept anymore, as we want/need to submit the building permit/planning application soon. But maybe you still have tips, warnings, or new ideas regarding details.
Secretly, I hope this thing will be approved more or less favorably by you – but many here have hoped the same and were bitterly disappointed.
Important to know:
Child 2 will not have a children’s room but a combined dressing room, storage space, and guest room.
Up to this draft, we had planned a 3.75x1.50m (12.3x4.9 ft) bay window (external dimensions) in the dining area, which we wanted to furnish as a dining nook with built-in seating by a carpenter.
Since we fear the costs might spiral out of control, we wanted to see if and how this could also work without the bay window. The final decision for or against the bay will be made once we know how much savings dropping it would bring. My impression: not super spacious, but it works.
I am particularly interested in your feedback on the following details (besides anything else you might notice):
- Narrow doors for the guest toilet and utility room on the ground floor – problematic or totally okay?
- Staircase: better open for light transparency, or with risers and a front wall so you don’t have to look under the stairs every time you come from the living room? How practical or useless is the storage space under an open staircase (without a front wall) in reality?
- How and exactly where is the best way to design the access to the living room: front / middle? Single or double doors? No door at all, just a wide open passage (also to bring light into the hallway)?
- We chose an extremely wide kitchen layout, partly because with the open floor plan you can basically see from the street all the way to the living room sofa. Additionally, there is an option to install roller blinds (Raufstores) in the kitchen (the bay window or dining room window will definitely get Venetian blinds).
- We have worked a long time on the layout of the sanitary fixtures in the upstairs bathroom and were never 100% happy. What is your opinion on the current state? Any improvement suggestions?
- There are nicer things than the niche under the sloped ceiling in Child 1 - definitely. But it’s there, and we wonder how to use it more sensibly: in a children’s room (e.g., as a sleeping place, cozy corner, later maybe a desk) or in a dressing room?
- We originally did not want floor-to-ceiling windows facing the street, but we fear dark rooms even more... The alternative would be windows with a low parapet – but these have only about 2.5 sqm (27 sqft) of glass area instead of 3.3 sqm (36 sqft)...
By now, we are so blind from working on this that I can hardly judge whether this outdoor view is harmonious or not...
Many thanks for your interest and all feedback!
-------------------------------------------
Development plan / restrictions
Plot size: 500 sqm (5382 sqft)
Building envelope, building line and boundary: 15m (49 ft 3 in) deep (excluding extensions), setbacks 3m (9 ft 10 in) from street and sides
Other requirements: 70s style constraints
Homeowners’ requirements: 2 adults, 1 toddler. Office on the ground floor, shower on the ground floor, at least one large built-in closet, high ceilings (275cm (9 ft) on ground floor), entrance on the gable side, “sunny” (house and garden should face the sunny side)
Style, roof shape, building type: classic-modern, gable roof, single-family house
Basement, stories: no basement, 1.5 stories
Number of occupants, ages: 2 x approx. 40, 1 x under 5
Space requirements ground floor / upper floor: total 120-150 sqm (1292-1615 sqft)
Office: family use or home office? Home office
Guest sleepers per year: 1
Open or closed architecture: open
Conservative or modern construction: rather modern
Open kitchen, kitchen island: yes (option should exist to convert to closed kitchen in the future if needed)
Number of dining seats: 1
Garage, carport: prefab garage 4x9m (13x30 ft)
House design
Who designed it: customized prefab house (timber frame)
What do you particularly like? The implementation of our requirements
What do you not like? The sloped ceilings due to the low knee wall (building regulation), windowless staircase, narrow entrance hall, rooms on the garden side of ground floor (office and living room) are rather small, niche in Child 1 behind the stairwell, inspection shafts directly in front of the front door
Price estimate according to architect/designer: 230-250K (technical completion excluding sanitary, painting and flooring)
Personal price limit for the house, including fittings: 350-400K including additional construction costs, interior finishing, garden, kitchen & more
Preferred heating technology: gas condensing boiler, underfloor heating, mechanical ventilation with humidity recovery
If you had to give up on some details or extensions, which ones?
- Could be given up: possibly the bay window, possibly the shower on the ground floor
- Cannot be given up: built-in closet, office on the ground floor
K
krachbumms20 Aug 2015 23:18Manu1976 schrieb:
Child 1 will have a dark corner in the room. I would still plan to add a skylight there.
I would always use the space under the stairs as storage. In front of that, you can still place a cupboard or chest of drawers. If the chest of drawers is placed under the stairs, it can often cause head injuries. Also, the lowest steps tend to become an ugly storage spot for junk and shoes.
The dining/living area would definitely be too small for me now. The cooking/dining/living area reminds me more of a terraced house than a detached house. If the budget allows, I would plan a bay window here. You don’t have to extend it across the entire house, just have the roof slope down at that point. But overall, the area should work like this.
You can bring light into the upstairs hallway, for example, with clerestory windows in the bathroom. We did that too, and it’s amazing what a difference it makes. Another option would be a daylight spotlight.We hate skylights, but “dark” is also a problem – we will discuss this again. Do you think it makes a big difference regarding the need for an additional skylight whether we use the large floor-to-ceiling windows on the front side or windows with a window sill and a smaller glass area?
So you would design the staircase closed, with risers, a wall to the hallway, and then access the storage area from the office side? Do I understand that correctly? We had previously planned it that way, but then, due to the light source (front door), we thought it would be better to leave the staircase open... The hallway next to the stairs is now just over 130cm (51 inches) wide – if we put a wall on the stairs, it would be about 115cm (45 inches) – which would probably still be okay (?).
Would the dining/living area feel too small in length or width?
The bay window would have a flat roof. Because of the increased ceiling height on the ground floor and the minimal roof overhangs, it’s not possible to extend the roof slope there.
K
krachbumms20 Aug 2015 23:22BeHaElJa schrieb:
Maybe an idea: Living room to hallway door: double glass door, floor-to-ceiling window in front of the dining table about 3m (10 feet) wide, without a bay window the space should fit.
I would possibly design the kitchen without the peninsula – more like a U-shape – stove, for example, facing the garden (southeast direction) and without a door.
It looks coherent on paper. Thanks for the suggestion.
But a completely open view into the kitchen – no, we’re not tidy enough for that and I would regret not having any view into the room despite the open kitchen. Having an exit to the outside from the kitchen is also important to us.
K
krachbumms20 Aug 2015 23:31BeHaElJa schrieb:
By the way, I also think the staircase doesn’t really fit the house type. The best space you have on the upper floor is taken up by the staircase. I am aware of that, but as an alternative, we only managed to come up with a layout featuring a side entrance near the garage driveway, where the staircase was placed directly next to the front door and ended up in almost the same spot on the upper floor (above the office door). The upper floor was better than now, but on the ground floor we ended up with an unattractive staircase right next to the front door, no large built-in closet, a cramped entrance area, and the access to the house and the garage driveway interfering with each other. We felt that was too many compromises on the ground floor for a slightly better upper floor without the awkward niche in the children’s room...
Another option with the front door facing the street would be a U-shaped staircase on the garage side, in the current technical room area. That would be our plan B (or rather C, D, or E...) if we conclude that the current layout is not convincing.
On the upper floor, this would only change that the niche in Child 1’s room would be eliminated...
K
krachbumms20 Aug 2015 23:40This would be the mentioned option with a U-shaped staircase – the utility room and WC would also fit in there. This would significantly improve the lighting situation in the hallway on the ground floor and upper floor if a window is planned near the stair landing – but the corridor would become noticeably narrower and more tunnel-like. Your opinion?
With a 100 cm (39 inches) high island, you are not hiding anything in the kitchen. If you really want to separate the spaces, then separate them. The bay window allows you to rotate the dining table and gives you a bit more space.
A U-shaped staircase is more coherent.
18.7 x 17 risers = 3.17 m (10 ft 5 in). With a 20 cm (8 inches) ceiling slab and 15 cm (6 inches) floor construction, there is still 2.82 m (9 ft 3 in) of clear room height left—or am I making a mistake? It’s unclear how this will feel...
A U-shaped staircase is more coherent.
18.7 x 17 risers = 3.17 m (10 ft 5 in). With a 20 cm (8 inches) ceiling slab and 15 cm (6 inches) floor construction, there is still 2.82 m (9 ft 3 in) of clear room height left—or am I making a mistake? It’s unclear how this will feel...
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