ᐅ Ground floor – open-plan kitchen with dining area or living room with dining area

11ant schrieb:
... the parents have failed. From just five and nine years old up to the teenage years, there is still a lot that can be taught about healthy nutrition.

LOL. With teenagers, the brain just switches off. Remember your own youth. It gets better again from around 17/18 years old (which is actually neurologically proven).

nordanney schrieb:
LOL. With teenagers, the brain just switches off. Think back to your own youth. It gets better around 17 or 18 years old (which is also neurologically proven).

Neurologically, it is proven that when thinking stops, the influence of stored behavioral patterns takes full effect. In that sense, thank you for reinforcing my argument ;-)

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Off topic: I wouldn’t want to miss out on the midnight pizza with friends for anything in the world, especially when you come out of the club for the first time (“youth disco from 16 years old until midnight, haha”) and talk about your first kiss 😉

But to reassure Ant, we eat frozen pizza only 0.1% of the time, and on Sundays it’s kids’ cooking day, when they cook for us parents (with some help ;-) ) and learn important life skills. I don’t have teenagers myself yet, I just imagined it something like that 😉

ypg schrieb:
I would ditch that idea right away. Romeo already said it. I’m under 60, my husband under 70, and the nightmare would be if we had to spread out in our guest bathroom or if my adult child had to cross our property, even though they have a family with two kids themselves. No way, better to plan a stairlift for later and enjoy the open spaces with new hobbies.

I’ll take another look at it later. Some of the suggestions here are quite useful, but this is just the architect’s first draft. You don’t have to remodel it like an existing house; instead, plan it cleanly from the start so it becomes practical for everyday life.

Thanks for thinking along!

You’re always influenced by your own environment, and my childhood home is the same: my brother lives upstairs, my father downstairs. When your own kids arrive, that usually stops being practical, but I just want to have a (temporary) option for that kind of setup where you don’t constantly have to cross each other’s territory and still have some privacy. Fortunately, the separation in my parents’ house works very well; in the past, most houses were built with a staircase in the utility area, which makes it easy to divide up 😉 In your case, you’re still living with a partner. You never know how life will turn out—having the possibility to separate the upper unit would be ideal, especially for a single occupant, and possibly the only way to keep the house.

But to be clear again: I don’t need a big hallway for a "perfect" separation like an architect would design; I just want the possibility to get from my living room to the bathroom and back without passing through the private area of someone living upstairs—so a soft separation, possibly with a bookshelf or curtain or something similar. Access to the individual rooms is the more important point.

And regarding your parking question: Both units have a long driveway in front of the entrance where two cars can comfortably park one behind the other. The driveway is 3.75m (12 feet) wide, so you can still easily walk past the car to the front door. The thing is, at least in my family, there’s only one car, which will park a bit further down. There’s plenty of space by the front door, so we might put in some greenery and flowers instead of just paving stones, plus a bike shelter. If two parking spaces are needed (the adjacent street would allow for that anyway), it can be paved later. For now, we want some space in front of the house—I’d like to add a covered area by the front door and maybe a bench. The carports shown in the drawing should be ignored for now; parking spaces will be closer to the edges of the property. We are skipping carports financially for the time being, and my husband strongly dislikes carports—he’d rather get wet than have to park between columns and worry about car doors hitting anything 😉

11ant schrieb:
.. the parents have failed. From as young as five and nine years old up to the teenage years, they can still be taught a lot about healthy eating.

I don’t see what’s so unclear about the placeholder "frozen pizza teenager" that it immediately turns into a question of upbringing.

Young people are just as much residents of their home and should feel comfortable and be able to express their personal needs. That doesn’t mean that when they have guests, they have to ask Mom to make a healthy salad for them, but rather that they also get the freedom to work in the kitchen themselves and prepare for their own later life.

jolovyn schrieb:
In my parents’ house it’s the same: my brother lives upstairs, my father downstairs.

But you’re not planning the house for that. The requirements are: 2 adults, 2 children.

jolovyn schrieb:
You never know how life will turn out, for a single person in the house the option to separate the upper apartment would be ideal and possibly the only way to keep the house.

jolovyn schrieb:
but I would simply like to have a (temporary) option for such a configuration,

You do have a room and a shower-WC downstairs... so why complicate things by planning space for every possible scenario you don’t actually need right now?

jolovyn schrieb:
only the possibility to get from my living room to the bathroom and back without passing through an upstairs-resident’s space -

Don’t get tangled up trying to build a house that fulfills every possible wish. That won’t work without making compromises now.

ypg schrieb:
Don’t get caught up trying to build a house that does everything perfectly. You won’t succeed without having to make compromises from the start.

Thanks, I’ll try! We’ve been working with the architect on this “basic plan” for so long now that I’m having trouble seeing a way out (like reducing the hallway space) without losing access to some of the rooms. Maybe I’ll take a break and put the plans aside for a few hours.