ᐅ Apartment Renovation Across Two Floors in a Historic Building

Hello everyone,

We are a family of four living on the upper floor of a multi-family house (4 apartments) that we own. Since space is becoming tight and the ground floor apartment is becoming vacant, we would like to expand by connecting the two apartments stacked on top of each other on the garden side.

In the past, considerable renovation and remodeling have already been done on the house. This includes changes to the upper floor layout, installation of underfloor heating throughout including tile flooring, replacement of all windows, roof insulation, balcony refurbishment, and replacement of apartment entrance doors, the front door, and garage doors.

For now, we are primarily focused on the ground floor, where we want to create more space. I have attached the current floor plans (G1). Additionally, I uploaded the plans of the entire house (ground floor + upper floor), which do not fully match reality. For example, the open patio was never realized but was built as a type of conservatory. The plans show the two apartments on the right side.

In the next two posts, I will describe the planned changes.

Here is some preliminary information:

Development Plan/Restrictions
Plot size: 800sqm
Slope: no
Site coverage ratio -
Floor area ratio -
Building envelope, building line, and boundary
Edge development: no
Number of parking spaces: 6
Number of floors: 1.5
Roof type: gable roof
Architectural style
Orientation
Maximum height/limits
Other requirements

Client Requirements
Style, roof type, building type
Basement, floors: basement, 1.5 floors
Number of people, age: 4 in the apartment, 7 in the entire building
Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor
Office: family use or home office? family use
Overnight guests per year: rarely
Open or closed architecture: preferably open, if possible
Conservative or modern design: modern interior
Open kitchen, kitchen island: depending on possibilities, see floor plans
Number of dining seats: 6-8
Fireplace: no
Music/sound wall: no
Balcony, roof terrace: existing, see floor plans
Garage, carport: 4 garages facing the street
Utility garden, greenhouse: no
Other wishes/special features/daily routines, including reasons for preferences

House Design
Who designed the plan:
currently DIY, preliminary consultation with structural engineer completed, a civil engineer will be involved soon
What do you like most? Why?
larger, open rooms
What do you dislike? Why?
small rooms
Cost estimate according to architect/planner:
none yet
Personal budget for house incl. equipment:
-
Preferred heating technology:
currently oil burner, planned upgrade to heat pump if feasible, calculations ongoing

If you have to give up something, which details or extensions
-can you give up:
-can you not give up:

Why is the design as it is now? For example
structural constraints due to existing building.

What is the most important/fundamental question about the layout in 130 characters?
see above description and the following posts.

In this post, you can see the first option for the renovation (G2).

We are not sure if the space is sufficient to nicely arrange the kitchen, living, and dining areas.
A downside of this solution is that there are still 2 extra rooms downstairs that are not really needed. Maybe this isn’t a disadvantage, but a single home office/guest room on the ground floor would be enough for us, as the bedrooms and children’s rooms are upstairs.

Another drawback is the small/narrow bathroom, which looks the same on the upper floor. However, we could manage with that since our current bathroom is also quite small.

We’re also not sure if there is enough space for the dining table or if the layout works well. The table will be new and should accommodate 6 to 8 people (180cm (70.8 inches), possibly extendable).

The advantage of this floor plan is that the renovation work would not be as extensive, while still gaining some extra space.

All furniture, including the kitchen, is shown only as an example to illustrate our basic idea.

Our second floor plan idea looks like this (G3).
Significant remodeling work is required here.
Although there is no open kitchen, it does not become smaller, and you gain more space in the living and dining areas.

All furniture, including the kitchen, is inserted only as an example to show how we basically envision the layout.

We are wondering whether the extensive remodeling is worth changing the floor plan in this way.

Of course, we realize this is also a matter of personal taste, but maybe you see something we haven’t noticed or considered.

That’s why we would like to hear your opinions.

If I have forgotten anything, I will be happy to provide it later.

Why don’t you also open up the kitchen in the second draft and then work with a kitchen island?

In my opinion, you are removing a lot of load-bearing walls. I wonder if the structure can handle that.

I’d like to suggest the idea of rearranging the rooms differently (so that most of the load-bearing walls can be kept).

The very uneven-sized children’s rooms are not ideal.

Ground floor:
- Child 1/2
- Children’s bathroom
- Kitchen
- Dining

Upper floor:
- Living area (TV, sofa lounge)
- Bedroom
- Office/guest room
- Bathroom
- Utility room

Without knowing the ceiling plans, it still seems generally likely to me that this maisonette combination of the ground floor and top floor will be feasible with a reasonable structural engineering effort. The thread title is somewhat misleading: this is clearly not an old building, but merely an existing structure (estimated to be from the 1970s, so definitely from the period of the FRG).

---

https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/