Hello everyone,
I would like to introduce you to my project. I am open to ideas, suggestions, and feedback.
The house (built in 1967) has two full floors and an attic that has already been converted. The electrical system and plumbing need renovation. We have already started on both on the first floor while living there. The toilet, bathroom, hallway, dining room, and kitchen have been completed. The ground floor is rented out, and the attic is empty. The roof is poorly insulated and covered with asbestos-containing fiber cement sheets. The roof will be newly insulated and re-covered, with one dormer facing west, and possibly photovoltaic panels. As part of the renovation, we want to combine the first floor and the attic.
Here is a floor plan of the first floor.
The fireplace with an external stainless steel flue is still in place (about 20 years old).
The first question is, where should the staircase go? The stairwell extends to the attic but currently has no radiators and is therefore a cold, shared staircase typical for multi-family houses. If it is to be used to connect the first floor and attic, the stairway downwards would need to be closed off and made warm and somewhat livable. Furthermore, it is quite far from what feels like the heart of the apartment (kitchen/dining/living room).
If the staircase is moved inside the apartment, as a spiral or straight stair, living space on both floors will be lost, but you don’t have to walk as far to the stairs, and it would be automatically heated. However, this requires cutting a hole in the concrete ceiling, which is a significant effort.
In the attic, except for the central chimney from the heating system, there are no load-bearing walls. The initial idea is to build a long dormer on the west side, as the bathroom there is directly above the bathroom on the first floor and is hardly usable due to the sloping roof. Also, the view to the west is nicer and the sun sets from that direction. On the other side, bedroom and children’s rooms could be located as the roof slope would be less of an issue there.
The ridge of the roof runs along the north-south axis of the house. Since photovoltaic panels might be installed on the roof, the external chimney flue is somewhat inconvenient. The chimney itself will remain. Because a filter will need to be retrofitted within the next few years, the chimney could possibly be replaced by a new one in a different position on the first floor to reduce its shadow impact. I am still undecided on this.
The roof will need an appointment with a structural engineer, as the load-bearing capacity is probably only sufficient for the lightweight fiber cement sheets. The facade is not planned to be insulated, only repainted when the scaffolding is up for the roof work.
Some of you might wonder why everything is not done at once with the family moving out in between. The opportunity to combine the two floors only arose this year. By this time, we had already started renovating half of the first-floor apartment. Since the roof now also needs to be replaced, this provides the maximum design flexibility.
Am I overlooking anything, or do you have any recommendations?
Best regards
I would like to introduce you to my project. I am open to ideas, suggestions, and feedback.
The house (built in 1967) has two full floors and an attic that has already been converted. The electrical system and plumbing need renovation. We have already started on both on the first floor while living there. The toilet, bathroom, hallway, dining room, and kitchen have been completed. The ground floor is rented out, and the attic is empty. The roof is poorly insulated and covered with asbestos-containing fiber cement sheets. The roof will be newly insulated and re-covered, with one dormer facing west, and possibly photovoltaic panels. As part of the renovation, we want to combine the first floor and the attic.
Here is a floor plan of the first floor.
The fireplace with an external stainless steel flue is still in place (about 20 years old).
The first question is, where should the staircase go? The stairwell extends to the attic but currently has no radiators and is therefore a cold, shared staircase typical for multi-family houses. If it is to be used to connect the first floor and attic, the stairway downwards would need to be closed off and made warm and somewhat livable. Furthermore, it is quite far from what feels like the heart of the apartment (kitchen/dining/living room).
If the staircase is moved inside the apartment, as a spiral or straight stair, living space on both floors will be lost, but you don’t have to walk as far to the stairs, and it would be automatically heated. However, this requires cutting a hole in the concrete ceiling, which is a significant effort.
In the attic, except for the central chimney from the heating system, there are no load-bearing walls. The initial idea is to build a long dormer on the west side, as the bathroom there is directly above the bathroom on the first floor and is hardly usable due to the sloping roof. Also, the view to the west is nicer and the sun sets from that direction. On the other side, bedroom and children’s rooms could be located as the roof slope would be less of an issue there.
The ridge of the roof runs along the north-south axis of the house. Since photovoltaic panels might be installed on the roof, the external chimney flue is somewhat inconvenient. The chimney itself will remain. Because a filter will need to be retrofitted within the next few years, the chimney could possibly be replaced by a new one in a different position on the first floor to reduce its shadow impact. I am still undecided on this.
The roof will need an appointment with a structural engineer, as the load-bearing capacity is probably only sufficient for the lightweight fiber cement sheets. The facade is not planned to be insulated, only repainted when the scaffolding is up for the roof work.
Some of you might wonder why everything is not done at once with the family moving out in between. The opportunity to combine the two floors only arose this year. By this time, we had already started renovating half of the first-floor apartment. Since the roof now also needs to be replaced, this provides the maximum design flexibility.
Am I overlooking anything, or do you have any recommendations?
Best regards
RomeoZwo schrieb:
When you get older, you don’t want to maintain an 800m2 (8,600 sq ft) garden anymore.You can’t make such a general statement. My grandmother still lives in the house that was once occupied by six people. The garden is large. Still, she would never want to leave because that’s exactly what she likes. A large house has the advantage that you can (if necessary) hire a caregiver. Of course, this also depends on your finances.
Kurpfaelzer30 Mar 2020 08:12Yes, I believe you will like it. It also depends somewhat on the house. We have a grandmother living in a large house with a big garden. She likes it as well. However, the property is on a slope, the house has three floors, and there is something important on each floor. The grandmother is basically climbing stairs all day. I want to avoid that for our retirement home.
Back to the current planning. I have a specific question. Where the floor plan currently shows "Sleeping" on the upper floor, there will be an office in the future. Where rooms 1 to 3 are marked on the attic floor, the master bedroom and two children’s bedrooms are planned. At the top of the plan (which is oriented NNW by the way), you can see the current stairwell with a door. We will only really need this door later for moving larger furniture. Nevertheless, there is a small remaining hallway drawn there. It looks like a dead space to me. What should I do with it?
One option would be to remove the partition wall to room 1 and enlarge that room.
A second related question: we would like to have a small dressing area in or adjacent to the master bedroom. Which of the three rooms will be the master bedroom is still undecided. Currently, we have a dressing area implemented as three wardrobes arranged in a U-shape inside the bedroom. That would be sufficient. I just don’t see the space for it yet. Perhaps this could be combined with the first question and realized in room 1.
What do you think?
Back to the current planning. I have a specific question. Where the floor plan currently shows "Sleeping" on the upper floor, there will be an office in the future. Where rooms 1 to 3 are marked on the attic floor, the master bedroom and two children’s bedrooms are planned. At the top of the plan (which is oriented NNW by the way), you can see the current stairwell with a door. We will only really need this door later for moving larger furniture. Nevertheless, there is a small remaining hallway drawn there. It looks like a dead space to me. What should I do with it?
One option would be to remove the partition wall to room 1 and enlarge that room.
A second related question: we would like to have a small dressing area in or adjacent to the master bedroom. Which of the three rooms will be the master bedroom is still undecided. Currently, we have a dressing area implemented as three wardrobes arranged in a U-shape inside the bedroom. That would be sufficient. I just don’t see the space for it yet. Perhaps this could be combined with the first question and realized in room 1.
What do you think?
Kurpfaelzer schrieb:
At the top part of the plan (which is oriented roughly NNW), you can see the current stairwell with the door. I don’t see any improvement compared to the drawn plan.
Kurpfaelzer schrieb:
Grandma is basically walking up and down the stairs all day. I want to avoid that for our senior living residence. It will still take several years of realization that nowadays a walker is practically the gateway drug into a muscle loss spiral.
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