Hello, great forum,
we are now also starting to fulfill a small dream of owning our own home. I am very curious about your opinions and experiences.
Currently, we live in a 4-room apartment of 70 sqm (750 sq ft).
We are planning for just under 200 sqm (2,150 sq ft).
We need a room for each of our three children; the house should be functional.
From the outside, it should have a modern appearance.
We would like two full floors with a small flat or hipped roof. Unfortunately, this is not possible, and these restrictions apparently only allow what has been designed so far.
I would like the dormer at the front and the front extension to be larger purely for aesthetic reasons, but the architect says it is not necessary.
Development plan / restrictions
Attached is the third house/plot from the top.
Plot size: 700 sqm (7,535 sq ft)
- Minimum distance to the street is 7.0 m (23 feet)
- Building depth is 12.0 m (39 feet)
- Orientation MUST be ridge side facing the street according to the development plan
- The eaves and ridge heights follow §34 of the Building Code, i.e., as high as the neighbors. We can include the basement (cellar) for the floor heights of the ground and upper floors.
- However, it will not be a two-story building! I estimate the knee wall / dwarf wall currently at about 1.0 m (3 feet)! (For an exact statement, the eaves and ridge heights of the neighbors would have to be measured.)
- A plaster facade is NOT required; it can be fully clad in brick or masonry
- Roof pitch may be between 45 - 52 degrees
- No basement possible due to peat soil and groundwater issues.
Homeowners’ requirements
Style, roof type, building type: Gable roof
Basement, floors: 1 floor + attic
Number of people, ages: 5 people aged between 2 and 35
Space needed on ground and upper floors
Office: Family use or home office? Home office
Guest sleepers per year: 3
Open or closed architecture: Open, if possible
Conservative or modern construction: Modern
Open kitchen, kitchen island: Closed kitchen
Number of dining seats: 8, and there should be a breakfast nook in the kitchen
Fireplace: Would be nice
House design
Who created the plan: Our idea, implemented by the architect
What do you particularly like? Why?
Width of the hallway downstairs and the entrance area, the view to the living room from the entrance.
Passage from the kitchen to the utility room with pantry
What do you not like? Why?
Everything seems very tight, or maybe that is just an impression.
Price estimate according to architect/planner:
450k
Personal price limit for the house, including fittings: 550k
Preferred heating system: Heat pump or gas heating
If you have to give up something, which details/extensions
- can you give up: Currently, we can only imagine not finishing the attic first.
we are now also starting to fulfill a small dream of owning our own home. I am very curious about your opinions and experiences.
Currently, we live in a 4-room apartment of 70 sqm (750 sq ft).
We are planning for just under 200 sqm (2,150 sq ft).
We need a room for each of our three children; the house should be functional.
From the outside, it should have a modern appearance.
We would like two full floors with a small flat or hipped roof. Unfortunately, this is not possible, and these restrictions apparently only allow what has been designed so far.
I would like the dormer at the front and the front extension to be larger purely for aesthetic reasons, but the architect says it is not necessary.
Development plan / restrictions
Attached is the third house/plot from the top.
Plot size: 700 sqm (7,535 sq ft)
- Minimum distance to the street is 7.0 m (23 feet)
- Building depth is 12.0 m (39 feet)
- Orientation MUST be ridge side facing the street according to the development plan
- The eaves and ridge heights follow §34 of the Building Code, i.e., as high as the neighbors. We can include the basement (cellar) for the floor heights of the ground and upper floors.
- However, it will not be a two-story building! I estimate the knee wall / dwarf wall currently at about 1.0 m (3 feet)! (For an exact statement, the eaves and ridge heights of the neighbors would have to be measured.)
- A plaster facade is NOT required; it can be fully clad in brick or masonry
- Roof pitch may be between 45 - 52 degrees
- No basement possible due to peat soil and groundwater issues.
Homeowners’ requirements
Style, roof type, building type: Gable roof
Basement, floors: 1 floor + attic
Number of people, ages: 5 people aged between 2 and 35
Space needed on ground and upper floors
Office: Family use or home office? Home office
Guest sleepers per year: 3
Open or closed architecture: Open, if possible
Conservative or modern construction: Modern
Open kitchen, kitchen island: Closed kitchen
Number of dining seats: 8, and there should be a breakfast nook in the kitchen
Fireplace: Would be nice
House design
Who created the plan: Our idea, implemented by the architect
What do you particularly like? Why?
Width of the hallway downstairs and the entrance area, the view to the living room from the entrance.
Passage from the kitchen to the utility room with pantry
What do you not like? Why?
Everything seems very tight, or maybe that is just an impression.
Price estimate according to architect/planner:
450k
Personal price limit for the house, including fittings: 550k
Preferred heating system: Heat pump or gas heating
If you have to give up something, which details/extensions
- can you give up: Currently, we can only imagine not finishing the attic first.
D
derdietmar20 Oct 2024 22:27Hello,
I don’t think you need to start completely from scratch, but the ground floor layout doesn’t work.
Apart from the lack of space in the kitchen, there is no access to the hallway. This will cause problems later on.
Basically, I would arrange the ground floor as follows:
On the upper floor, I would combine the dressing room (which is actually just a walk-in closet where you can’t even sit) and the bedroom. This way, the storage room can stay. Even better, in my opinion, would be a children’s bathroom instead of the storage room.
On the exterior view, the western extension and the dormer would then shift slightly north due to the living room on the ground floor. This fits well on the upper floor because the children’s rooms become more balanced. Both should have the same width.
Single contract tendering without detailed construction drawings (Phase 5) will not work. You need the construction drawings and a detailed cost estimate based on them to ensure nothing is overlooked and to prepare for the tendering process.
Best regards
I don’t think you need to start completely from scratch, but the ground floor layout doesn’t work.
Apart from the lack of space in the kitchen, there is no access to the hallway. This will cause problems later on.
Basically, I would arrange the ground floor as follows:
- Utility room and technical room in the northeast
- Kitchen in the east
- Dining area in the southeast
- Living room in the southwest
- Office in the west
- Guest toilet in the northwest
On the upper floor, I would combine the dressing room (which is actually just a walk-in closet where you can’t even sit) and the bedroom. This way, the storage room can stay. Even better, in my opinion, would be a children’s bathroom instead of the storage room.
On the exterior view, the western extension and the dormer would then shift slightly north due to the living room on the ground floor. This fits well on the upper floor because the children’s rooms become more balanced. Both should have the same width.
Single contract tendering without detailed construction drawings (Phase 5) will not work. You need the construction drawings and a detailed cost estimate based on them to ensure nothing is overlooked and to prepare for the tendering process.
Best regards
Regarding the topic of 3D/2D plans and possibly limited spatial imagination or the “eh, it’ll be fine” hopes, I would recommend creating a full-scale floor plan. It costs about 500 euros (approximately 540 USD), but this seems like a good investment before building poorly functioning structures for 500,000 euros (approximately 540,000 USD). We actually did this and were more than surprised by how much our perception differed from what we had expected...
chand1986 schrieb:
What I don’t understand is the ignorance of one’s own ignorance. I often seek help because I consider what I’m not good at. And I can do everything else myself.That’s exactly right. I’ve often thought this might be just a generational issue, but it seems to run deeper and is not dependent on age. I always feel more confident and glad when I can ask someone (like here), because once again I have no clue or at least feel unsure (about ideas, alternatives, taxes, technical matters, and other things). Many people are also intimidated by brainstorming. Despite our increasingly less active lifestyle—probably related to age and stubbornness—we still come across people in our immediate environment who would never ask anyone, or if they do, only turn to Mr. Google or a complete stranger.
I believe that often (including here) there is a fear of having one’s own home-made sandwich stolen, instead of recognizing the great opportunity that comes with the added value of honest experience.
Schorsch_baut schrieb:
I would recreate these awkward corners using moving boxes and see how it feels. Exactly. I think children would actually be very helpful and creative in this, as they are not constrained by such fixed ideas.
derdietmar schrieb:
I don’t think you need to start completely from scratch, but the ground floor doesn’t work. Actually, you do. Because the upper floor was designed based on a ground floor that is fundamentally flawed—for example, even the kitchen, as the original poster admits, doesn’t function without the “bay window.” Trying to create a better ground floor from this upper floor layout would logically be almost impossible. So: start everything over!
If there’s no problem from the start, the difficulties with the facade design will also resolve themselves automatically.
derdietmar schrieb:
Awarding contracts individually without detailed construction documentation (Phase 5) will not work. You need the construction documentation and a detailed cost estimate based on it to ensure nothing is overlooked and for the tendering process. Wait, did someone suggest that Phase 5 might be unnecessary? Phase 5 is actually the kickoff for the second half!
-LotteS- schrieb:
I would recommend reviewing the floor plan at full scale. [...] We actually did this and were more than surprised by how different the perception was compared to what we had expected... Do you have any examples of your “aha” moments?
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
11ant schrieb:
Do you have any examples of your “aha” moments? Especially corners and walking paths that seemed problematic on paper turned out to be no issue at all. On the other hand, completely different areas surprised us, which we then reassessed after experimenting with furniture placement and walls on site (that way you can see the impact live and walk through). We had a motivated, recently graduated architect as the project manager on site, which was great. We were also very well prepared and helped out during construction, allowing us to test various scenarios. So far, there isn’t a single spot in the house where I think “We should have done this differently,” and many visitors are amazed at how well the floor plan suits our needs and daily routines. We really spent a lot of time on it, erasing and adjusting designs ourselves on graph paper with a pencil, cutting out furniture shapes, and learning to visualize two-meter (6.5 feet) distances the hard way.
We put a lot of thought into whether our ideas would actually work in practice. The experience on site was truly valuable and helpful since we didn’t use any off-the-shelf floor plans.
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