Hello everyone,
We are currently planning our house and I would appreciate any feedback you might have.
I have already looked at several hundred floor plans and visited quite a few show homes, all of which I found somewhat impractical—until I came across the Jette Joop life L show home by Viebrockhaus, which I thought was fantastic. (Unfortunately, it’s a bit too large and expensive for us.)
Then I found the Citylife 148 by Favorit, which is very similar to the Jette house but slightly smaller and more affordable.
Neither option was perfect, so I’ve developed my own version, which Favorit has already done a preliminary cost estimate for.
We have a meeting with a building planner next week, so I would really appreciate some feedback on our current design.
A few background details on why we made certain choices—although we might be wrong and some of it might not make much sense?
Ground Floor:
Wardrobe area:
We definitely want the wardrobe immediately near the entrance because I don’t want everyone walking through the hallway in their outdoor shoes or taking them off at the door only to leave them lying around.
Guest toilet:
This should definitely have a walk-in shower with a tiled, curbless base (no shower tray) and no glass enclosure.
Kitchen:
The kitchen should be directly connected to the living/dining area but separable. We’re not exactly sure how to achieve this yet. Currently, there are two options:
a) a glass sliding door system about 3 meters (10 feet) wide
b) a half wall up to countertop height, topped with a large fixed glass panel, and a regular clear-glass door as entry.
--> The goal is for the space to feel open but closeable. Any better design suggestions would be very welcome!
Living/Dining Room:
For the dining area, we are considering replacing the middle door to the outside with a large fixed window. We want the dining space exactly where the middle door currently is, and I think a big panoramic window would look nicer than a double door. The doors probably wouldn’t be used much anyway and tend to get in the way. I’ve also often seen couches placed in front of terrace doors, which looks odd to me.
Hallway:
We want a closed concrete staircase going upstairs. This allows us to create a pantry underneath the stairs.
Because the stairwell is completely internal, we want to install a Solatube or similar daylight system to bring natural light into the stairwell without windows.
Upper Floor:
We are a family of four and have decided against a large shared bathroom upstairs. Instead, we are planning a kids’ bathroom and an en suite master bathroom. Since we are not “wellness” types who need a spa-like bathroom, our bathrooms should be functional but not large.
We have designed the master suite as a small, separate unit so it can be used later as a more private guest area when the kids move out or if grandma moves in.
Basically, we wanted to have other rooms serve as noise buffers between our bedroom and the kids’ rooms. Not sure if this is really necessary, but thinking back to my own childhood and teenage years, my parents would certainly have lost their minds if they had to endure loud music playing next door all night.
The garage with storage room is currently planned but not yet finalized.
Many thanks in advance for your feedback.
Best of luck, Leini
We are currently planning our house and I would appreciate any feedback you might have.
I have already looked at several hundred floor plans and visited quite a few show homes, all of which I found somewhat impractical—until I came across the Jette Joop life L show home by Viebrockhaus, which I thought was fantastic. (Unfortunately, it’s a bit too large and expensive for us.)
Then I found the Citylife 148 by Favorit, which is very similar to the Jette house but slightly smaller and more affordable.
Neither option was perfect, so I’ve developed my own version, which Favorit has already done a preliminary cost estimate for.
We have a meeting with a building planner next week, so I would really appreciate some feedback on our current design.
A few background details on why we made certain choices—although we might be wrong and some of it might not make much sense?
Ground Floor:
Wardrobe area:
We definitely want the wardrobe immediately near the entrance because I don’t want everyone walking through the hallway in their outdoor shoes or taking them off at the door only to leave them lying around.
Guest toilet:
This should definitely have a walk-in shower with a tiled, curbless base (no shower tray) and no glass enclosure.
Kitchen:
The kitchen should be directly connected to the living/dining area but separable. We’re not exactly sure how to achieve this yet. Currently, there are two options:
a) a glass sliding door system about 3 meters (10 feet) wide
b) a half wall up to countertop height, topped with a large fixed glass panel, and a regular clear-glass door as entry.
--> The goal is for the space to feel open but closeable. Any better design suggestions would be very welcome!
Living/Dining Room:
For the dining area, we are considering replacing the middle door to the outside with a large fixed window. We want the dining space exactly where the middle door currently is, and I think a big panoramic window would look nicer than a double door. The doors probably wouldn’t be used much anyway and tend to get in the way. I’ve also often seen couches placed in front of terrace doors, which looks odd to me.
Hallway:
We want a closed concrete staircase going upstairs. This allows us to create a pantry underneath the stairs.
Because the stairwell is completely internal, we want to install a Solatube or similar daylight system to bring natural light into the stairwell without windows.
Upper Floor:
We are a family of four and have decided against a large shared bathroom upstairs. Instead, we are planning a kids’ bathroom and an en suite master bathroom. Since we are not “wellness” types who need a spa-like bathroom, our bathrooms should be functional but not large.
We have designed the master suite as a small, separate unit so it can be used later as a more private guest area when the kids move out or if grandma moves in.
Basically, we wanted to have other rooms serve as noise buffers between our bedroom and the kids’ rooms. Not sure if this is really necessary, but thinking back to my own childhood and teenage years, my parents would certainly have lost their minds if they had to endure loud music playing next door all night.
The garage with storage room is currently planned but not yet finalized.
Many thanks in advance for your feedback.
Best of luck, Leini
Baseboards and plaster can add up to 8cm (3 inches), which reduces the overall length and width of the room.
Regarding the orientation: it is not really suitable for the house. In both plots, the sun would be on the side of the garage or entrance during the late afternoon hours. It might be possible to rotate the house, but honestly, it doesn’t match the design.
I have seen even worse copies of the villa around here, but reducing the size of the Jette house makes furnishing quite difficult, since the staircase always acts as a room divider. This might work with larger areas, but in smaller ones, you end up with a living space shaped like a U, with a maximum width of roughly 3.60m (12 feet). This leaves about a meter (3 feet) missing at the dining table and sofa area, while you have too much free space in the width of the house. Upstairs, I have so far noticed a chaotic layout of rooms, with 1 to 2 rooms being impossible to furnish (as can be seen now in the sleeping area).
So, try drawing in your furniture.
It is always hard to let go of the desired look of a house once a plot has been found. For a standard house, this might not be so critical, but a symmetrical “villa” should also be well oriented—although this often comes at the expense of room arrangements on the plot. I feel that the house is not particularly well suited for your plots.
Regarding the orientation: it is not really suitable for the house. In both plots, the sun would be on the side of the garage or entrance during the late afternoon hours. It might be possible to rotate the house, but honestly, it doesn’t match the design.
I have seen even worse copies of the villa around here, but reducing the size of the Jette house makes furnishing quite difficult, since the staircase always acts as a room divider. This might work with larger areas, but in smaller ones, you end up with a living space shaped like a U, with a maximum width of roughly 3.60m (12 feet). This leaves about a meter (3 feet) missing at the dining table and sofa area, while you have too much free space in the width of the house. Upstairs, I have so far noticed a chaotic layout of rooms, with 1 to 2 rooms being impossible to furnish (as can be seen now in the sleeping area).
So, try drawing in your furniture.
It is always hard to let go of the desired look of a house once a plot has been found. For a standard house, this might not be so critical, but a symmetrical “villa” should also be well oriented—although this often comes at the expense of room arrangements on the plot. I feel that the house is not particularly well suited for your plots.
Has everything already been said? I’ll still point out a few things I noticed:
- I find a lintel height of 2 m (6 ft 7 in) rather low
- Furnishing the children’s rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows will be difficult
- Drainage in the children’s bathroom is insufficient... at the very least, you’ll have a lowered ceiling in the living room
- What’s going on with the bedroom... that doesn’t fit – you might only have about 50 cm (20 inches) at the head of the bed
- A lot of wasted space, for example in the guest room due to questionable access routes
- I think some of the parapet height measurements got lost... the kitchen is shown as 3.5 ... I’m assuming it’s supposed to be 113.5, right?
- Furnishing the combined living and dining area will be challenging (to put it mildly)
Overall, it’s not really great... make it less “fancy” and more functional.
- I find a lintel height of 2 m (6 ft 7 in) rather low
- Furnishing the children’s rooms with floor-to-ceiling windows will be difficult
- Drainage in the children’s bathroom is insufficient... at the very least, you’ll have a lowered ceiling in the living room
- What’s going on with the bedroom... that doesn’t fit – you might only have about 50 cm (20 inches) at the head of the bed
- A lot of wasted space, for example in the guest room due to questionable access routes
- I think some of the parapet height measurements got lost... the kitchen is shown as 3.5 ... I’m assuming it’s supposed to be 113.5, right?
- Furnishing the combined living and dining area will be challenging (to put it mildly)
Overall, it’s not really great... make it less “fancy” and more functional.
L
Lein.Manor1 Aug 2015 22:04I specifically mentioned that this was a first draft, but I didn’t expect it to be torn apart like this.
Thank you very much for your feedback anyway!
Maybe we do need to go back to square one.
Basically, I don’t consider 800–900 sqm (8600–9700 sq ft) for a plot to be small.
Regarding the "downsizing" of the villa, it should be noted that compared to one layout, it is 20 sqm (215 sq ft) smaller overall, but compared to the other, it is actually 10 sqm (108 sq ft) larger.
If I had to furnish the house, it would probably be quite minimalist by general standards.
For example, the living room would have a couch and a table, the TV would be mounted on the wall, and there would only be one shelf about 80 cm (31 inches) wide.
We don’t have many cabinets and don’t want many.
We planned the storage/pantry room under the stairs specifically because we don’t want many kitchen cabinets.
The idea of the panoramic window came up so that we can place a dining table; we don’t need three exits to the garden all on one wall.
We haven’t even begun to address the windows and the interior door positions yet.
What’s so strange about the idea of the kitchen partition?
We don’t want to wall it off completely because that would make the kitchen feel very small and cramped.
As I said, it was a first draft.
There are many points that I/we have not considered so far, and I am very, very grateful for your responses just for that.
Good luck
LeiNi
Thank you very much for your feedback anyway!
Maybe we do need to go back to square one.
Basically, I don’t consider 800–900 sqm (8600–9700 sq ft) for a plot to be small.
Regarding the "downsizing" of the villa, it should be noted that compared to one layout, it is 20 sqm (215 sq ft) smaller overall, but compared to the other, it is actually 10 sqm (108 sq ft) larger.
If I had to furnish the house, it would probably be quite minimalist by general standards.
For example, the living room would have a couch and a table, the TV would be mounted on the wall, and there would only be one shelf about 80 cm (31 inches) wide.
We don’t have many cabinets and don’t want many.
We planned the storage/pantry room under the stairs specifically because we don’t want many kitchen cabinets.
The idea of the panoramic window came up so that we can place a dining table; we don’t need three exits to the garden all on one wall.
We haven’t even begun to address the windows and the interior door positions yet.
What’s so strange about the idea of the kitchen partition?
We don’t want to wall it off completely because that would make the kitchen feel very small and cramped.
As I said, it was a first draft.
There are many points that I/we have not considered so far, and I am very, very grateful for your responses just for that.
Good luck
LeiNi
It really helps to draw the furniture to scale on the floor plan. You’ll notice that your kitchen/dining area will already be quite tight, and you also want to put a sliding wall in there.
If the plot is that large, it would be good to have a site plan. Is the outer shape of 10x10 m (33x33 ft) already set in stone? Upstairs, you have quite a spacious layout with 2 children's rooms, a bedroom, a walk-in closet, a guest/work room, and 2 small bathrooms.
The guest/work room might also be accommodated in the attic itself, even with a low roof pitch. At least worth trying.
If the plot is that large, it would be good to have a site plan. Is the outer shape of 10x10 m (33x33 ft) already set in stone? Upstairs, you have quite a spacious layout with 2 children's rooms, a bedroom, a walk-in closet, a guest/work room, and 2 small bathrooms.
The guest/work room might also be accommodated in the attic itself, even with a low roof pitch. At least worth trying.
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