ᐅ Floor Plan – House with a Separate Apartment

Now the upper floor. Let’s get started!

To E.Curb – I’m not expecting praise or anything like that, but rather (constructive) criticism, which is often quite harsh in forums.

Hi, I didn’t manage to fully understand your floor plan in the short time, but as a tip, I recommend measuring your existing furniture to get a feel for how big pieces actually are... for example, a wardrobe with open and closed doors, and how much space you need in front of it.

Also very important is the space requirement in the bathroom... your toilet in the bedroom is like a narrow corridor—about 3 meters (10 feet) long and one meter (3 feet) wide. It can work, but it’s quite tight, and if someone needs a walking aid (crutch), it will be too cramped.
In front of the bed, you generally need around 75 cm (30 inches) to get up comfortably. Less is possible but not ideal.
Door swings should always start at least 10 cm (4 inches) away from the corner, and doors should always open into the room, not into the hallway.

Basically, you should look into the architectural design principles from Neufert. There you will find almost everything dimensioned—from a fork to conference centers, bathrooms, bedrooms, children’s rooms, kitchens, and so on. This can help you create your own plan with correct measurements.
Unfortunately, dimensions are crucial—for example, whether you have 1.00 m (3 feet 3 inches) or 1.20 m (4 feet), that’s a huge difference.

You can usually find the design guidelines in bookstores.

If you take the planning into your own hands, you have a significant effort ahead, but since you already have CAD software, you are on the right track.

Good luck!

General tip: simplify your building layout. Try to keep the floor plan as simple as possible and avoid, if you can, angled walls—they tend to look awkward and ruin the room’s shape.

Hello,

soleifly schrieb:
I still want to try it myself.

I can understand that; most homeowners feel the same.

However, you should keep in mind that if a trained planner takes on your construction project, many of your original ideas might not remain intact. Sometimes an idea—such as when only the wall thicknesses have been adjusted—doesn’t look as good anymore.

Kind regards

Furthermore, if you already own a plot of land, you should take a close look at the development plan for the respective area, which includes regulations such as:

Floor area ratio / plot ratio – how large the building footprint or the total floor area can be in relation to the plot size. For example, a 400m² (4,306 sq ft) plot with a floor area ratio of 0.2 means a building footprint of 80m² (861 sq ft), which corresponds to house exterior dimensions of 8 x 10 m (26 x 33 ft)...

Number of full stories – what defines a full story depends on the state or region where you want to build and can usually be found in the regional building code. Generally, it is around 0.75 of the ground floor area, or 2/3, always measured from the exterior dimensions or, in the attic, at the intersection line with a height of 2.30 m (7.5 ft) at the outer edge of the roof covering… see the relevant section drawing for details…

As well as roof shape, colors, and design requirements.

Anything not specified in the development plan in writing or drawings is regulated by the land use ordinance (Baunutzungsverordnung), which is available from the German publishing house dtv.

If the building includes a secondary apartment or granny flat, you should also obtain the parking regulations (Stellplatzverordnung) of the respective city, which specify how many parking spaces you must provide on your plot. Otherwise, it could lead to unpleasant surprises.

Regarding wall thickness – for the upper floor, assume 11.5 cm (4.5 inches) wall thickness, and usually the same for the ground floor, except for the partition wall between the living room and the staircase, which should be 17.5 cm (7 inches). This could also apply to walls between the guest WC and utility room. On the side of the secondary apartment, the living room partition wall, which runs diagonally around the corner, should also be 17.5 cm (7 inches) thick as these walls support the ceilings. However, I would strongly suggest simplifying the design, eliminating the angled walls, running the wall between the bathroom and bedroom straight up to provide the bedroom with more space. Otherwise, the rest of the space would be wasted.

Oh, and the utility room (HAR / Hauswirtschaftsraum) should have a floor area of about 8 m² (86 sq ft), preferably more, to accommodate the heating system and house connections. It should not be awkwardly shaped either.

Perlenmann schrieb:
Do you really need 3!!! toilets on the upper floor? Or is one of them a washing machine?

It's a bidet, so it's not that bad.

I think the principle of open-plan living is fundamentally good, and the idea of continuing it on the upper floor can be exciting... however, you would need to revise the upper floor again.