ᐅ Floor Plan Optimization for a Single-Family Home with a Secondary Suite
Created on: 19 Jan 2026 10:26
D
DieHnnH
Hello everyone,
We are a couple (both 34 years old) looking to build our home in a rural area of Baden-Württemberg. Important preliminary information: no children planned, but a dog. A separate apartment (granny flat) is mandatory with at least 23sqm (250 sq ft).
We would appreciate your input to help us avoid making major mistakes.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 494sqm (5314 sq ft)
Slope: none
Site coverage ratio: 0.32
Edge building allowance: garage permitted
Number of parking spaces: 3
Number of stories: 2 full stories required
Roof style: gable roof with a pitch of 25–38°
Orientation: see plan
Additional requirement: separate apartment
Homeowners’ Requirements
Style: country house / modern Swedish style
Basement, floors: no basement, 2 full floors
Number of occupants, age: 2 adults (34), 1 planned dog, 1 person in separate apartment
Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor: 120sqm (1292 sq ft) for us plus at least 23sqm (250 sq ft) for the separate apartment
Office: home office, 1 person working fully from home
Guest stays per year: total about 5–15 nights
Open or closed layout: open
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with kitchen island or U-shape preferred
Number of dining seats: 4–6
Fireplace: desired for coziness, small in size, probably not really necessary
Garage, carport: carport plus 2 additional parking spaces
Kitchen garden, greenhouse: small greenhouse plus kitchen garden
Other wishes / special features / daily routine, also reasons why certain things should or shouldn’t be: the most important space to us is the kitchen and living room combined as an open area. We want it to be cozy, which is very important. The building plot faces east on the edge of the village, with no further development planned in that direction. We really like this view, but we would also like the terrace to face south.
In general, we want to make the best possible use of the remaining garden and are looking for ideas on how to place the house on the plot to maximize garden usability. We understand the garden won’t be very large.
We both have home-centered hobbies that require space: my husband plays drums, I play piano—space needed upstairs. I enjoy baking, he enjoys cooking—space needed in the kitchen. I like to read—books require space too. We both enjoy gardening.
House Design
Designed by: architect (BU)
What do you like especially and why?
- Layout of the open space and size of the kitchen
- Location of the separate apartment
- Additional space gained upstairs. We originally considered a single-story extension for the separate apartment, but the architect said it’s more expensive than enlarging the whole house. This way, we can keep the technical room small downstairs and move the utility room completely upstairs. We would swap room usage upstairs: bedroom → utility room in the northeast, office → bedroom (this also allows a nice built-in wardrobe niche).
What do you dislike and why?
- The separate apartment has no room for a closet
- Unsure if the size of the open space is sufficient
- The bathroom is very large—like a ballroom. We considered extending the hallway to create a small extra storage room. However, this would reduce western light in the bathroom.
- We don’t like the windows and terrace doors at all yet
- Carport location: needs to be rotated and, in our opinion, moved to the boundary
Cost estimate according to architect/planner: €600,000 including secondary construction costs
Tasks we will do ourselves: roofing, purchase and installation of photovoltaic system & battery, wall and ceiling boarding, filling, painting, flooring, bathrooms
Preferred heating system: air-water heat pump with underfloor heating
If you have to give up some details / expansions
- Can give up: fireplace, so much space upstairs
- Cannot give up: separate apartment, large kitchen
Why has the design turned out this way?
Because this reflects our wishes, the separate apartment, and respects the development plan. We tried ourselves to design a squarer house to create space on the south side, but that didn’t work with the separate apartment.
We’re happy for you to roast the floor plan and welcome any improvement suggestions—thanks in advance.
Circled in green and oriented to north.
Sunny regards
We are a couple (both 34 years old) looking to build our home in a rural area of Baden-Württemberg. Important preliminary information: no children planned, but a dog. A separate apartment (granny flat) is mandatory with at least 23sqm (250 sq ft).
We would appreciate your input to help us avoid making major mistakes.
Development Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 494sqm (5314 sq ft)
Slope: none
Site coverage ratio: 0.32
Edge building allowance: garage permitted
Number of parking spaces: 3
Number of stories: 2 full stories required
Roof style: gable roof with a pitch of 25–38°
Orientation: see plan
Additional requirement: separate apartment
Homeowners’ Requirements
Style: country house / modern Swedish style
Basement, floors: no basement, 2 full floors
Number of occupants, age: 2 adults (34), 1 planned dog, 1 person in separate apartment
Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor: 120sqm (1292 sq ft) for us plus at least 23sqm (250 sq ft) for the separate apartment
Office: home office, 1 person working fully from home
Guest stays per year: total about 5–15 nights
Open or closed layout: open
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with kitchen island or U-shape preferred
Number of dining seats: 4–6
Fireplace: desired for coziness, small in size, probably not really necessary
Garage, carport: carport plus 2 additional parking spaces
Kitchen garden, greenhouse: small greenhouse plus kitchen garden
Other wishes / special features / daily routine, also reasons why certain things should or shouldn’t be: the most important space to us is the kitchen and living room combined as an open area. We want it to be cozy, which is very important. The building plot faces east on the edge of the village, with no further development planned in that direction. We really like this view, but we would also like the terrace to face south.
In general, we want to make the best possible use of the remaining garden and are looking for ideas on how to place the house on the plot to maximize garden usability. We understand the garden won’t be very large.
We both have home-centered hobbies that require space: my husband plays drums, I play piano—space needed upstairs. I enjoy baking, he enjoys cooking—space needed in the kitchen. I like to read—books require space too. We both enjoy gardening.
House Design
Designed by: architect (BU)
What do you like especially and why?
- Layout of the open space and size of the kitchen
- Location of the separate apartment
- Additional space gained upstairs. We originally considered a single-story extension for the separate apartment, but the architect said it’s more expensive than enlarging the whole house. This way, we can keep the technical room small downstairs and move the utility room completely upstairs. We would swap room usage upstairs: bedroom → utility room in the northeast, office → bedroom (this also allows a nice built-in wardrobe niche).
What do you dislike and why?
- The separate apartment has no room for a closet
- Unsure if the size of the open space is sufficient
- The bathroom is very large—like a ballroom. We considered extending the hallway to create a small extra storage room. However, this would reduce western light in the bathroom.
- We don’t like the windows and terrace doors at all yet
- Carport location: needs to be rotated and, in our opinion, moved to the boundary
Cost estimate according to architect/planner: €600,000 including secondary construction costs
Tasks we will do ourselves: roofing, purchase and installation of photovoltaic system & battery, wall and ceiling boarding, filling, painting, flooring, bathrooms
Preferred heating system: air-water heat pump with underfloor heating
If you have to give up some details / expansions
- Can give up: fireplace, so much space upstairs
- Cannot give up: separate apartment, large kitchen
Why has the design turned out this way?
Because this reflects our wishes, the separate apartment, and respects the development plan. We tried ourselves to design a squarer house to create space on the south side, but that didn’t work with the separate apartment.
We’re happy for you to roast the floor plan and welcome any improvement suggestions—thanks in advance.
Circled in green and oriented to north.
Sunny regards
After the head of the building department confirmed to me again that we can proceed with the planning without the granny flat, here are new drafts.
Yes, among others, once more from the same planner/company (his last chance).
The street is to the southwest
Knee wall height is 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in)
We would change the position on the plot and push the house more toward the back, toward the northeast, so that there is a bit more space on the southwest side.
What we like about it:
- Orientation/layout of the rooms: The open-plan living area still gets some southwest sun but remains open to the natural surroundings in the northeast; bedroom faces northeast.
- Room sizes: The open-plan room now has a nice size; the other rooms also fit well regarding dimensions.
- Sofa orientation is good. This way, a projector or TV can easily be placed against the north wall.
- Wide hallway: this allows space for a small coat closet between the WC and the utility room, and drawers can be installed under the stairs, where the storage room is no longer really usable due to low ceiling height.
- The feel when entering, with the wide hallway, double doors leading to the living room, and straight ahead a window/door opening to the outdoor area.
- The dressing niche.
What we are unsure about:
- Bathroom overall. The shower is built into the knee wall area. We've seen photos of such setups, which look nice, but the shower is quite dark.
- Bedroom. Ideally, we want to look out toward the northeast because a) that’s where the sun rises, and b) it feels odd having the bed positioned the other way around.
- The house is now somewhat larger overall than we originally wanted. We cannot make it smaller because that would reduce the utility room, which is already quite small.
- We originally wanted a shower in the downstairs WC but have accepted that this won’t work out. What are your experiences? Do you regret this later?
- Both the WC and the staircase start right at the front door. This isn’t ideal, but no one has offered us an alternative solution, and we haven’t found one ourselves. If you have ideas, please share 🙂
- The knee wall doesn’t bother us; we actually like it. However, there is a window issue on the upper floor, as we were told that with a 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) knee wall, standard opening windows don’t work well on the southwest and northeast sides. Have you had any experience or know of other solutions (besides roof windows)?
I have initially uploaded this draft without additional furniture because it already shows all measurements. If desired, I can also upload my version with all furniture included.
What do you think of the draft overall? As always, we are open to constructive criticism.
Is something missing? Please let me know!
Ground floor
Upper floor
Thank you all in advance.
Yes, among others, once more from the same planner/company (his last chance).
The street is to the southwest
Knee wall height is 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in)
We would change the position on the plot and push the house more toward the back, toward the northeast, so that there is a bit more space on the southwest side.
What we like about it:
- Orientation/layout of the rooms: The open-plan living area still gets some southwest sun but remains open to the natural surroundings in the northeast; bedroom faces northeast.
- Room sizes: The open-plan room now has a nice size; the other rooms also fit well regarding dimensions.
- Sofa orientation is good. This way, a projector or TV can easily be placed against the north wall.
- Wide hallway: this allows space for a small coat closet between the WC and the utility room, and drawers can be installed under the stairs, where the storage room is no longer really usable due to low ceiling height.
- The feel when entering, with the wide hallway, double doors leading to the living room, and straight ahead a window/door opening to the outdoor area.
- The dressing niche.
What we are unsure about:
- Bathroom overall. The shower is built into the knee wall area. We've seen photos of such setups, which look nice, but the shower is quite dark.
- Bedroom. Ideally, we want to look out toward the northeast because a) that’s where the sun rises, and b) it feels odd having the bed positioned the other way around.
- The house is now somewhat larger overall than we originally wanted. We cannot make it smaller because that would reduce the utility room, which is already quite small.
- We originally wanted a shower in the downstairs WC but have accepted that this won’t work out. What are your experiences? Do you regret this later?
- Both the WC and the staircase start right at the front door. This isn’t ideal, but no one has offered us an alternative solution, and we haven’t found one ourselves. If you have ideas, please share 🙂
- The knee wall doesn’t bother us; we actually like it. However, there is a window issue on the upper floor, as we were told that with a 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) knee wall, standard opening windows don’t work well on the southwest and northeast sides. Have you had any experience or know of other solutions (besides roof windows)?
I have initially uploaded this draft without additional furniture because it already shows all measurements. If desired, I can also upload my version with all furniture included.
What do you think of the draft overall? As always, we are open to constructive criticism.
Is something missing? Please let me know!
Ground floor
Upper floor
Thank you all in advance.
Regarding the ground floor shower... The most expensive phrase in housebuilding is "Just in case...".
You are probably concerned about age.
Let me say something unusual: You don’t need to shower every day in retirement. Many do so during working life, after sports, or out of habit. From a dermatological and health perspective, showering twice a week is sufficient, and most older people do a quick wash daily and shower every two days. In nursing homes, showers are often even less frequent!
So every two days. If you can’t make it to the upper floor every two days in your own home, then you probably won’t be able to do gardening, snow shoveling, cleaning, or repairs yourself either. At that point, you have to be honest and consider whether a single-family house of that size is still convenient.
And if you’re honest: you would actually need to move or at least renovate and downsize.
And that’s something you can decide if the time comes. If care is needed, there are also corresponding subsidies, so it’s manageable, especially if your finances have not always been stretched to the limit throughout life.
Either way, you won’t miss a small shower on the ground floor on 99% of days.
You are probably concerned about age.
Let me say something unusual: You don’t need to shower every day in retirement. Many do so during working life, after sports, or out of habit. From a dermatological and health perspective, showering twice a week is sufficient, and most older people do a quick wash daily and shower every two days. In nursing homes, showers are often even less frequent!
So every two days. If you can’t make it to the upper floor every two days in your own home, then you probably won’t be able to do gardening, snow shoveling, cleaning, or repairs yourself either. At that point, you have to be honest and consider whether a single-family house of that size is still convenient.
And if you’re honest: you would actually need to move or at least renovate and downsize.
And that’s something you can decide if the time comes. If care is needed, there are also corresponding subsidies, so it’s manageable, especially if your finances have not always been stretched to the limit throughout life.
Either way, you won’t miss a small shower on the ground floor on 99% of days.
This poorly designed bathroom starts the day off on the wrong foot. The two secondary roofs also do no favors for the planner: the one above the front door extends beyond the building boundary, and the one over the terrace would be too costly for me—I would rather build it, for example, as a gable roof.
“The house is now overall MORE EXPENSIVE than we actually wanted”—who is paying for that?
Nowhere does it say that the utility room has to be on the ground floor; this only concerns the house penetrations. My two posts about building for aging address this issue. In "How the knee wall height affects window placement in the attic," the consequences of the knee wall height on window arrangement are discussed. Facade windows on the eave side are definitely possible here but would be relatively low because a desire for roller shutters would clash with the ring beam in that area. A 1.7m (5 ft 7 in) knee wall carries the risk in at least two-thirds of the federal states (in Germany) of creating a full story. If you are allowed to build two stories, I would raise the roof height for a simpler roof design (possibly fully or partially open ridge); if needed, use a clipped gable roof because of the gable-side distances.
Ah, always these planners (planning without knowledge), sigh!
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
DieHnnH schrieb:
The house is now overall a bit larger than we originally wanted. We can't manage to make it smaller because that always comes at the expense of the utility room, which is already not very spacious. [...] The knee wall doesn’t bother us at all; we actually like it. However, this causes a window issue in the upper floor because we were told that with a 1.7m (5 ft 7 in) knee wall, standard opening windows won’t work on the southwest and northeast sides.
“The house is now overall MORE EXPENSIVE than we actually wanted”—who is paying for that?
Nowhere does it say that the utility room has to be on the ground floor; this only concerns the house penetrations. My two posts about building for aging address this issue. In "How the knee wall height affects window placement in the attic," the consequences of the knee wall height on window arrangement are discussed. Facade windows on the eave side are definitely possible here but would be relatively low because a desire for roller shutters would clash with the ring beam in that area. A 1.7m (5 ft 7 in) knee wall carries the risk in at least two-thirds of the federal states (in Germany) of creating a full story. If you are allowed to build two stories, I would raise the roof height for a simpler roof design (possibly fully or partially open ridge); if needed, use a clipped gable roof because of the gable-side distances.
Ah, always these planners (planning without knowledge), sigh!
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
11ant schrieb:
Starting the day with this messed up bathroom is a bad start. Yes, we agree. How can it be improved?
11ant schrieb:
The two adjacent roofs Only the front one at the entrance is relevant for us, which also makes sense if the house is moved further back. We did not request this large terrace roof, so it is irrelevant since it will not be implemented.
11ant schrieb:
Nowhere does it say that the technical room must be on the ground floor, One option we considered was to partially move the technical equipment to the attic.
11ant schrieb:
If you are allowed to build two stories We HAVE to build two stories, so the 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) knee wall is already at the lower limit. Furthermore, a gable roof with a pitch of 25–38° (25–38°) is mandatory.
We were hoping to save some costs with the 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) knee wall.
Schmirgel schrieb:
You don’t have to shower every day in retirement. It’s probably not about age, it’s about the dog.
I’ll say it right away: I think the upstairs layout is a mess.
At the entrance, you have to walk in front of the closet; the bathroom access upstairs isn’t good, and the shower is inconveniently placed,
corridor like a cage…
Yes, you can live with it, but why not make it better from the start?
Fitting three rooms into an 850 cm (28 feet) wide attic is a thankless task and doesn’t have to be that way. The long staircase cuts off the rooms on the left side of the attic and makes the upper rooms too narrow.
A quick & dirty layout would be somewhat better to increase the usability of the rooms.
However, I don’t understand why two people need such a complicated layout. One room could be smaller upstairs if you put the wardrobes in the guest room as well. I don’t know a nice walk-in closet based on a corridor-like space with closets opposite each other: no space in front of the closets, just a narrow passage, and anyone wanting to get dressed has to go out again because there’s no room to move.
And since it’s just the two of you, you probably don’t even need a door for that room, which will most likely be open anyway.
Quick & Dirty, nothing designed, just structured.
DieHnnH schrieb:
The knee wall doesn’t bother us at all, we actually like it. However, it causes a window issue upstairs because we were told that with a 1.7 m (5.6 ft) knee wall, normally opening windows don’t work on the southwest and northeast sides. Do you have experience with any other solutions besides roof windows? I already said at the beginning of this thread: it’s neither fish nor fowl. Other solutions would be more expensive dormers or simply a triple-gable house. Don’t get me wrong: I like higher knee walls. But then I would plan the house accordingly. The shower under 170 cm (5 ft 7 in) is awkward, hence the knee wall reduction. But if you “actually” want to see the sunrise, then you should plan for that properly. That said, who really wants to wake up at half past three just to watch the sunrise? The same applies to winter: then you’re already at work or standing in the kitchen with your coffee when the sun rises.
If you want to keep the 170 cm (5 ft 7 in) sand-lime brick knee wall because the builder offers it as standard, I would reduce the freezer room downstairs by the size of the dog shower and a built-in closet and move the wardrobe closets into the guest room upstairs. That way, you can create a nice utility room in the attic.
I also wouldn’t plan expensive closets or heavy drawers under the stairs but leave that storage space as a simple storage area. You can also easily plan a built-in closet near the door area. We have exactly that: opposite the door are shoes stacked up stair-like, and under the stairs is a clothes rail. This way, instead of a bulky closet in the hallway, you can have a more appealing coat rack.
ypg schrieb:
Quick & dirty, this layout would be slightly better for maximizing the usable space of the rooms Quick & dirty, the original poster should first clarify whether a full-height upper floor with straight walls ("town villa") is possible here, or if the planning is limited to a single-story design. I think this decision mainly depends on the knee wall height, whether it is around 170 cm (67 inches) or 100%.
Sorry – once again, I got tricked by the fact that currently you can jump to the very latest posts, but not directly to the first unread one :-(
https://www.instagram.com/11antgmxde/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/bauen-jetzt/
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