Hello friends,
as the thread title suggests, we plan to start building our house in 2016 and will begin planning with the architect in mid to late January.
The plot has already been purchased.
Development plan/restrictions: no development plan
- Plot size: 30m * 32m / 960sqm (31ft * 33ft / 10,333 sqft), access possible from south or west since it is a corner plot, to the east a 10m (33ft) wide buffer strip with meadow behind. To the north, the neighboring plot.
- Slope: none
- Site occupancy index (floor area ratio): 0.3
- Number of floors: 2 full floors, no basement
- Roof shape: "modern" gable roof with 17°-20° pitch (desired)
- Style: modern, white house, anthracite-colored windows with external blinds on the ground floor
- Orientation: ridge east/west
- Other requirements: a cistern of at least 3000L (790 gallons) required due to stormwater regulations
- Number of occupants: currently 2 people (29/27); children planned: 1-2
- Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor: spacious open living-dining area on the ground floor with a "separable" kitchen
- Office: office/fitness/guest room
- Overnight guests per year: currently 4, possibly more in the future
- Open architecture: high ground floor with ceiling height of 2.65-2.75m (8.7-9 ft)
- Open kitchen with island: kitchen island desired
- Number of dining seats: 8 people, large dining table
- Fireplace: as a "room divider" between dining and living areas
- Music/home theater wall: "home theater-capable living room," tensioned motorized screen (3.4m (11 ft) wide) + projector, 7.1 Dolby Surround (planned upgrade to Dolby Atmos with ceiling speakers later)
- Balcony/roof terrace: no balconies, terrace on the south side
- Garage/carport: double garage with storage space
House design
Who is responsible for the planning:
- Architect: from January onwards
- DIY with Sweet Home 3D (SH3D)
What is disliked: long hallways, uncertain how long the staircase needs to be with ceiling height of 2.65/2.75m (8.7/9 ft), currently estimated worst case length of 4.6m (15 ft).
Price estimate according to architect/planner: none yet. My estimate: with own work (bathroom/tiles/flooring/paving/painting) about 310,000€
Personal price limit for the house including fixtures: 350,000€
Preferred heating technology: gas boiler with solar system
If you had to give up something, which details/features could you do without?
- Could do without: upper floor can be smaller; kids’ rooms of 17sqm (183 sqft) would be sufficient. I’m not sure which is cheaper: 1) a bay window on the ground floor to connect to the large living-dining area or 2) as in the current sketch.
The double garage could also be a normal garage with a carport.
- Cannot do without: large living room with a minimum 4.2m (14 ft) wide wall opposite the couch. I wanted to place the heating system between the house and garage on the west side.
I would appreciate your feedback.
Many thanks! Greetings from Bavaria
as the thread title suggests, we plan to start building our house in 2016 and will begin planning with the architect in mid to late January.
The plot has already been purchased.
Development plan/restrictions: no development plan
- Plot size: 30m * 32m / 960sqm (31ft * 33ft / 10,333 sqft), access possible from south or west since it is a corner plot, to the east a 10m (33ft) wide buffer strip with meadow behind. To the north, the neighboring plot.
- Slope: none
- Site occupancy index (floor area ratio): 0.3
- Number of floors: 2 full floors, no basement
- Roof shape: "modern" gable roof with 17°-20° pitch (desired)
- Style: modern, white house, anthracite-colored windows with external blinds on the ground floor
- Orientation: ridge east/west
- Other requirements: a cistern of at least 3000L (790 gallons) required due to stormwater regulations
- Number of occupants: currently 2 people (29/27); children planned: 1-2
- Space requirements on ground floor and upper floor: spacious open living-dining area on the ground floor with a "separable" kitchen
- Office: office/fitness/guest room
- Overnight guests per year: currently 4, possibly more in the future
- Open architecture: high ground floor with ceiling height of 2.65-2.75m (8.7-9 ft)
- Open kitchen with island: kitchen island desired
- Number of dining seats: 8 people, large dining table
- Fireplace: as a "room divider" between dining and living areas
- Music/home theater wall: "home theater-capable living room," tensioned motorized screen (3.4m (11 ft) wide) + projector, 7.1 Dolby Surround (planned upgrade to Dolby Atmos with ceiling speakers later)
- Balcony/roof terrace: no balconies, terrace on the south side
- Garage/carport: double garage with storage space
House design
Who is responsible for the planning:
- Architect: from January onwards
- DIY with Sweet Home 3D (SH3D)
What is disliked: long hallways, uncertain how long the staircase needs to be with ceiling height of 2.65/2.75m (8.7/9 ft), currently estimated worst case length of 4.6m (15 ft).
Price estimate according to architect/planner: none yet. My estimate: with own work (bathroom/tiles/flooring/paving/painting) about 310,000€
Personal price limit for the house including fixtures: 350,000€
Preferred heating technology: gas boiler with solar system
If you had to give up something, which details/features could you do without?
- Could do without: upper floor can be smaller; kids’ rooms of 17sqm (183 sqft) would be sufficient. I’m not sure which is cheaper: 1) a bay window on the ground floor to connect to the large living-dining area or 2) as in the current sketch.
The double garage could also be a normal garage with a carport.
- Cannot do without: large living room with a minimum 4.2m (14 ft) wide wall opposite the couch. I wanted to place the heating system between the house and garage on the west side.
I would appreciate your feedback.
Many thanks! Greetings from Bavaria
*
*Hausbau*18 Dec 2015 12:04andimann schrieb:
Hi,
4.2 m (13.8 feet) multimedia wall? ......
Andreas Hi Andreas,
at the moment, I have a front wall that is 4.8 m (15.7 feet). I don’t have just an ordinary TV unit like from Ikea, but a HiVi rack plus the TV and a projector screen above it (all very tidy). The speakers need space to really “unfold” their sound.
Watching TV, or better said, low-quality TV is not really for me.
My passion is cinema movies.
I like your floor plan, especially the detail with the pantry and the slanted wall! Finally, a proper size for the living area. We spend about 90% of our time in the living and dining room, so I don’t want to save space there.
Our driveway can be accessed from the south or west, although the southern driveway would be longer (which doesn’t bother me). Are you building most likely with a basement, or where do you plan to place your utility room?
-Terrace on the south and east side (there’s just lawn there)
-Entrance from the west, north would also be possible if the driveway is from the west
You also have a bay window of 0.75 m (2.5 feet) that enlarges the living room... I’m thinking of trying something like that in my plan too.
@behalelja,
are you referring to my floor plan or the OP’s? Our living room is “only” 40.9 sqm (440 sq ft); the numbers might be a bit hard to read, it almost looks like 49.9 sqm (537 sq ft). Of course, 50 sqm (538 sq ft) would be great, but then the extension would have been too large, we would have had to use a flat roof there, which would have made the front structure very big and thus would have “overpower” the house visually, and so on. Everything is always interconnected.
Move a wall up in the top left corner and suddenly you have to reposition the windows down on the bottom right...
The pantry is an absolute must for us. On one hand, you can store more stuff in there than you could ever fit in your kitchen, and on the other hand, I always wonder with floor plans without a pantry or storage room: Where on earth do they put a case of water? The vacuum cleaner? Containers for old newspapers?
The kitchen won’t be a straight-line kitchen like drawn, but rather more L-shaped.
And we just find 45° walls stylish; we have them currently, too, and they sometimes allow for very space-saving solutions. But as I said, it’s all a matter of personal taste!
But I didn’t want to open our floor plan up for discussion here anyway (it’s already too late for changes; the building permit / planning permission documents will be on my desk in 2 hours!)—I just wanted to give the OP some ideas.
Best regards,
Andreas
are you referring to my floor plan or the OP’s? Our living room is “only” 40.9 sqm (440 sq ft); the numbers might be a bit hard to read, it almost looks like 49.9 sqm (537 sq ft). Of course, 50 sqm (538 sq ft) would be great, but then the extension would have been too large, we would have had to use a flat roof there, which would have made the front structure very big and thus would have “overpower” the house visually, and so on. Everything is always interconnected.
Move a wall up in the top left corner and suddenly you have to reposition the windows down on the bottom right...
The pantry is an absolute must for us. On one hand, you can store more stuff in there than you could ever fit in your kitchen, and on the other hand, I always wonder with floor plans without a pantry or storage room: Where on earth do they put a case of water? The vacuum cleaner? Containers for old newspapers?
The kitchen won’t be a straight-line kitchen like drawn, but rather more L-shaped.
And we just find 45° walls stylish; we have them currently, too, and they sometimes allow for very space-saving solutions. But as I said, it’s all a matter of personal taste!
But I didn’t want to open our floor plan up for discussion here anyway (it’s already too late for changes; the building permit / planning permission documents will be on my desk in 2 hours!)—I just wanted to give the OP some ideas.
Best regards,
Andreas
*Hausbau* schrieb:
House Design
Who created the plans:
- Architect: available starting January
- Do-it-Yourself with SH3D I also spent weeks working on it and put our ideas and requirements into a plan.
Our architect didn’t want to see the plans in advance. What was important to her was a summary of the requirements for the floors and rooms.
We then described the floors. For our basement level, it looked approximately like this:
Basement Level:
· Separate apartment for parents-in-law, about 75 sqm (800 sqft) of living space
o Storage room, guest toilet, bathroom, bedroom, open kitchen-dining-living area
o Bathroom practical, standard size
o Storage room and guest toilet (without shower) practical
o Bedroom about 16 sqm (4 x 4 meters / 13 x 13 feet), enough space for bed and large wardrobe, also enough room for father-in-law to access the bed with a wheelchair if needed
o Kitchen with sufficient space for appliances and cupboards, currently about 4 meters (13 feet) of cabinet frontage
· Other usable space
o Large utility room to be shared, with washing machine, dryer, fridge-freezer, sink, ironing area, etc.
o Home technology and service room according to technical requirements and available space
Our architect then contributed some ideas that we liked immediately. In part, I also recognized my own plans and some of the issues I had considered.
So don’t spend too much time on your own detailed plans. Agree first on the overall concept: what and how (floors, rooms, sizes, etc.) you want to build.
Leave the rest to your architect to create the first draft, based on your specifications and, of course, taking into account the site conditions and local building permit / planning permission requirements.
Hi Homebuilding community,
Watching movies on a 4 m (13 ft) screen sounds really great! I had considered something like that too, but so far dismissed it because we just don’t have enough time. With a child, that kind of thing quickly takes a backseat…
As mentioned above, we have "only" 41 sqm (440 sq ft) of living room. But I think a lot depends on the effect of light, so we have a lot of window area. A bright 40 sqm (430 sq ft) feels more comfortable than a dark 60 sqm (650 sq ft).
Additionally, we have a separate kitchen, which brings the total to a good 55 sqm (590 sq ft). Compared to other open floor plans that squeeze kitchen, dining, and living areas into 45 sqm (480 sq ft), this is quite reasonable.
We’ve also seen many houses with larger living rooms. Beyond a certain size, this can become problematic. Starting from about 35 to 40 sqm (375 to 430 sq ft), we found the standard ceiling height of just under 2.5 m (8 ft) to feel oppressive, so we increased it to 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in). You’re planning to do the same. You really have to with the sizes you’re looking at. Also, very large living rooms tend to end up either as long narrow spaces or huge squares with a dark corner because it’s far from the windows. At some point, it can start to feel like a train station hall. We wanted to avoid that with the angled corner.
And yes, we are building with a basement. The utility room and office are located downstairs.
With your plot size, you could afford to work with an extension and basically have your basement partly above ground. Would that really be cheaper? Our basement, around 95 sqm (1020 sq ft), will realistically cost somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 euros, so about 600 euros per sqm. Can you really get an extension for 600 euros per sqm?
Best regards,
Andreas
Watching movies on a 4 m (13 ft) screen sounds really great! I had considered something like that too, but so far dismissed it because we just don’t have enough time. With a child, that kind of thing quickly takes a backseat…
As mentioned above, we have "only" 41 sqm (440 sq ft) of living room. But I think a lot depends on the effect of light, so we have a lot of window area. A bright 40 sqm (430 sq ft) feels more comfortable than a dark 60 sqm (650 sq ft).
Additionally, we have a separate kitchen, which brings the total to a good 55 sqm (590 sq ft). Compared to other open floor plans that squeeze kitchen, dining, and living areas into 45 sqm (480 sq ft), this is quite reasonable.
We’ve also seen many houses with larger living rooms. Beyond a certain size, this can become problematic. Starting from about 35 to 40 sqm (375 to 430 sq ft), we found the standard ceiling height of just under 2.5 m (8 ft) to feel oppressive, so we increased it to 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in). You’re planning to do the same. You really have to with the sizes you’re looking at. Also, very large living rooms tend to end up either as long narrow spaces or huge squares with a dark corner because it’s far from the windows. At some point, it can start to feel like a train station hall. We wanted to avoid that with the angled corner.
And yes, we are building with a basement. The utility room and office are located downstairs.
With your plot size, you could afford to work with an extension and basically have your basement partly above ground. Would that really be cheaper? Our basement, around 95 sqm (1020 sq ft), will realistically cost somewhere between 50,000 and 70,000 euros, so about 600 euros per sqm. Can you really get an extension for 600 euros per sqm?
Best regards,
Andreas
S
Steffen8018 Dec 2015 13:01We are building a 65m² (700 sq ft) living room with a ceiling height of 2.75m (9 ft). Our architect mentioned that for this size, the height should not be less than 2.70m (8 ft 10 in).
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