ᐅ Realistic Cost Estimate: Single-Family Home with Challenging Site Access

12sqm (129 sq ft) for a child's bedroom is not a disaster. However, if the room is under the roof, the usable space is noticeably reduced. In my opinion, if you already have the luxury of a new build with a guest room, a large walk-in closet, and two master bedrooms, then the children's rooms should ideally be around 15sqm (161 sq ft) after deducting the roof slopes. Otherwise, I think the priorities are simply misplaced.

Unfortunately, I can no longer edit... but keep in mind that children also grow. With the first partner, a double bed will be necessary, which requires more space than a crib. Draw possible furniture arrangements to scale in the plans.

@WilderSueden

Thank you for your constructive feedback! Increasing the size of the children's rooms is definitely on our wish list for the architectural designer. We tried it ourselves as amateurs, but it wasn’t possible without making the whole house larger (too large). That’s exactly why she is the professional, hopefully. So maybe she can manage to redistribute the space without increasing the overall size.

But the professional can only work with what they are given. For that, you need an honest space plan and clear priorities about where you are willing to save if, *surprise*, budget and wishes don’t align on the first try.

schmeissrein schrieb:

So now we have everything from tiny to ridiculously large, which makes it not so easy to get something productive out of all the input.

I haven’t really read it that way in the last pages.
Very small rooms and budget wishes that are a bit overambitious. There’s no contradiction in the posts there.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to plan for 2 kids’ bedrooms. No building couple planning for 2 children in the future will be criticized here. So I would plan with two rooms.
But if one room already fits for now, the second kids’ room can be used as an office or guest room. If a second child actually arrives, then guests simply have to make do without a proper double room.
The wish for a secondary bedroom on the ground floor for illness is also legitimate, but let’s be honest: a broken leg, a fractured toe or a groin injury can be easily managed on the sofa. I can’t think of a situation where I wanted a sick room during my four times being sick at home. I just made myself comfortable in the living room with Netflix and sent the kids to bed early.
Also, double beds in teenage rooms aren’t necessary: remember the times when a single 90cm (35 inches) bed was cozy enough for those first “nighttime closeness attempts.” And if a 90cm (35 inches) bed fits, a 100cm (39 inches) bed will fit, too. That’s a fair compromise for sharing a room with siblings, because you survived childhood that way.
However, I see a 10 square meter (108 square feet) walk-in closet as a real waste of space; you can do well with 5-6 square meters (54-65 square feet), including shoes, and instead enlarge the two kids’ rooms. In this case, you could subtract 1.5 square meters (16 square feet) due to the sloping roof, but that applies to the kids’ rooms too! And 10.5 square meters (113 square feet) for kids’ rooms is a bit stingy when you plan a 160 square meter (1722 square feet) house. Guests get better rooms.

Friends of ours once said: they would rather forgo expensive gables and not build the house straight but rotated/crosswise, so it looks more interesting and the garden design is more pleasing. They are right. It costs no extra money.

A couple in the neighborhood planned for 2 children but had none. Only after the pressure of building the house eased did they have 4 kids in quick succession. They divided up the large living room in the open-plan area to create a bedroom, now upstairs there are three kids’ rooms instead of 2 plus a bedroom, and the attic is being converted. They wouldn’t plan differently if they could. Also, no bathroom on the ground floor, just a toilet. It’s fine as it is because they are blessed with children. And they also have a dog, even without a shower on the ground floor.

What you are planning right now is, by the way, a 7-room house for 3 people – I guess that might open some eyes.
Just as an example: Heinz von Heiden’s house finder offers houses with 3 to 7 rooms – but those turn out to be two-family homes.

I would try to manage with a captain’s gable. That would probably be better placed on the south side. The two kids’ rooms would be there. The bedroom above the office/guest room on the ground floor, with the staircase on the north side. But make sure you create nice areas, for example, that the living room can be furnished well. The staircase won’t work well like that. And the hall closet is currently only good for silk scarves; there needs to be more space (ideally at least 60cm (24 inches) of linear closet space per person).
I think @hanghaus2023 has already optimized this quite well on the last pages.

Unfortunately, I haven’t read everything either, but wasn’t the budget somewhere around 500k including site development? If that’s correct, it will probably only be enough for 130 to 140 sqm (1400 to 1500 sq ft). The rest will be taken up by the road and other external landscaping. In my opinion, 7 rooms are not possible within 140 sqm (1500 sq ft).