Hello everyone,
After following this forum for what feels like forever, I finally have to “lay all my cards on the table.” Some time ago, we bought a plot of land in rural Lower Saxony right next to our current apartment, and now we want to slowly but surely start the house building process.
I’ve filled out the questionnaire as much as possible. For roof style, number of floors, building setback lines, etc., I only have information from an old preliminary building inquiry made by the previous owner of the land. However, a lot has changed since then (several houses with two full floors, etc.), so I can well imagine that two full floors won’t be a problem.
I’ve attached the floor plans for the ground floor (GF) and upper floor (UF), as well as a relevant excerpt from Google Maps. The two floor plans are not oriented to north, so I added a north arrow there. The Google Maps image is oriented north. The red frame roughly marks the property. The small red box on the street marks the lowered curb for the driveway access. The larger red box roughly indicates the area where the house including the carport is planned to be located. I hope this is enough for now?
Zoning Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 1978 sqm (about 0.49 acres)
Slope: No
Building setback lines and building boundaries: 6.0 and 19.0 m (about 20 and 62 feet) from the street-side property boundary (still being clarified, a lot has changed recently)
Number of floors: 1.5 or 2 (still being clarified, a lot has changed recently)
Roof style: Gable roof
Homeowners’ Requirements
Style, roof shape, building type: Gable roof
Basement, floors: No basement, 1.5 or 2 floors
Number of residents, ages: 4 people (33, 32, 5, 2 years old)
Room requirements on GF, UF:
GF: Kitchen with dining area, living room (can be separated), office, guest bathroom with shower, utility room, small storage space
UF: 2 children’s bedrooms, bathroom, storage room, master bedroom
Office: Family use or home office? Home office
Number of overnight guests per year: Negligible
Open or closed architecture: rather closed
Conservative or modern style: a “middle ground”
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with island, living room can be separated
Number of dining seats: 6 permanently
Fireplace: No
Music/stereo wall: No
Balcony, roof terrace: No
Garage, carport: Carport for one car and possibly a simple parking space in front of the house (cars are for us purely practical items)
Kitchen garden, greenhouse: Unclear
Other: The kitchen island is intentionally only 1 meter (39 inches) deep. This seems like a comfortable depth for us since both of us can easily reach the far end (we’re both not very tall, about 170 cm (5’7”), and we tested by placing a 1-meter-wide wooden board on our current countertop). A nice side effect is that this frees up more space for the dining table. Overall, we still plan to discuss the kitchen layout further in the other forum.
House Design
Who designed the plan: Do-it-yourself with the probably usual approach (we looked at many floor plans from friends and prefab house providers)
What do you like most and why? We’re quite happy with the design. We really like the sliding door in the dining area and the large window in the living room because of the direct connection between garden and indoors. The sliding door between living and dining rooms allows retreat to the living room when guests are over (it’s not a big deal that you still have to walk through the dining area). The staircase should be separated from the living space but not located in a direct dirt/splash zone. The children’s rooms are sufficiently large and have south-facing windows overlooking the garden.
What do you dislike and why? We’re still tinkering with the exterior and window positions. Especially upstairs, the window layout is far from finalized. For the stairs, I grabbed a floor plan from a stair builder that fits (concrete stairs); I hope the dimensions are also realistic in real life?
Personal budget for the house including fittings: 300k, the average price per square meter given by our banking contact pretty much matches the costs of several friends currently building (rural Lower Saxony, about 1650 - 1850 €/sqm)
Preferred heating system: Heat pump with horizontal loop collector
If you had to give up anything, which details / features could you do without?
- Could do without: Honestly, not much
- Cannot do without: Office, sliding door, kitchen island
Why does the design look like it does now?
We looked at many floor plans from friends and prefab house suppliers. Changing existing plans mostly didn’t help, so in the end we spent nights drawing our own plans (which is fun, anyway).
What do you think makes it particularly good or bad?
We managed to fit our entire room program into our limit of about 150 sqm (about 1,615 sq ft). When mentally going through our typical day, the floor plan works quite well and all rooms seem sufficiently sized.
What is the most important / fundamental question about the floor plan summed up in 130 characters?
Since we are still happy with it after letting it “sit for a while and reviewing it again,” the question naturally arises whether we have overlooked something fundamental. Does anything stand out as a problem that wouldn’t work? Something we would regret for the next 30 years? More specifically: is the kitchen with the dining area too narrow or too long and narrow?
I look forward to hopefully plenty of feedback.
Thanks in advance!
After following this forum for what feels like forever, I finally have to “lay all my cards on the table.” Some time ago, we bought a plot of land in rural Lower Saxony right next to our current apartment, and now we want to slowly but surely start the house building process.
I’ve filled out the questionnaire as much as possible. For roof style, number of floors, building setback lines, etc., I only have information from an old preliminary building inquiry made by the previous owner of the land. However, a lot has changed since then (several houses with two full floors, etc.), so I can well imagine that two full floors won’t be a problem.
I’ve attached the floor plans for the ground floor (GF) and upper floor (UF), as well as a relevant excerpt from Google Maps. The two floor plans are not oriented to north, so I added a north arrow there. The Google Maps image is oriented north. The red frame roughly marks the property. The small red box on the street marks the lowered curb for the driveway access. The larger red box roughly indicates the area where the house including the carport is planned to be located. I hope this is enough for now?
Zoning Plan / Restrictions
Plot size: 1978 sqm (about 0.49 acres)
Slope: No
Building setback lines and building boundaries: 6.0 and 19.0 m (about 20 and 62 feet) from the street-side property boundary (still being clarified, a lot has changed recently)
Number of floors: 1.5 or 2 (still being clarified, a lot has changed recently)
Roof style: Gable roof
Homeowners’ Requirements
Style, roof shape, building type: Gable roof
Basement, floors: No basement, 1.5 or 2 floors
Number of residents, ages: 4 people (33, 32, 5, 2 years old)
Room requirements on GF, UF:
GF: Kitchen with dining area, living room (can be separated), office, guest bathroom with shower, utility room, small storage space
UF: 2 children’s bedrooms, bathroom, storage room, master bedroom
Office: Family use or home office? Home office
Number of overnight guests per year: Negligible
Open or closed architecture: rather closed
Conservative or modern style: a “middle ground”
Open kitchen, kitchen island: open kitchen with island, living room can be separated
Number of dining seats: 6 permanently
Fireplace: No
Music/stereo wall: No
Balcony, roof terrace: No
Garage, carport: Carport for one car and possibly a simple parking space in front of the house (cars are for us purely practical items)
Kitchen garden, greenhouse: Unclear
Other: The kitchen island is intentionally only 1 meter (39 inches) deep. This seems like a comfortable depth for us since both of us can easily reach the far end (we’re both not very tall, about 170 cm (5’7”), and we tested by placing a 1-meter-wide wooden board on our current countertop). A nice side effect is that this frees up more space for the dining table. Overall, we still plan to discuss the kitchen layout further in the other forum.
House Design
Who designed the plan: Do-it-yourself with the probably usual approach (we looked at many floor plans from friends and prefab house providers)
What do you like most and why? We’re quite happy with the design. We really like the sliding door in the dining area and the large window in the living room because of the direct connection between garden and indoors. The sliding door between living and dining rooms allows retreat to the living room when guests are over (it’s not a big deal that you still have to walk through the dining area). The staircase should be separated from the living space but not located in a direct dirt/splash zone. The children’s rooms are sufficiently large and have south-facing windows overlooking the garden.
What do you dislike and why? We’re still tinkering with the exterior and window positions. Especially upstairs, the window layout is far from finalized. For the stairs, I grabbed a floor plan from a stair builder that fits (concrete stairs); I hope the dimensions are also realistic in real life?
Personal budget for the house including fittings: 300k, the average price per square meter given by our banking contact pretty much matches the costs of several friends currently building (rural Lower Saxony, about 1650 - 1850 €/sqm)
Preferred heating system: Heat pump with horizontal loop collector
If you had to give up anything, which details / features could you do without?
- Could do without: Honestly, not much
- Cannot do without: Office, sliding door, kitchen island
Why does the design look like it does now?
We looked at many floor plans from friends and prefab house suppliers. Changing existing plans mostly didn’t help, so in the end we spent nights drawing our own plans (which is fun, anyway).
What do you think makes it particularly good or bad?
We managed to fit our entire room program into our limit of about 150 sqm (about 1,615 sq ft). When mentally going through our typical day, the floor plan works quite well and all rooms seem sufficiently sized.
What is the most important / fundamental question about the floor plan summed up in 130 characters?
Since we are still happy with it after letting it “sit for a while and reviewing it again,” the question naturally arises whether we have overlooked something fundamental. Does anything stand out as a problem that wouldn’t work? Something we would regret for the next 30 years? More specifically: is the kitchen with the dining area too narrow or too long and narrow?
I look forward to hopefully plenty of feedback.
Thanks in advance!
lulzwoot schrieb:
If the chairs are always neatly pushed in when not in use, then it works out again. But you won’t be living in this house alone. Wasn’t there something about children mentioned?
lulzwoot schrieb:
Gable roof house and the large house opposite (they expanded it last year) with 2 full stories can be found. I can show you single-story houses here (two stories are not allowed for us), but they look like two-story houses...
lulzwoot schrieb:
I wouldn’t see it as that extreme. What I know is that a 164sqm (1,768 sq ft) house with a height of 8.50 meters (28 ft) was approved in the building pre-application by the previous owner. ... that is not much you know about the plot, and I will not ask for the information again.
The thing with the chairs was a joke. I’m always the one who doesn’t push their chair in properly.
I mentioned that I will call tomorrow and post the information as soon as I have it. I’m still optimistic about it. If it turns out it’s not allowed after all, we will have to come up with a new plan.
I mentioned that I will call tomorrow and post the information as soon as I have it. I’m still optimistic about it. If it turns out it’s not allowed after all, we will have to come up with a new plan.
What a pity:
There is no zoning plan, and we are supposed to initially assume 1.5 stories. For anything else, he would need to revisit the area at some point, but he considers that rather unlikely.
So, here we go again. If it still has to be "almost" a full story, the upper floor would need to be significantly smaller than the ground floor or have a clear height of 2.20 m (7 ft 3 in) in less than two-thirds of the area, if I understand this correctly.
Let’s see what can be done.
There is no zoning plan, and we are supposed to initially assume 1.5 stories. For anything else, he would need to revisit the area at some point, but he considers that rather unlikely.
So, here we go again. If it still has to be "almost" a full story, the upper floor would need to be significantly smaller than the ground floor or have a clear height of 2.20 m (7 ft 3 in) in less than two-thirds of the area, if I understand this correctly.
Let’s see what can be done.
lulzwoot schrieb:
If it still should be "almost" a full storey, then the upper floor would have to be significantly smaller than the ground floor or have a clear ceiling height of less than 2.20m (7.2 feet) in less than two-thirds of the area, if I understand that correctly. In areas classified under section 34, that is inner urban areas without a specific development plan, the exact legal definition of a full storey according to the state building code is less relevant. Instead, the focus is generally on the extent of building use, primarily on eaves and ridge heights. Whether the attic floor meets the two-thirds rule is not crucial; what matters is that it is an attic level with an eaves height compatible with the surrounding buildings. If in the immediate vicinity—counting the house next to next as well—there are already “urban villas” with an eaves height of 6m (19.7 feet), then you cannot be denied the same, unless these neighboring buildings were constructed unlawfully.
[QUOTE="lulzwoot, post: 374012, member: 50503"]
Nevertheless, even at the risk of it being a wasted effort, I kept rearranging the kitchen on the ground floor. We like it – it’s better than what we had before. Whether the island remains purely a workspace or gets a sink, I don’t know. However, I would remove the cooktop with the seating arranged like that.
I quite like the kitchen-dining area as it is. For our build, we won’t put both the cooktop and the sink on an island. We’re probably just not that careful with it, but cooking and washing dishes tend to splash around, and it’s nicer to have the splashes hit the tiled backsplash on the wall rather than everywhere in the room.
Is the living room just for watching TV? Otherwise, I would definitely place the sofa facing the garden as suggested here, with the TV in the southwest corner and a window on the west side. There’s nothing better than the evening sun after work, and if it’s still a bit too cool outside to enjoy it, I like to do that inside on the couch.
And if you do want to watch TV when the sun is shining, shutters come in handy. If you expect this often, best to go with electric ones that can be lowered at the click of a button to block glare on the TV screen.
I would shift the front door slightly toward the guest bathroom to create more space in the hallway for a coat rack. Alternatively, take a bit of space from the office. With four people, you need room to store jackets and shoes for all kinds of weather.
If you’re not planning a kids’ bathroom, consider enlarging the guest WC to add a second shower. Teenagers of all genders can spend a long time in the bathroom to meet their beauty routines. It can save your nerves before important appointments if you can avoid getting in each other’s way for personal care.
Nevertheless, even at the risk of it being a wasted effort, I kept rearranging the kitchen on the ground floor. We like it – it’s better than what we had before. Whether the island remains purely a workspace or gets a sink, I don’t know. However, I would remove the cooktop with the seating arranged like that.
I quite like the kitchen-dining area as it is. For our build, we won’t put both the cooktop and the sink on an island. We’re probably just not that careful with it, but cooking and washing dishes tend to splash around, and it’s nicer to have the splashes hit the tiled backsplash on the wall rather than everywhere in the room.
Is the living room just for watching TV? Otherwise, I would definitely place the sofa facing the garden as suggested here, with the TV in the southwest corner and a window on the west side. There’s nothing better than the evening sun after work, and if it’s still a bit too cool outside to enjoy it, I like to do that inside on the couch.
And if you do want to watch TV when the sun is shining, shutters come in handy. If you expect this often, best to go with electric ones that can be lowered at the click of a button to block glare on the TV screen.
I would shift the front door slightly toward the guest bathroom to create more space in the hallway for a coat rack. Alternatively, take a bit of space from the office. With four people, you need room to store jackets and shoes for all kinds of weather.
If you’re not planning a kids’ bathroom, consider enlarging the guest WC to add a second shower. Teenagers of all genders can spend a long time in the bathroom to meet their beauty routines. It can save your nerves before important appointments if you can avoid getting in each other’s way for personal care.
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