ᐅ Single-family house in the initial design stage – your feedback is requested

Have you considered relocating the stairs toward the guest toilet and storage room? Then place the office where the stairs used to be (you might not want to walk through the office every time you need to get to the utility room). You could then move the storage room to the office’s previous location, with access to both the utility room and the guest toilet. By the way, I find 5 square meters (54 square feet) quite spacious for that. You can easily manage on 3 square meters (32 square feet) as well.

I think the upper floor looks nice overall, although as mentioned, the sloped ceilings in the bathroom might not fit well.

Using an entire room as a storage or junk room is expensive, but I think it’s a great idea.

Hello everyone,

First of all, thank you very much for the great feedback!

@Nordlys
A dormer is planned for the bathroom – we think that 12sqm (130 sq ft) will be sufficient.

@ypg
1. Yes, the hallway is indeed very long and narrow. However, we definitely want the kitchen to face the driveway.

2. The staircase will of course be dimensioned properly – that’s correct.

3. And yes, the square meters are somewhat enhanced – in the upper floor the sloped ceilings have not yet been deducted, and we have not yet fixed the knee wall height (about 1.60m (5 ft 3 in)).

4. Regarding utilities: We marked the water point in red – the yellow point shows the wastewater connection (see attachment).

@11ant
1. Yes, you understood correctly. The plot will be divided, and there will also be construction in the front area (see attachment).

2. The drawing is our first sketch (wall thicknesses have been neglected so far).

3. As mentioned, the bathroom with dormer and roof slopes have not yet been included.

@Invi85
1. The house should be placed as far as possible into the northeast corner to use the space in front.

2. Connections are shown in the attachment (red = water supply / yellow = wastewater) – we will of course take the potential overbuilding into account.

3. We will reconsider the hallway.

4. We find the orientation of the living and dining rooms optimal as is.

@kbt09
1. The technical room idea is just a first concept – but it won’t bother anyone back there.

@kaho674
1. We will definitely consider your idea in the next draft – it significantly improves the hallway. And as you already mentioned, guests will then be directed to the front door.

@Evolith
1. We have already thought about possibly enlarging the bathroom to live on the ground floor in older age – the office would then be converted into a bedroom. The upper floor could be used for non-everyday purposes.

During the week, we will adjust the sketches a bit and ask for your feedback again.

Thank you all in advance!

Bauherrin2018 schrieb:
The idea of the technical room is just a first thought – but back there it won’t bother anyone.

Tax offices don’t allow the home office deduction if the room is a passageway.

Bauherrin2018 schrieb:
The plot will be divided, and building will also take place in the front area.

Personally, I would probably find the front building plot more appealing. Entering my property via such a long, narrow corridor would feel uncomfortable to me.

Bauherrin2018 schrieb:
The upper floor can then be used for less frequent activities.

The idea of simply leaving the upper floor to ghosts in old age (ghosts that, as long as you’re still a young child, live under the bed) seems naive to me – just as does the idea that these rooms would then be popular with potential tenants. I think the option of moving to another house will be more commonly chosen in the future.

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Post 9 is similar to our floor plan on the ground floor.
However, I would now plan the shower/toilet flush with the staircase, which shifts the entrance and hallway about 1 meter (3 feet) to the northeast, making the office slightly larger.

So, what is it then? How many people is the house supposed to accommodate?

The utility room fits well with the location of the connections, unless we are talking past each other 🙂

Bauherrin2018 schrieb:
and we haven’t decided on the knee wall height yet (about 1.60m (5 ft 3 in))

I forgot to mention this point earlier 🙂

What would you do with such a high knee wall? A 45° roof pitch means that just 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) away from the exterior wall under the eaves, you’re already 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) high. In other words, with an additional 1 meter (3 ft 3 in) knee wall, you’re already at 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) — standing height. So at this roof pitch, such a tall knee wall isn’t necessary. Besides, a knee wall this high combined with a dormer (sometimes called “Gaube”) would create, visually speaking, a somewhat unusual proportion. Finally, combining a steep roof pitch with a high knee wall often compromises the "one-and-a-half-story" character and effectively turns the attic space with sloped ceilings into a full upper floor by building code calculations.

There is a common simplistic idea that “higher = better” when it comes to knee walls, but you also need to consider the relationship between the parapet height and the “relative” eaves height: a knee wall height that falls between the desired dimensions for the bottom and top edges of window openings means on that side either a lower top edge for facade windows, or possibly a higher bottom edge for roof windows, or correspondingly “angled” windows or dormers.

Therefore, I usually advise against excessively tall knee walls; practical and common heights are generally around 100 to 125 cm (39 to 49 inches).

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