ᐅ Single-family house with two full stories, mono-pitched roof, no basement

11ant schrieb:
I thought about moving it just a bit to the east.

I still don’t get it, sorry. So keep the house straight and move it closer to the right property boundary?

11ant schrieb:
... and the garage is useful for privacy screening.

I see... Another advantage of separating garage and house...

11ant schrieb:
But that really looks like a chamois plume in pink or over-the-knee socks with a dirndl. Just typical Bavarian Disneyland style.

I’ll pass that on to my wife!

Maria16 schrieb:
Have you ever thought about moving the house noticeably closer to the street and creating a north-facing garden? Possibly also with a terrace accessible from the kitchen?

No, not yet. Only wood or the rotary clothes dryer should be on the north side.

Maria16 schrieb:
We currently have less shade in the north than we first thought and want to add a terrace in the northeast at some point, because the evening sun lasts longest there — in the south, the western sun is blocked by the neighboring buildings!

Evening sun in the northeast? Apparently, I wasn’t paying attention in geography class. I’ll have to think about that again... The sun can’t be taken from us on the south side anyway. That’s where the street is.

Maria16 schrieb:
About the garage: since it is attached directly to the house now, I wonder if there’s enough space left for a proper platform in front of the entrance or if you have to always maneuver around it?

I haven’t questioned that so far... I’ll ask about it. Thanks.

Maria16 schrieb:
Also, I think the second access to the utility room there costs you too much usable space. If you already have this kind of house and garage setup, I’d rather consider adding a nice canopy to the garage that also covers the main entrance.

That’s planned. But you would probably remove the access if the garage stays where it is?

Maria16 schrieb:
The morning sun will probably be blocked by your own garage.

Larger windows don’t help if the building itself casts shadows — and your neighbors alone will do that.

The layout is designed so that the kitchen only gets sun starting between 10 and 11 a.m. The garage doesn’t impact that much. To change it, we would have to move the kitchen further to the back...
The neighbors to the right can’t block our sun. There’s a field above and the street below. Only on the left side will it get tight with the western sun.

Bean84 schrieb:


Admittedly, the costs for the paving stones are already giving us some headaches, but for my wife, it’s important to come into the house with dry hair.

I just spent quite a long time staring at your plot, trying to figure out if there’s a better way to position the garage and the house to shorten the driveway. I couldn’t come up with anything. Of course, you could place the garage facing the street, but then you’d always have that bulky garage right in front on the south or west side. With a double garage 6m (20 feet) deep, that would be less than 10m (33 feet) straight ahead of the terrace. Personally, I think that would spoil the view.

What about putting the terrace on the north side and moving the house forward? Then you wouldn’t even get any evening sun from the west — no, I wouldn’t do that either.

If it were just a carport, maybe I’d place it near the street, but given the current setup, I’d also rather spend the money on all those paving stones.

About the house itself:
I still don’t quite understand the purpose of a second entrance door leading to the backyard. That would make me a bit uneasy, worrying about break-ins.

I would probably start planning the ground floor like this. For the upper floor, it’s already too late for me. Good night!

haydee schrieb:

You don’t have to like many neighbors, that wouldn’t be for me. You have complete quiet at the back.
The streets and sidewalks with 40 buildings are quite lively.

11ants’ suggestion isn’t bad.

I think I’m increasingly in favor of positioning the garage at the front. A small north-facing terrace for a slide, etc., could be done without changing the floor plan. There is a door planned to the outside (north side) at the stairway.

The neighbors don’t bother us. On the contrary. We have lived for ages in the city center of a large city and were actually worried it might be too quiet for us. Right now, buses and emergency vehicle sirens pass directly outside our front door. We’re used to quite a bit.

Please add the furniture layout in the walk-in closet... no matter where it is supposed to be located.
Alternatively: what should be placed there but has no space?

I’m too lazy to quote on my phone. But you yourself say that the western neighbor could block the sun.

It’s the same for us— all the houses to the west of us are aligned in a row. This casts shadows on the south-facing garden. However, the northern part is exposed to the sun from the west because all the houses are in a straight line, allowing the sun to “break through the building canyon.”

Basically, you’d need to find out how and where your neighbor is planning to build.

For the utility room, I would first look at where the appliances will go and whether two doors can fit comfortably in terms of space.

kaho674 schrieb:

If it were just a carport, then maybe place it by the street, but considering this, I would actually prefer to spend the money on all the paving stones.

About the house:
I still don’t fully understand the purpose of having a second rear entrance door. That would make me a bit uneasy because of security concerns.

I would probably start planning the ground floor like this. For the upper floor, it’s too late now. Good night!

So, you still want to keep the garage attached to the house? I’ve added the exact plot dimensions in the attachment. The north-south axis runs from the upper right to the lower left. The street curves and the sidewalk is on the opposite side of the road. The blue lines mark the building boundaries.

The second entrance door was a last-minute solution because our architect was concerned that without large windows there, not enough light would come in, and the entire stair area would be too dark.

Now we thought that we could set up a rotary clothesline behind the house and use that door to hang the laundry out...

Maria16 schrieb:
I’m too lazy to quote on my phone. But you yourself said that the neighbor to the west might block the sun.

It’s the same for us—all houses west of ours are aligned in a row. That casts a shadow over the south garden. However, the northern part still gets sun from the west since all the houses are in a line, and the sun can "break through the canyon" between the houses.

You basically have to find out how and where your neighbor will build.

In the utility room, I would first check where the appliances will go and whether two doors fit spatially.

Well, if the west neighbor also places their garage right on the eastern boundary, it could definitely get dark. We could basically only avoid this if we separate the house from the garage and move it further east to create more space between them. According to the current plan, we would be 8.6 meters (28 feet) from the western boundary. That sounds to us like not much distance...

Maria16 schrieb:
You basically need to find out how and where your neighbor will build.

Yes, we thought about that too. The problem is that none of the 40 houses there are built yet... The city is currently building the roads, and we want to start at the beginning to middle of next year. Everything has to be built within three years. So basically, everyone will start almost simultaneously, hopefully. It’s like a lottery. That was also a reason why we chose a plot facing the street. We’re only dependent on two neighbors in terms of planning. It would be a nightmare if we placed our house and after three years the entire garden is in shadow.

@kaho674
Thanks for the floor plan. We initially had a very similar design in mind. Ultimately, we wanted the staircase to be a real eye-catcher, so we rotated it. We actually really like the layout of the ground floor. The door in the utility room, of course, depends on whether the garage remains part of the house. The door behind the staircase has also been under discussion since yesterday.

We are also struggling with whether to keep the ceiling height or reduce it by one brick layer, shorten the staircase accordingly, and also reduce the overall dimension. We think it would save quite some costs because the windows/blinds etc. would then be smaller as well.
What do you think? Our architect says we need to consider lowering the ceiling a bit in the kitchen to accommodate the ventilation system for the extractor hood. But could that not be done just above the island?

The upper floor basically resulted from the staircase...
Based on the feedback here, we will swap the walk-in closet and the bedroom. We only thought about doing that for the "noise buffer" to the kids’ room...
We will probably remove the dressing room and also the second door to the bathroom.

Thanks in advance for all your answers!!!