ᐅ Wide semi-detached house with an extension that was originally intended to be a detached single-family home

I would prefer to avoid extending the hallway, as well as having a sofa placed below the windows. Possibly also omit the west-facing window in the bay. The terrace would benefit from a wall 🙂

Maybe the staircase could be moved about half a meter (20 inches) to the left according to the plan?
However, I can also imagine that a completely different interior layout or a different staircase could lead to a good result, though I won’t have much time to work on this in the next few days, as it requires hours of concentrated effort [emoji853][emoji20]

Hello everyone,

The window behind the couch and at the dining table is not floor-to-ceiling (standard sill height). The extension in the plan has an external dimension of 4 meters (approximately 3.20 meters (10.5 feet) internal dimension).

The TV is 60 inches in size.

I can’t provide the exact dimensions of the dining table right now (I’m on the go). But if I use the width of the window (2 meters (6.5 feet)) as a reference, we chose more than 1.20 meters (4 feet) there. The chairs were 50 cm (20 inches), if I remember correctly.

I’ll have to draw the dimensions in this evening.

Do you think we should start over and come up with a new staircase layout?

Hello everyone. I’d like to give a brief update on our project.

Since we haven’t made much progress with our planning, I contacted several architects and requested design services covering phases 1-3. Most architects either declined, didn’t respond, or quoted very high fees (five-figure amounts) that we simply cannot afford.

However, we did take away some ideas from a preliminary meeting with one architect and implemented them. The house has been shortened by half a meter (now 9 x 10.5 meters [29.5 x 34.4 feet]) and the porch was removed for cost and energy efficiency reasons.

The staircase is 3.80 meters (12.5 feet) long and 1.10 meters (3.6 feet) wide.

After numerous drafts, I’d now like to present my design plan. We placed the technical equipment behind the staircase against the party wall. The space under the stairs was originally intended as a cloakroom, but I feel that 4 square meters (43 square feet) is not enough space solely for technical installations. Therefore, I would allocate the space under the stairs entirely to the technical room and integrate the cloakroom into the office wall. I would also plan an entrance to the technical room under the stairs. This room is meant only for house technology (not a utility room).

The washing machine and dryer have now been relocated to the upper floor, directly above the technical room.

The space from the first two steps of the staircase (the ceiling opening) I have allocated to the bathroom. This still provides 2.10 meters (6.9 feet) of headroom at the transition from the ground floor to the upper floor, which should be sufficient, right?

We have tried to arrange the living areas as far away from the party wall as possible.

The window layout is still unfinished. We haven’t made much progress here. I’ve often read that there should be no window behind the sofa. However, we are concerned it might get too dark without one. Also, having the dining table in front of the floor-to-ceiling window seems a bit suboptimal.

What are your opinions on this design?

PS: For reference, the plans are approximately to a 1:50 scale. Not exactly 100%, but very close.

What floor height would you like to have, or rather, the ceiling height?

To clarify... the first two steps are covered, so that makes three risers:

The current floor-to-floor height is planned to be 2.80 meters (9 ft 2 in) and the ceiling height 2.50 meters (8 ft 2 in). I am not sure if I have to align the ceiling height with that of the neighboring house.