Spain House Build - Land Bought

[Martynt74]

For some following my thread elsewhere may have seen we're about to build a house over here in Spain. The plot is going to be pretty rural with loads of views of the mountains, and so an open plan, build with decent window views is the main plan.

After chats with a local developer, we decided on this build. He had around 6 "standard" house models and this fit our needs in terms of size/cost/layout. However we added the laundry to the top right, and switched the front door from where it is in this picture to the back of the house as seen on the floorplan

We were really happy with this, but now it's getting to the crunch time of signing the forms we're having some doubts.

Main concerns
1) Due to the large windows in the front room/kitchen, it doesn't offer a suitable location for a pellet burner. I like the idea of it on the wall inbetween the 2 windows, but my wife wants it in the top left corner alongside the TV. To me this cramps loads of things into one corner of a big room, but i can see the appeal of being snuggly on a sofa watching fire
2) The door to bedrooms 2/3 is in the middle of the seating area. Dormitorio 2 is going to be my office. This means that every time i want a drink/general skive, i'm going to be walking in front of my wife on the sofa. It also puts the sofa miles from the TV


The above are pretty much it for our "issues" with the plan and they both stem from the same thing.

Possible thoughts/changes
Replace the left patio door with a wall up to midway and then have a 1.5 / double sized bifold door on the kitchen side. This creates extra wall space, the tv could then go on this wall if needed with the sofa backing to the bedroom entrances
Steal a bit from bedroom 3, put the entrance to the bedroom "Pasillo" where the bedroom 3 door is
Put the kitchen units along the right side wall. This opens up loads of wall space. In fact he sent me a floorplan suggestion with exactly this

Other Notes to make
We like the bedroom 2/3 separate from the main bedroom, some layouts put them all in a row, but we like them separated.
We're unlikely to have a dining table as per the top floorplan. We'll have a nice outdoor table on the terrace and otherwise will eat at the island/sofa. A table just annoys the wife as i use it as a dumping group for stuff!
The general dimensions of the above layout work for us, we want single floor living and nothing too big as it's only the 2 of us. I'll also be adding a ~50m2 garage as a home gym/music room
The exterior of the house isn't 100% to our tastes, it's very possible that we finish it like this

So to you lovely lot. What changes would you make if you had the choice with no restrictions? Also what's the best/easiest floorplan/rendering tool i can have a play around with?

 

[964rs]

Plan 1 take away the bit of sofa against the wall and mirror it on the other side of the sofa.
This gives you a walk way to the kitchen or use a smaller sofa

 

[img]

on plan 1 you have loads of space in front of island and along wall. whats your plans there as its all hugging back wall.

 

[Martynt74]

Plan 1 take away the bit of sofa against the wall and mirror it on the other side of the sofa.
This gives you a walk way to the kitchen or use a smaller sofa

Good point, however i'm not sure the room width gives enough space to move the corner bit of the sofa to the other side without limiting walking room in front of the double doors

on plan 1 you have loads of space in front of island and along wall. whats your plans there as its all hugging back wall.

Not too sure, i think with the island we'd likely make it considerably longer so it's 2 long rows of cabinets, then on the right wall will likely be a cabinet with a picture above it. Mainly because it's about the only place we can think to put the picture there!

The other plan would be to go with plan 2, but shift the window along so we can utilise the bottom wall into a U shaped kitchen, this potentially helps move the cabinets further down away from the front door to avoid the entrance being cramped. I would love to try and squeeze front doors like this into the build, just not sure if it fits anywhere

 

[mickyflinn]

In his revised plan this is what I would consider to change.

lavadero door location back to original position.

Lol I had to Google lavadero.

Keep sink and units along back wall.

loose island with hob and relocate hob and units if required on lavadero wall this will create space for a table

Put a pellet burner that your wife wants going bang central of the room with flue going straight . Basically a beautiful fireplace centrally heating the whole area .



Furniture and TV as originally planned.

 

[Derek W]

I'll post something sensible when I've finished work but just a note for the future that I hope you don't piscina the pool

 

[Martynt74]

I'll post something sensible when I've finished work but just a note for the future that I hope you don't piscina the pool

Just like the Italian who went to Malta, i told the waitress "i wanna fork on the table"

 

[jpaul]

Replace the left patio door with a wall up to midway

depends what bedroom view you may loose ...
being able to see the mountains(used to see the sea), or sunset/rise from your bed is great - fight over who gets the window side of bed, unless the bed can wholly face the window.
I'd sooner sacrifice inner facing bedroom window, don't want to look at your house, from the bed.

kitchen Sink on the right wall where you get some natural light from side, as opposed to on internal wall(galley) with shadows, having bathroom basins on window lit side/or adjacent like bathroom2, nice, too.
will hob island have breakfast bar on it.

whats the overall orientation for house, and will bedroom catch the sun you want.

what is the height of the windows/french-doors? on guest rooms - is that ok to give them a view? - perhaps security dictates their size;
are wooden shutters uncommon in Spain - do you (have to) have roller steel shutters (neighbour had a living room refit where they put in roller shutters as opposed to bi-folding shutters - which lost character)

 

[Deep]

On plan 1 can't you swap the kitchen area and the seating area?

Have a straight long sofa or chaise lounge sofa instead of a corner.

 

[Stu999]

No real issues other than why is the lavadero so big? Could some of the width go to bedrooms 2 and 3? Is it just for symmetry of the windows?

 

[Martynt74]

On plan 1 can't you swap the kitchen area and the seating area?

Have a straight long sofa or chaise lounge sofa instead of a corner.

We probably could. I just need to try and remember why my wife didn't want to!

No real issues other than why is the lavadero so big? Could some of the width go to bedrooms 2 and 3? Is it just for symmetry of the windows?

It was actually a choice by us to have it big. By the time you have a washing machine, boiler, wine rack (essential!), server rack with battery storage and shelves for bulk purchases i don't think there's really much room left. We also had an american fridge in the utility room back in England and quite liked it being out of the way.

 

[Martynt74]

So, was up until around midnight last night playing with floorplan ideas, and i think i quite like this

It makes the master suite pretty big, with walk in wardrobe section
The seating area faces a big wall for the TV
It has a decent entrance hallway
Nice recessed bit outside the main bedroom for a small seating area
Great views from the main bedroom
Laundry is pretty big, with an external door for that end of the house
Main bathroom is open to all, rather than being focussed towards bedrooms 2/3

It takes the above plan and adds around 5m2 of floorspace but that shouldn't add *too* much cost to make it unaffordable

 

[Hodders]

With open plan kitchen/living areas you need really really good cooker extraction to the outside.

Otherwise all your soft furnishings start to smell of food!

Really like the overall feel though.

 

[Derek W]

Can you upload a site plan / google map (hide some stuff if you don't want to give out your exact location though (OCUK Spain meet!!!! )) Lots of things to consider. Where will you spend most of your time so are views important? Shelter from midday sun, is there a prevailing wind at all? Does the site slope at all?

 

[danlightbulb]

Does it have to be single storey?

 

[Richie]

Does it have to be single storey?

Single story is far nicer if you can have it... Also makes it better as you inevitably get older and stairs start being annoying.

 

[dlockers]

It takes the above plan and adds around 5m2 of floorspace but that shouldn't add *too* much cost to make it unaffordable

I binge watch a lot of American house builders and you'd be surprised... they optimise the builds for the materials they have around. You could go from needing 100x 2.4m to like, 150x2.4m for something daft. (made up numbers but you get what I mean).

Also with all due respect - designing a house is a proper skill/discipline, are you leveraging existing floor plans for your ideas?

I feel like this is an instance of me trying to design Cities in Sim City and then burning the computer in anger when it turns out crap.

 

[sovietspybob]

What i will say after having done it myself is, do it with an architect at your side. Don't try and do it all yourself as they've got a better grasp of what works well and what doesn't. I came up with a load of floor plans before and turns out they'd all have been toss for the most part.

For our house our architect drew up a floor plan after our meetings and then we only altered some easier bits like we added a separate lounge and added in another small study for my wife and changed the orientation of the stairs.

The other thing to think of is make sure you really do want open plan, we've got a big open kitchen/diner/living room and it's lovely for entertaining but we hardly ever sit there in an evening or while stuffs being cooked. It's just too noisy and even with the best extractor fan you still get kitchen smells, the best thing we ever did is have a separate lounge, i think i'd have sold the house by now if we hadn't done that.

 

[Martynt74]

Can you upload a site plan / google map (hide some stuff if you don't want to give out your exact location though (OCUK Spain meet!!!! )) Lots of things to consider. Where will you spend most of your time so are views important? Shelter from midday sun, is there a prevailing wind at all? Does the site slope at all?

38°20'39.1"N 0°53'16.8"W

maps.app.goo.gl

We've not 100% finalised it, but it's looking very likely to be the above. Basically the plot is the section of "scrubland" in between the 2 plots above and below which have neatly planted olive trees/grape vines. It's around 40,000m2 in total.

We did see this yesterday though which is quite a bit cheaper and can buy an adjacent plot to take it closer in size.

https://www.thinkspain.com/property-for-sale/5821141

Either way, both plots are largely level, and surrounded by mountains and so views aren't too important. The plan will likely to be to have 2 seating areas so we're making the most of views/shade.

Does it have to be single storey?

Single story is far nicer if you can have it... Also makes it better as you inevitably get older and stairs start being annoying.

As above, it doesn't have to be, but given the total build size we'd need (~100-120m2), having that over 2 levels would create a really small footprint which might look odd. There's also some planning limitations that you can't go over 7m in height, so i'd rather be single storey and not have to mess with stairs, especially with it being such a large plot.

I binge watch a lot of American house builders and you'd be surprised... they optimise the builds for the materials they have around. You could go from needing 100x 2.4m to like, 150x2.4m for something daft. (made up numbers but you get what I mean).

Also with all due respect - designing a house is a proper skill/discipline, are you leveraging existing floor plans for your ideas?

I feel like this is an instance of me trying to design Cities in Sim City and then burning the computer in anger when it turns out crap.

What i will say after having done it myself is, do it with an architect at your side. Don't try and do it all yourself as they've got a better grasp of what works well and what doesn't. I came up with a load of floor plans before and turns out they'd all have been toss for the most part.

For our house our architect drew up a floor plan after our meetings and then we only altered some easier bits like we added a separate lounge and added in another small study for my wife and changed the orientation of the stairs.

The other thing to think of is make sure you really do want open plan, we've got a big open kitchen/diner/living room and it's lovely for entertaining but we hardly ever sit there in an evening or while stuffs being cooked. It's just too noisy and even with the best extractor fan you still get kitchen smells, the best thing we ever did is have a separate lounge, i think i'd have sold the house by now if we hadn't done that.

The plans in the opening post are the architect standard layout drawings (with my adjustment to move the door to the top right), my effort in post 12 was completely my own attempt.
However having been to Ikea at the weekend, i think the 4.4m wide lounge in the original plans gives sufficient width for the sofa we'd want and to have 1m as a walkway either side so the sofa would be more central rather than up against the wall as per the architect drawings.

What was surprising was that the builder has quoted ~€1250/m2 for any adjustments. My plans to take his original design, but make the lounge 1m wider would add 10m2, so ~€13k of cost. However the wall would be exactly the same size, so you're only really adding ~1m of wall on either side and then the additional concrete for the base and roof (everything here is built as a concrete slab base, with around 8 structural concrete supports and then everything else is non structural), so i wouldn't have thought the material/labour cost would justify the cost. As such it doesn't really add enough for the additional costs proposed.


As for the open plan design, it's a tricky one. It's only the 2 of us, and so not much noise, and we're generally always together anyway. We've lived in open plan places in the past and it's fine for us. As @Hodders says, a decent extractor is essential. I think the main reason for the open plan is so you then can open the doors and the terrace becomes part of the living/kitchen area and you get the whole indoor/outdoor living thing.
There's then going to be a separate ~50m2 garage which will be a room for my stereo, and possibly home cinema and so there'll be a comfy place away from the kitchen if we ever want to shut ourselves away.

 

[danlightbulb]

If there is only two of you, do you need 3 bedrooms one with en-suite? Could maybe get more space if you limited those things?

Also can't you attach garage to house and have it more habitable?

Im no expert in any of this but I'd be looking to orient the main living room windows towards the biggest mountains and where there won't be anything in the way like other houses or roads.

Is it better to separate the bedroom areas from the living room areas by some form of corridor or hallway area?

Will the house be right in the middle of that plot with a long driveway, or nearer the road?

Maybe this is budget breaking but could you build one part of the house with a 2nd level, so some form of mezzanine which gets your master bedroom at a bit of an elevation. For example above the garage? Would also make a more interesting roofline rather than just flat. The house 200m to your north west seems to have done something like this.