I had another thread that was looking for peoples ideas and suggestions on split levels and sloping blocks - everyone, thankyou kindly! HOWEVER, we have now settled on our floor plans, and would like some help tweaking and perfecting them...

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So here are the plans. The additional things around the house, such as stairs, etc - are not set in stone. Feel free to make as many wild and wacky suggestions as you see fit. I think there is some amazing minds on these forums, and i'd like to make the most of it as this is our first building project.

Some things we are already considering:

[#] Slightly bigger bedrooms, perhaps widening the house a little to add storage/workshop to garage, and then make the bedrooms bigger.
[#] Living room is a small, wasted space, too small for a theatre. Not sure what to do here.
[#] the 2 x alfresco areas: the lower deck I want to use cat mesh to make a cat area, accessed via the rumpus/"Great room" on the lower floor, but not sure as this would also make a great room for a pool table/bar area/outdoor access to BBQ.
[#] From the kitchen, limited access to the rest of the family, so i'm thinking opening the wall between the rumpus and kitchen a little (if we can, not sure because of the 2nd story on top of this wall) so when cooking, I can still see and talk with the family.
[#] Adding a "drying cupboard" in Laundry - still after more opinions on these, but i'm in one of the coldest/wettest areas of victoria, so to me its justified!

Throw suggestions at me as you see fit, I am hoping for a wide range of suggestions that we can throw around to make this the perfect home.

Looking forward to hearing from everyone, & merry xmas!!

J xx

And for some background for those who haven't followed thus far, our block is a strange shape, with some slope.

Here is a rough draw-up I have done of the block. As you can see, we have lots of land to play with. We'd like to keep the "dog leg" section that kicks out free as backyard, with the view to put in a pool or similar after the build is complete.

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The sloped areas are where the house is going to sit, roughly. As you can see, slope goes in the direction of the arrows (started at the highest point, down to the lowest).

Anyone?

Hey Jo,

I think everyone else might be enjoying their christmas

But my comments are as follows:

Bedrooms\Garage
Bedroom size of 3-3.3m square is pretty standard, and now days people invest the space in living areas, However increasing the master could be worth while. To do this I'd extend the length of the garage underneath creating a workshop area where the store is and making the under stairs area a bigger storage cupboard. That space could then be added to the master bedroom and putting the bed against the bedroom 2 wall would giev you an area by the windows to put a couple of seats and a coffee table where you can have some of your own space. And you'd get a bigger bathroom, maybe enough space for a his and hers sink or a bath under the window.

Living
The great room is the theatre. The living is more of a library type sitting space. Whather you'd use it for that I don't know but it would make a good kids room. And you could flip the the study so desks are on the powder room side and then put a couple 1 foot wide by 3 foot high holes between the study and living so you can watch the kids while on the PC (and it makes a good feature).

Great Room
I'd enclose the lower alfresco area and make the great room space larger so you can get a pool table in with the home theatre. We've got a home theatre but if I had more space having a multipurpose room with bar, pool table and theatre area would be a better use. Great place for watching the game, having a cocktail party and james bond on or whatever.

Kitchen
I'd say openeing up between the kitchen and rumpus won't be possible beacuse of the ehight and the load bearing nature of the wall. Maybe move the living space to the dining end making a big open area on that end and only having the study at the front of the house. Would mean a more useful living space combined with dining beside the kitcehn (also decreases hall space making that into living space so better use of the m2 of the house)

Laundry
I'd be adding heaps of cupboards to the entire side of the laundry (like we did). Not sure you can get drying cupboards now days as hot water cylinders don't put off the heat they used to. But even more cupboard space could mean better use of the area.

Other comments
The breakout room upstairs seems useless. Maybe use the space for a walk in linen where you will actually be using linen (rather than a little one downstairs. Maybe even split the toilet off and have a seperate toilet\bathroom upstairs with a WIL beside it, would use the space and provide some good options there.

Hey Kodaz,

Thanks for all your helpful suggestions! I am playing around with some of these ideas, will try and upload a chopped version when I get a chance..

Still interested in anyone else's thoughts as well!

& hope everyone had a wonderful xmas..

I like it all.
I saw it christmas eve and just thought, wow...well thought out, cant think of anything to fix

then kodaz comes and has a list 14 foot long! but good on you, some food for thought.

A couple of thoughts on the bedrooms
I would look at swapping around the main bedroom-not good noise insulation between that and the adjoining bedroom. I would want the additional noise insulation of a wardrobe full of clothes. I might even think of changing the main bedroom /ensuite with the living room/study.

The other change would be the entrance to the rear left bedroom. Getting the furniture through that doorway followed by a 90 degree turn will be a challenge.

P.S. Left is based at looking towards the front of the house

That is exactly what I was going to say Maybe look at sound insulation for that wall. Unless it is just a guest room, then it wont matter so much.

Drying cupboard sounds great!

We have no kids, but I'll look in to ways to insulate the wall for if and when we do...

For now it'll likely be the Mr's computer room/office.

Good point! I was thinking of changing the door placements but this justifies why!

I was thinking to put the doors at an angle to make that corner look a bit more opened, but I'd have to look at dimensions first -- dont want to make it an unusable space.

Thanks!

Yeah I can see a nice diamond shape working with the doors\bathroom corner down there, but my paint skills aren't up to it unfortunately

We added sound insulation in all the internal walls and between the floors. We also added solid core doors as the sound will travel the path of least resistance so having walls done and doors hollow is a waste of time. We also had added to the home theatre a second layer of sound check gyprock.

The insulation has worked as the house is much quieter and even trying to talk (yell) between floors is so much harder. And walking into the home theatre you can notice the difference immediately as it is so much quieter than the rest of the house.

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really nice!
its massive

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Window for the pantry? Swing the door inwards?
Can you get a shelf in the hallway that maybe butts into the garage space - for visitors' keys or coats etc. Have to draw cross-section for levels. Or into the store room in Kodaz's ideas.
Linen space and sep WC upstairs are good ideas.
Plenty of wet places in Victoria lately....

Thanks Kiwi! I love the concept too, however when we looked at the measurements it actually comes up rather small on the block but i guess because its spread over three levels... leaves us with a lovely big backyard! (enough room to build another house, with room left over!)

Hey Matt+Jo,

Love the man cave/ bar that is really cool.... in fact love everything.

Just one thing... as your drive is sloping down, ask them to put a tornado/ cyclone groove on the slab where the roller door meets the slab, this will give you extra sealing in the event of heavy rain.... and you and i know both know Melb at the moment you never know what will happen with the weather.
My hubby is going to our place tomorrow i will see if he can take a photo for you

Baby Bacchus, that would be super - I think I know what you mean, but the truth is I probably have no idea!
I think the drive way will still have a slightly upward incline - but still something to be aware of in case it does end up with a downward slope...

I've added the window to the WIP and changed the door to swing inwards. I also thought it would be really nice to have the kitchen\living area with a sloped ceiling. You can then extend that roof line out for the covered alfresco and have a nice open area through that side.

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Kodaz, to ensure I am understanding what you mean with the ceiling; do you mean like a hollow roof, so the ceiling goes with the slope of the roof line - high in the middle, and going down to the meet the top of the walls? (probably a bad description, sorry. haha)

I agree though, this would make this area seem much more open. Would you still be able to insulate the roof the same as a level ceiling though? it is quite cold in our area, with heating still being used in the middle of summer for the last 2yrs. yikes!

Hey Jo,

Exactly what I was meaning. You end up with a space between the beams which you put insulation into. So just like insulating a wall with it betweenthe studs but deeper so with thicker insulaiton if that makes sense.

Kodaz, yep that makes sense! I will definately put that to the builder as I think it would make the whole house seem much more spacious and hubby & I were already sold on high ceilings... Infact, the in laws have the same effect on their house. I'll post a pic later.

In the mean time, I did some fiddling in photoshop also (seeing as everyone else was doing all the work, i felt I should put in some effort also haha)..

Here is what I have come up with so far;

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I changed the doors to the bedroom - the rear room on the right hand side has a bit of a corner thing happening because I pushed the robe into the room more to fit the bath (i want a spa bath, so realistically this is likely to happen as im sure it will need more room)...& i rearranged how the bathroom sat, to get some more bench space (with cupboards underneath)... but I will ask the builder to make the entry to that bedroom as flush as possible to avoid ugly bits jotting out all over the place.

I kept the suggestions from everyone above, and thats kindly to Kodaz who has put a lot of those already into the plan for me

I also added in an arrow showing which way the block faces (relevant), and removed a west facing window from one of the rear bedrooms as a) there wasn't much blank wall space, and b) it will avoid that hot afternoon sun.

I did also have a play with a variation to the above, and swapped bedroom 2 (between master & bathroom) and the study... as we have no children, and when I do I only plan on one or two, I thought this would make a lower level guest room (for anyone who has troubles with stairs? avoids one flight of stairs - such as for me when I have my hip surgery in the near future! eek)

This way, when you are going up the stairs to the bedrooms, you could have an open leisure/study area at the top of the stairs to open up the area -- an open room rather than a wall and a door... or alternatively, still have a wall and doors, put perhaps two sliding doors so it can still be closed off (nursery/extra sleeping area if needed) but still appear much more opened.... but im not sure how much I like this idea. I have put a rough idea of it below, but bearing in mind that a lot of the other changes (above) have not been copied over as yet. It also takes our study away from the front door and the praying eyes of anyone wanting to break in and steal our PC's.

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Would love some feedback on both of the above...