Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Dec 30, 2015 2:39 pm Greetings Everyone. First and foremost, I wish us all an enjoyable festive season, a safe and happy new year. Two more sleeps! We're a growing family with four kids 5, 8, 11 and 13. It is long overdue for an up-grade to our dwelling as we’ve out grown it. We have a small land approx. 550 m2 (15.4 m x 36m) and due to council restriction / policy it is a daunting task to come up with a design that will accommodate 5x beds, and still provide reasonable open space. We engaged an architecture to complete our design and it is now council approved. But I am quite nervous going into the build as I am not sure how it’ll pan out. I read some techniques as well as fengshui for designing new house. Nonetheless, I ever wonder if there is any fundamental flaw in the design and sincerely looking forward to your professional comments/opinions. Here are the floor layouts and elevations for your comments. Ground Floor Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ First Floor Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ East North elevation Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ South West elevation Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ I am not adventurous and really don't have the experience to go "owner builder". I therefore seek your comments on how to choose a builder, or if you know any good ones to recommend. Cheers Civarow Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 3Dec 30, 2015 8:33 pm Hi Imrasm, Thanks for the comment. I like the open space especially around the kitchen. I am planning for a ceiling fan somewhere in the middle of the void. I would like the idea of leaning out my bedroom window and checking if dinner is ready! Yes, you're right, we sacrificed for a smaller WIR. I intend to have a glass partition between the WIR and the ensuite and also by using mirror sliding door robe which will make it a little rommier than it is. Civarow Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 4Dec 31, 2015 12:57 pm Hi Civarow, Have you thought about adding any display recesses and/or shower niches? If not, this would be the best time to think about adding them in. Also you said you were thinking of adding a ceiling fan in the 'void' area between the master and Bedroom 4. Is that void area not another room with a width of 1.14m? Would you really get a lot of use from a fan in this area? Perhaps consider having the fan in your master. You also noted that you have a few kids and you will soon have multiple teenagers. Have you noticed all your toilets are locked in full bathrooms making them unusable if someone is taking a shower? Perhaps that void area can be turned into a W.C if you feel you need the flexibility. Finally I would recommend you discuss the plans with your builder before signing off. We went down the same path of going custom which we still consider was our best decision. If you are struggling to find builders you can chech the HIA website for a list of licenced and registered builders. We are also building in South West Sydney (Gregory Hills) with Xenith Constructions. You can try calling Chris at Xenith but I know he busy and might not be able to take you on, which would be a shame as he is a great builder. Good luck! Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 5Dec 31, 2015 3:43 pm Hi SMK, Thanks for the thoughtful comment. I will re-consider the issue especially the WC. As we soon will have three young men around! The girl will have her ensuite in Bed 1. The void was not considered as living area and we have reached our limit, from memory 254sq m. That means we just can't simply turn it into living area without reducing elsewhere! I will further consult/review with builder regarding separating the toilet and shower etc. Thanks for the recommendation, i will contact Chris in due course. Hope we all have a safe, joyous new year eve! civarow Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 6Jan 02, 2016 10:49 am I would consider turning the downstairs front living room to a bedroom and making the ones upstairs bigger. Do families really use front lounge rooms anymore? None of the families I visit do, always the rear areas and bedrooms. You could also fit it out as a bedroom (with a robe) and still use it as a lounge. Sent from an iPhone please excuse the ridiculous spell correcting software. My forum thread is at viewtopic.php?t=74944 Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 7Jan 02, 2016 12:46 pm TheBigHouse I would consider turning the downstairs front living room to a bedroom and making the ones upstairs bigger. Do families really use front lounge rooms anymore? None of the families I visit do, always the rear areas and bedrooms. You could also fit it out as a bedroom (with a robe) and still use it as a lounge. Sent from an iPhone please excuse the ridiculous spell correcting software. My forum thread is at viewtopic.php?t=74944 Hi TheBigHouse, Thanks for a great comment. It is so true in what you said and we will do what you suggested, "You could also fit it out as a bedroom (with a robe) and still use it as a lounge". cheers civarow Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 8Jan 04, 2016 11:44 pm Hi Civarow, Congrats on planning to build a new home - it's an exciting adventure. I hope you'll forgive me if my honesty offends you - I'm just really passionate that you get the best outcome for your time, money and effort. Whilst your home is lines on a page, you have a precious window of opportunity to get it right. I have some grave concerns about this design. It appears to ignore the orientation of the site - which will lead to higher running costs overall to maintain comfortable internal temperature levels. It also means the home won't feel great to live in because spaces will be dark, and hot or cold when you don't want them to be. I'm also struggling to see how you'll happily use the rooms in this design - especially with 4 growing children. The ones that do have furniture drawn in them show very little circulation space around that furniture. The others that don't have furniture drawn - it is difficult to envisage how you will furnish them. I always recommend to clients that they insist their drawings show furniture in all rooms. What will you do about bedside tables in Bed 1? Will you climb over the bed to get into the far side of it every night? The same question applies to the master bedroom. There's also a lot of wet areas - which I understand may be driven by your family's requirements (3 of the bedrooms are ensuited). Have you had that checked against your budget overall? I'll stop there, but I do hope you'll take a moment to seriously consider the investment you're making here and review the drawings whilst you can. You can have a compact, affordable home AND have it work functionally, as well as feel great to live in. It's not worth compromising on functionality, or designing for orientation, because when you're living in here, and busy with your very full live with 4 kids, it will be the functionality and natural light quality that makes your life in the home simple and awesome, or frustrating. I know that it can be overwhelming to know whether you'll get it right, and it can feel like it takes forever to get your design decided and turned into a completed home. Whilst your home exists as drawings however, that's the time to be sure you're doing all you can to stretch your budget and maximise every opportunity for this to be a great home that makes yours, and your family's, lives better. Warm Regards, and best wishes for a great project, Your Secret Ally, Amelia Lee the Undercover Architect Undercover Architect is your secret ally when designing, building or renovating your home. Whoever you're working with, get info you need to get it right - visit http://www.undercoverarchitect.com Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 9Jan 05, 2016 11:33 am Hi Amelia-Lee, Thank you for your comment and it is noteworthy. We struggle with the design, having 4x kids and the maximum living area based on the land was a mere 254 sqm. My original plan was to have 1x main and 3x beds, in order to have reasonable size beds for decoration and furniture etc. However, my misses insist on 1x main and 4x beds for 4x kids! To cater for the lack of real estate, we plan for them to do their homework in the study hence eliminate the need for any desk inside the beds! We may need special custom furniture (made to suit the room layout), if necessary. Your comment. Regarding orientation and sunlight, all i know is that we are facing north! lol. The kitchen should have some morning sunlight through the glass brick above. The dining room should get afternoon sun via clear roof pergola. I am not 100% confident in this area. Any recommendations. I will reconsider your comment thoroughly again Your comment and recommendation are always appreciated. civaro Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 10Jan 09, 2016 1:29 pm Hi Civaro You are north-facing to the street according to the north-point on your floor plans. The ideal scenario is north-to-rear in the southern hemisphere - as (to maintain privacy and access to the garden) we usually arrange our living spaces facing our rear garden. The trick with designing to orientation is to use the movement of the sun to naturally light our interior spaces, whilst keeping the heat load in or out. Capturing morning sun is great, and afternoon sun is great in winter (however very harsh in summer). I can understand your wife's desire to have the extra bedroom - it can be handy to have guest accommodation or that extra room for studying, a home office or a sewing room. However, perhaps it could be created as a 'space' rather than its own room, to take the pressure off this floor plan. Does your garage need to go in the location it's in? Can it go on the other side of the home (the NW corner)? I wish to suggest to you that this floor plan requires redesigning - I think custom-made furniture will cost you far more than the design fees to get it redesigned well now! It seems a strange compromise to make to create rooms that don't fit standard furniture, as opposed to getting the design right in the first place. It can be very challenging when you're building your family home - especially if you only want to do it once, because you want to squeeze as much into it as possible. However if by doing this, you completely compromise the functionality of everything, it's a high price to pay (in $$ and lifestyle) and a pain to live with permanently. I would suggest, in the first instance, to ask your designer to put furniture in every room. Then look at how you will physically move around it. Not squeezing and going sideways, but moving freely (especially given there's 6 of you). Hope that helps, Warm Regards Your Secret Ally, Amelia Lee the Undercover Architect Undercover Architect is your secret ally when designing, building or renovating your home. Whoever you're working with, get info you need to get it right - visit http://www.undercoverarchitect.com Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 11Jan 10, 2016 10:26 am Hi Amelia-Lee, Thanks for your thoughts and comment. The location of the garage: i. Our house is one house away from the T intersection, so we try to have it to the left (which is NE) to minimize the hazard of the traffic ii. There is an large high voltage cubical in the NW corner, it sits on our neighbour perimeter but it could create some a blind spot on our drive way, lastly iii It is a KDR and we always had it on the left (NE) hence we are very comfortable where it is, lol! Interior, yes i will consult our architech for modeling the house with furniture etc. I will keep you posted. cheers civarow Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 12Jan 16, 2016 9:46 am Hi Amelia-Lee, The architecture managed to do reasonable fit-out for Bed 1 to 4, by changing the double bed size to single! While we still have limited space with the main, we'll accept the compromised. Anyhow, thanks for your comment and it was certainly worthwhile. Thanks everyone for your feedback/comments. Cheers civarow. Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 13Jan 19, 2016 12:06 pm Best wishes for your project, Regards Amelia Lee, UA Undercover Architect is your secret ally when designing, building or renovating your home. Whoever you're working with, get info you need to get it right - visit http://www.undercoverarchitect.com Re: New custom design - South Western Sydney 14Jan 20, 2016 10:01 am Posting to follow Build thread: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=75302 Hello, we can help you please get in contact 0421019219 thank you 3 32249 Hi all, We are looking to build a new two storey house in western Sydney. Can anyone recommend a smallish builder to go with? We are trying to stay away from the big… 0 12387 ideal house depends on the site and location as much as internal floor plan....what is the distance from the house to all four boundaries, where is north, describe your… 3 15551 |