Hamptons inspired architect design with attached granny flat

Thanks edskii!

The utilities area. Rather unglamorous but very necessary, we wanted to keep all the machinery (pool, aircon, hot water) neatly out of sight. The timber framed door is from the laundry/mudroom. To the right behind the opened slatted gate is a wall, which will have the clothes line attached and for the bins to go against.

Stunning, absolutely stunning!

Thanks Stormy!

Rendered retaining walls have been painted, and most of the plants put in for landscaping. A couple were incorrect, so the landscaper will have to change them. The rendered walls look so good, the dark colour is a lovely contrast to all the light and bright around it. The plant colours will really pop against it.

beautiful colour contrast!

The rendered planters look fantastic! Black works beautifully in landscapes, great choice.

Clipsal Zen light switches. They have a lovely shadow line.




Larger switches for granny flat. This is part of our future-proofing.


Toilets!



External lights. Not my original choice, but Cv19 meant there would have been significant delays for those.



Security keypad lock installed

YOur house looks amazing Hillsbuilds!

I've read a few of your posts... Do you mind sharing:
What level of insulation you used in your walls and if it was enough.
I see you have Hebel PowerFloor - did you put any other insulation with it/does it block all the noise (we are going to have carpet upstairs so i know that is already a layer)
What did you use for sliders/windows. I can see you mentioned double glazed and low-e. I'm finding the glass options confusing... thicker glass etc.. .and when to use!

Any insights would be amazing! Thanks so much.

Thanks ocean.

Insulation in the walls varies depending on what construction type of wall. So in the granny flat, all external walls are reverse brick veneer with R2.06 insulation. Internal walls are not insulated. In the main house, Northfacing external walls are RBV with R1.5 insulation. Other external walls are lightweight with R3 insulation. Internal walls have R2.

Hebel floor has R4.1 insulation under it. We have not moved in yet, but in site visits, the house is very quiet (although not silent, as that would be weird!). Construction noise is audible but very muted. We also have solid core internal doors, and when shut we can’t yell out to someone in another part of the house as they won’t hear us. Thermally, in the hottest days of summer the house was still quite cool on the inside. However I’ve noticed that the room that was coolest and most pleasant to be in during the summer heat is now quite chilly in winter. It has only south facing windows and gets no sun at all. We knew this was going to be the case though, so that room is designed to be closed off for heating/cooling or just used in summer.

http://Www.yourhome.gov.au has lots of info about orientation and energy efficiency if you haven’t heard of it yet. Including glass options.

All of our windows and doors are double glazed except for those with louvres. Some also have low-e on one side, depending on which direction the window is facing. DG is great for stopping heat transfer, unless the sun is shining directly in through the glass. Which is why shading is also important (eaves, external fins/shutters, trees). DG also helps with external noise. Our windows are by AVS Windows and Doors. They feel nice and sturdy.

Thank you for such a detailed reply! I’ve been recommended to do low-e for my sliders, but unsure if this will be a good long term option or whether the price of double glazed is out of reach... still waiting to get prices.

Thanks again. I didn’t think we needed more insulation with hebel, hubby says to add it.... so many decisions!

Construction fence removed and picket fence is up, although mailbox still to be installed. Most landscaping is complete. This is the only grass on the site - we didn’t want any at all, but the council insists on turf for the verge.

External lights at night. I should have planned for a couple of lights on the second storey

Your house looks beautiful, I have been following your build with interest and you have done a very good job!! I am sure you must be loving it as well.

Thanks Den45! I am very happy with it. It’s just easy to second guess my choices and think of improvements in hindsight. It’s certainly true that you don’t know what you don’t know. Overall though I must remember that there are infinitely more wins than losses!

Is it odd to be excited by a laundry door? A ridiculous amount of thought went into this door! TLDR : we finally worked out a combination of features that worked.

The laundry/mudroom has no windows, so I wanted

- to have a security door so I could leave the door open for ventilation
- to have an electronic lock with keypad so the kids don’t need to carry physical keys with them.

The keypad lock meant I couldn’t have a screen door AND a solid door, so I was glad to discover the Guardian 2-in-1. BUT...

...it comes standard with a door knob. I did not want door knobs on my doors (future proofing). Change it to a door handle? No, because it will block the inner door from being opened.

So we ended up with a pull handle on each side of the door, keypad on the outside and unlock switch on the inside (it’s on the wall next to the doors along with the light switches). The snib below the handle is a deadlock.

Then the builder realised that the door only comes in 2040 height, while our other doors are 2340. So he added the glass pane above .

You must be excited to getting closer to handover, and it will be reassuring once you are living in it to know so much thought and effort went into even the small details. What's the ETA on handover now?

The whole place is looking amazing, and once good thing too is you've got everything done in one go rather than having to deal with construction of pool, landscaping etc later on.

I know what you mean by the win<>loss ratio. I am still annoyed by some of our losses, particularly as most of it in our opinion was avoidable through better communication, but the wins we had with things like good site access during construction make it still a good home overall.

The small things I didn't consider, but have turned out really good for us.....like I still haven't seen any insects (spiders etc) since we moved in late last year. I realise now all the additional air sealing work has made it almost impossible for them to crawl their way in....so a nice bonus that I didn't consider at the time.

Interested in your lack of grass...I am now leaning towards no lawn myself. Most of my rear yard is currently being turned into a vegetable growing area!

Hey darb74, handover is this Friday! Very excited, it’s been a long time coming. It’s great that you’ve discovered unintentional perks at your new place. I expect we’ll be the same - perks or otherwise - eg we have only ever been on site between 10-2pm. Will be interesting to see what it’s like first thing in the morning, or in the dark!

Builder has staged parts of the house for promotional photos. They will also be used for entry into next year’s Master Builder Awards (just missed this year’s cut-off in May). The decor is of course very neutral, very typical Hamptons.



Wall mural is up. You can just see the outline of the understairs door.



And we have our mailbox! There will be a street number under the little light to the right of the box.

Looks great, I love the parcel box!