Need some advice on the design

Hello everyone, newbie here. We are looking to build new house with Clarendon, the design we are interested in is Saratoga as we have wide frontage. We want to change the floor plan to better suite our need. We tried to make some modification, would love to seek some feedback from the community.

Our backyard is east north facing, having the bedroom facing back would be ideal.


Original floor plan: https://www.clarendon.com.au/nsw/home-d ... aratoga-40

what changes do you want?

Bedrooms are normally best suited to the south side of the house, north and west facing bedrooms can get quite warm. You don't live in a bedroom like you do in living areas. Apart from adding the rumpus and alfresco and changes to the powder, I would leave bedrooms as per original plan.

my teenage children spent a lot of day time hours in their bedrooms and potential overheating can be modified by suitable insulation and external shutters if needed but it's already a very big house and depending on width of your block the upstairs may need to set back from sides more than downstairs so i've allowed enough space to reduce the width of upstairs rooms if necessary but we really need more information to provide accurate suggestions but based on approximate dimensions i've made some variations but haven't included an extra rumpus room as there seems to be enough other rooms for every activity and depending on local climate and views, a balcony off the master bedroom and leisure room could be worth considering and bed 4 or 5 and the leisure room could be swopped over

wow, your design looks much better than any of the version I provided. They should hire you, . Here is more information about our block:
1. It is 20m wide and 40m long
2. The front yard is actually west facing. I was wrong, the backyard is east facing


Is having the master room ensuite on the front normal? I would like the master room on the front more.

Again we really like your design, might just use it with little bit modifications.

That's good point, the reason we want the rooms to get enough sunlight is that our kids are turning teenagers soon, they might prefer staying the room instead.

I thought you asked for the master bedroom facing the backyard?? ...please list what you want for every room and i will attempt to provide what you want

We actually found out that the 42 is actually better. Here is some more information about our block and requirements:

1. The backyard is north east facing
2. It is 20 meters wide
3. We prefer more bedrooms facing backyard
4. Not having the ensuites facing street though as it would look bit odd

Some thinking about your design:
1. Prefer not having the wall just in front of the end of stairs at first floor as the landing will seem cramped
2. Prefer not having the storage replacing the rail on first floor as it would make the void look boxed


Could you please attempt on the 42 floor plan which can be found at https://www.clarendon.com.au/nsw/home-d ... aratoga-42?

placing all bedrooms across the back would need a wall opposite the top of the stairs, bathrooms at the sides and lots of empty space across the front to be used for a living area and what else?? and there needs to be some wall around the stairs to support the roof and create some privacy but do you want an open stairwell at the cost of storage and bedroom sizes..and keep in mind that widening the house also makes more space downstairs that could be used for a rumpus room and bigger guest suite and MPR but that makes the whole house about 450sqm!!! assuming that you will only use Clarendon to build a variation of their floor plan do they have a limit to the variations allowed and what is the maximum size possible with your budget?

Yeah, It would be impossible to have all bedrooms facing back. I think we just want to have as many as possible, e.g. 2 or 3 bedrooms. And yes we would prefer to have open stair over storage as we think it should be fine as each bedroom would have wardrobe anyway. The current room size, 3.x * 4.x should be good enough? I agree, we probably don't need rumpus anymore as the house is already over 400sqm. No need to extend the house.

widening the whole house allows for 4 bedrooms across the back separated by the wiw for parents' privacy and a the more private bedroom on the front could be for the oldest child ...downstairs inlcudes an optional rumpus and total size is still under 400sqm but with small variations there should be enough space for a triple garage and/or drive through to the backyard plus my original alfresco

Thank you so much for the effort. We will use it to talk with builder. We also had idea of building duplex instead and seeking suggest ions. viewtopic.php?f=31&t=106744