Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Oct 28, 2009 9:53 pm I have some land In Cairns which I am planning on building on. The steel structures on the landscape are actually part of the Cairns skyrail going through the rainforest.
I know how much people on here just LOVE opinions so I would value some input. The house I am building will be around 250SQM min including a large outdoor living area plus a pool. For my own use there will never be more than 3 people living in the home at anytime. I liked the idea of an open living area which helps create breeze flow for the tropics. Considering resale though I am not sure how many people like/dislike the open plan style of home Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ ABOVE - Open plan but seperate media room. Bigger rooms than designs below. How do people feel about walking into a large area with an open kitchen. Would it deter you in a resale? Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ ABOVE - Slightly bigger in size and some loss of room area due to widehallways Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ ABOVE - Generic 250 sqm design with lots of smaller rooms. Some people perceive more house/more value in this type of design I appreciate everybody will have personal taste but I am conncerend not to build something that doesn't appeal to the broadest resale market. I am making the move to Cairns from Brisbane (yeah wanna get away and the Brisbane winters are cold) and don't want to build something that may be hard to resell. There's probably less than $40,000 variation in the above which is not a huge consideration in the overall scheme of things. Thanks for your enthusiasm Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 2Oct 28, 2009 10:30 pm hi dadandsue.. firstly, nice view!! as for the floorplans... number 1 - personally I don't like bedrooms coming off a living area, so the main bedroom where it is would put me off a fair bit. Also, not sure about bedroom 4 being so far away from the other minor bedrooms. On the positive side, there is barely any wasted space with hallways, the walk in robe is massive and it would offer the best view from the patio. number 2 - prefer this layout to number 1, but it has one less bedroom, and the patio would be at the side of the house, probably not offering very much in the way of nice views. number 3 - probably my favourite out of the three. The kitchen / dining / family area would count as open plan in my opinion. Especially with the glass doors leading to the outdoor area. You would get an extra bedroom too. Although the patio is at the side like number 2, the house doesn't come back around, so you would still be able to look out over those hills! It has the best design for putting a pool in the backyard too. In the end though, you are building this house for yourself. I understand being worried about resale (this was a big factor in our house design too) but if you like your house chances are there will be someone who likes what you like when the time comes to sell. Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 3Oct 28, 2009 11:03 pm One thing to remember, most forum members are Victorian and their house plans tend to focus more on ability to heat efficiently rather than cool - shocking generalisation on my part, I know , but I've found passive cooling isn't discussed much here. Our new house (Mackay) has been designed to maximise passive cooling with good crossflow achieved with house orientation and window placement. With rising electricity costs and hotter temperatures, I think this is a consideration that will be on every home-buyer's minds and make a great selling point. Make sure you visit your block at different times of day before choosing your plans. If you understand your predominant breeze direction you can select a plan that has the best window placement to catch the breezes, and orient the house on your block to help if at all possible. Builders won't always be looking for this. For A/C, plans 2 & 3 have long hallways and activity/entertainment rooms that open off them without doors. This will result in much more wasted cooling energy than plan 1. I would definitely be choosing plan 1 over the other 2 plans, but there would be better designs out there if you really want to maximise passive cooling. Plan 1 doesn't really have great opportunity for crossflow - you need windows for air to enter and windows roughly opposite for the air to exit through too. Plan 1 has those lovely wide stacker doors but only the front door on the opposite side. Kylie Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 4Oct 28, 2009 11:17 pm Floorplan 1 is awesome. Whether or not anyone else would buy it, not a clue. I sure would though. Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 5Oct 29, 2009 8:35 am I see some problems with floor plan 1 - the main bedroom comeing off the dineing area is not great, B4 has to walk thru the liveing area to get to the toilet/bathroom (Ok if it is used as a study though) and the liveing area has too many doorways off it to be able to make practical use of the space. Floorplan 2 has a strange outdoor wasted space between porch and B1 and I agree with the comment about the patio. I know these 'landlocked' patios are common but IMO a patio/alfresco etc should have vision and access to the back garden. Ours is at the side of the house, behind the garage, but there is no house between it and the garden, if that makes sense. Cant see any problems with Floorplan 3. However IMO re-sale factor, within reason, should fall very secondary to picking a floor plan that suits you - unless you plan to do something really unusual, say, have 2 bedrooms off the pantry , then what you choose will appeal to some people and not to others. Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 6Oct 29, 2009 8:53 am I see a lot of problems with floorplan one. People can argue as much as they like that there is no wasted space with hallways, but you still have to get through from one area to the other so walkways are created.... just because they are not define on the floorplan doesn't mean they aren't there. As Helyn said, a lot of doorways etc off this area, hard to place furniture. Think about where your TV and couches will be placed.... people coming from the media room or outside to use the toilet will have to walk through the middle of the family room. Would do my head in. Give me a walkway past room rather than through a room any day. Plan 2... well I'm biased because I'm building a version of that house. We also have a lot of back yard at the back and we will eventually have a secondary deck outside that area. We like that will have a private wind protected alfresco, and then have another more open deck area for the yard. I'd put doors off the family room to the rear yard. You also have a visual link to the yard from the kitchen. Nor sure if kids are a factor, but great if they are. Another positive about this plan is that people can't see you sitting at your kitchen table or watching TV from the front door. The third plan is great but not as much storage, I like walk in storage/linen cupboards. I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself. Terrence Malick Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 7Oct 29, 2009 10:13 am Thankyou for all your responses. It's great to see different viewpoints. I started with #1 as a nice open (no wasted space) design. With prevailing winds would blow from back to front of house I was anticipating this to be an effective design. However, I do see issues with furniture placement and a large square area is going to be hard to prevent looking boring. I perceive that many people may have the same objection #3 is a GJG design. It's typical of their homes. Looks great on paper until you see the actual room sizes. Very tight so that it appears you are getting a lot of house, but some rooms too tight. Not really a true tropics design. #2 was something I found that when flipped over would catch the breezes and the large (but perhaps space wasting) hallway would definitely have a feeling of luxury to it Because I may well sell this home in 1-2 years I am cautious about over capitalising and at the same time need to be creating something some sort of wow factor. The property market in Cairns is very sluggish although I predict it will improve, but not straight away. Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 8Oct 29, 2009 12:58 pm I'm not sure if you've actually seen house two in person, had a walk through etc. The hallway is WOW, really makes the house and I go to our house and walk from the kitchen to the front door and back again just because I love it so much. Our house isn't finished yet, but here are some pics of the curved hallway in case you haven't seen it. I love it and so does everyone who has walked through it. From the front door. http://i519.photobucket.com/albums/u353/joles_photo/2009-10-16_17-07-59_161020091315.jpg Looking down hallway. http://i519.photobucket.com/albums/u353/joles_photo/2009-10-21_14-36-47_211020091342.jpg From the lounge (study on your plan) http://i519.photobucket.com/albums/u353/joles_photo/2009-10-13_12-22-37_131020091304.jpg From the rear living area. http://i519.photobucket.com/albums/u353/joles_photo/2009-10-08_14-40-52_081020091292.jpg I leave you to fend for yourself, figure things out yourself. Terrence Malick Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 9Oct 29, 2009 7:20 pm joles I must agree it has wow factor which I think is so importanttif you are thinking about resale. Yes there are lots of people with 2 or more kids but there's a lot of people with either no kids or just 1 or 2. Not everybody wants 6 living areas to clean that end up being not used. If you are going to have a hall make it a feaure and this is what your design is about. Congrats As for the patio areas - undercover areas that are almost indoor/outdoor are very useful in all but the coldest weather Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 10Oct 29, 2009 8:43 pm joles People can argue as much as they like that there is no wasted space with hallways, but you still have to get through from one area to the other so walkways are created.... just because they are not define on the floorplan doesn't mean they aren't there. I won't argue about wasted space, but I will argue that hallways can be detrimental to cross-ventilation and increase energy bills if artificial cooling is used if they can't be effectively closed off. Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 11Oct 30, 2009 2:50 pm UPDATE Having a mid house alfresco area and the kitchen/living at the back of the house will be far more efficent for catching the prevailing breezes. If I am going to have a hallway it has to be a feature part of the house. Apart from that a little surprised at some of the builder attitudes. On one hand I have people saying that things are quiet and they will shave their prices to get a start on something fast and then I have other builders trying to tell me that prices are going up. And if one more builder tells me that "their quality is better than everybody else's" I think I am going to get to the point of believing none of them. I just about think that all builders can build a similar quality house if they want to - but it all comes down to reading the fine print on inclusions. One builder just quoted me with a 820mm nonsolid front door that is worth about $100 at Bunnings... grrr Anyway, I don't suppose this was meant to be all easy Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 12Nov 07, 2009 6:31 pm UPDATE I am waiting on a price for design #2. I have made some revisions so will just have to wait and see what comes from it. Out of 6 builders I have approached. 3 have been professional and the other 3 dont even seem interested Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 13Nov 27, 2009 2:18 pm dadandsue UPDATE I am waiting on a price for design #2. I have made some revisions so will just have to wait and see what comes from it. Out of 6 builders I have approached. 3 have been professional and the other 3 dont even seem interested Looks like you are still deciding between David McCoy Homes, Better Homes and GJ Homes... May i ask which sales consultant are you dealing with Better Homes? I know their staff pretty well.... Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 14Nov 27, 2009 3:21 pm No David McCoy Homes is definitely out of the equation
In answer to your question the answer is MD. Better homes are the most expensive (of the builders I have approached - and it's alwats hard to compare apples with applies) but I feel most confident about their capacites. What makes it hard is the other 2 builders in the comparison both rang me today to supposedly offer a better deal - totally out of the blue Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 15Nov 27, 2009 8:43 pm Hey neighbor!!! I'am building with McCoy just opposite of you. This will be my first home and builder is great so far, we are near council stage. when I was shopping around for builders, I got most of the builders in cairns to quote on my own custom plan and inclusions, McCoy was one of the best in price and plus they well known & have a good reputation in Cairns. I can't thank my sales person enough for putting up with all the changes i made and competitive price she got me. Nick Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 16Nov 27, 2009 8:52 pm Nick you stole that block of land. Good luck to you. Unfortunately your salesperson left her employer before I ever got a quote, so I never really got to get a final design/price from them. But she did tell me she was building for you. What colours are you building just so we dont copy each other? I am going for a mid darkish render with light colour (white) colorbond I can't believe you found me here on the forum. Small world Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 17Nov 28, 2009 7:18 pm dadandsue Nick you stole that block of land. Good luck to you. Actually you both stole the cheapest block of land in that estate. One being $xxx,xxx with great reserve creek and parkland view and other being $xxx,xxx with houses roof and some skyrail view. Not bad ay... considering i am still looking in that area too. Smithfield village is looking pretty good with many free packages e.g. free landscaping, fencing and watertank. dadandsue did you look at S.V area too? mind telling us which 2 builders you are comparing now? Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 18Nov 28, 2009 7:54 pm I just wonder can you actually visit any of the three homes you are considering (ie. display homes)? That may help you truly decide which works for you. As for resale, I would have thought the best layout is personal taste, they all have good/bad points (as most forumers have pointed out) but they are all negligible if they work for you... A thankful person is a happy person. [/color]My hobby design blog: http://aviewondesign.blogspot.com/ Re: Design Input 250sqm Cairns - What do you reckon? 20Nov 28, 2009 9:36 pm Actually you both stole the cheapest block of land in that estate. One being $173,000 with great reserve creek and parkland view and other being $174,000 with houses roof and some skyrail view. Not bad ay... considering i am still looking in that area too. Smithfield village is looking pretty good with many free packages e.g. free landscaping, fencing and watertank. dadandsue did you look at S.V area too? mind telling us which 2 builders you are comparing now? I would say our purchases were both distressed sales and extremely diffilcult to negotiate and get finalised. I think Nick's block is the better of the two buys but yes it is a great estate and we are in the best little pocket in a culdesac. Smithville Village is less expensive but to be honest the KenFrost mass spec home builds in there turned me off. Canopy's edge has less investment builders, the min 250 sqm size and the better location creates a more prestigous environment. That being said anybody that wants to spend under $200000 in the northern beaches of Cairns cant go wrong in Smithville Village Cairns is such a fabulous place to live and I dont see it being as affordable in 2-5 years time. AS for my builders I will let you know in the next week... 1 10488 Building Standards; Getting It Right! We bought a house in 2015 advertised as a 7/2/2, 4br up, 3br down (7br), and to date, it’s a great house. However, we’ve just had it valued and it’s come in as a… 0 12001 I think you are getting different numbers because they all just based them on "other jobs" even though each job is unique. Often, with builders, unless you're speaking to… 3 3240 |