Longridge Madison - lalala

Thanks Tamdaz!! I'm loving this phase =)

next update!

Standing in the pantry doorway looking out


standing in the dining room looking at the kitchen


Likely place for plates, cups, cutlery, etc


The island bench - we're a little worried that the second dish drawer (WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY down the far end) may be difficult to get the water and waste pipes to as there is very little room at the back of the cabinets! Also hoping that the dishwasher is capable of pumping the waste water that far! If not, we might have to do some rearranging and have the rubbish bin cabinet moved to the far end and the dishwasher placed closer to the sink...


The cooking area. The tall oven tower with microwave and recipe books above the oven. 900mm cooktop goes in where the top cupboard is cut away to allow for slide-out rangehood. The commercial wok burner goes where the bench is lowered, and it has a concealed rangehood going in above it. All the holes have been cut to allow for rangehood venting =))) SO exciting!


The appliance cabinet inside the pantry. Frequently used items stay on the benchtop above for easy sliding through the hole in the wall so that we can use them in the kitchen, then slide them back through to the pantry for invisibility! =)))) YAY!


Pantry shelves!!!


My beautiful laundry with doors on =)


Main bathroom linen cupboard. One of the doors is missing, but *should* be there prior to handover!


Main bathroom vanity - with handles!! Apparently they're out of stock for our handles and only had enough available to do the vanities


Ensuite vanity with handles (and one drawer front missing). The kickboard hasn't been added here yet as the wonky wall still needs to be fixed.

It looks great and I'm soooooo jealous. I'll be waiting ages for anything to do with my house.

Gasp!! It looks stunning!! Look forward to seeing it finished. Well done

WOW all that storage!!!

Do you mind if I ask you what dimensions your butlers pantry and laundry are?

We want to have cupboards on either side of the laundry like you and I'm hoping it won't be too squashy .. and I love the set up in the butlers pantry.. also, do you have a window in the butlers pantry?

Your house is looking beautiful, and I love to see all these piccies!!

Thanks all! I'm absolutely rapt =))))

Can't wait for the stone benchtops!!

Lee, the pantry is 1650 wide, 3490 long. The benches are 600mm wide and the shelves 300mm wide.

The laundry is 2200 wide by 3700 long with 600mm benches and 450mm linen/broom cupboards.

Both are very spacious, although the pantry could do with a little more width when cupboard doors are open. I don't think it will be a problem at all, just one of those "would have been nice" things =)

Oh, and we haven't added a window to the pantry. Easier to regulate temperature that way. We do have an automated light on a motion sensor, though.

it is really obvious that a lot of thought has gone into the design of your house, and is a total credit to you. I didnt even realise there is a second level until I went searching for the floorplan for the laundry and pantry dimensions. Wow!!!

And I love that your fur babies have been considered so much in the design as well. If you don't mind me asking such a weird question, where is the cats litter tray going to be? We are going to have a special spot in the laundry but not sure how its going to work just yet.

Actually, the double storey plan was our original design. We couldn't afford to build that one, so the one we currently have has very similar rooms and spaces (slightly smaller, but equally live-able) all on one level. The plan that we are building is actually a more sustainable/solar passive design and should work more in our favour. This is our plan that we are building:





The kitty litter has its own designated spot in the laundry =)



The benchtop goes the entire length of the laundry along this side with the washing machine and laundry hamper area when you first walk in the door, then the cabinet with trough above to act as a barrier between the washing machine and the litter, and then the kitty litter area is the bit with the higher section of "wall" in front. We've added that as a guard to deflect any kitty litter that they kick up around the place (yes, the cabinet people thought we were MAD for asking for that!! But apparently anything goes if you're willing to pay for it!). I'm sure that it will make cleaning a little more frustrating for the section behind the guard, but it should greatly improve the floor elsewhere in the laundry. At present they are perfectly capable of scattering kitty litter over the entire laundry floor as we have nothing of sufficient height to stop it from flying about.

Ideally, a wall like that which is easily removable or on a hinge would be the solution. We didn't want to have to think on it too much, and knew that if it was something we had determined to do ourselves after handover that other projects would win out and we'd end up cleaning heaps of kitty litter scatterings for the next 5 years, thus opted for the easier option of having the wall added I think it is 300mm high.

You can just tell that they're evil kitty-litter-flinging machines, can't you? Especially the camouflage kitty...

Hey somewoman, can't believe I've just discovered your build thread today... (from seeing the nice job you did for mark299 earlier on! )

Wow, well played on planning + building such a sustainable house. I just have to ask a couple of questions (if that's OK!) ~ apologies in advance if you've already covered this in your thread somewhere.
Those 5 big windows you have looking outward towards the back yard (office | living | dining | kitchen) ~ what orientation are they? I guess my question is, where is North on your block?
I'm assuming you have these windows double-glazed ~ did you go for tinting as well?

And also, on your plan, the little note that says: "Provide separate plumbing for laundry cold water taps ready for connection to rainwater tanks & connection by owner prior to occupancy" ~ I so wanted to do this in the early stages (when we were still trying to find the right house + the right builder). At least two of the big builders we spoke to said they just couldn't do this (at least not here in Vic). The reason seems to be that they have to provide the connection with 'drinkable water' as opposed to rainwater, *even though* this connection is going to a washing machine, which you are hardly going to drink out of. The builders we did ask about this implied that this was building legislation they had to comply to.

To be fair to our current builder, we didn't even ask whether it was an option ~ figure we may do it later on, as we will probably add at least one additional rainwater tank later (after we're all moved in) when we're figuring out landscaping.

We have included double-glazing as a must, upped our roof and external wall insulation. Maybe we've not done enough. But we are trying to keep as many of our mature trees as we practically can, and we'll be replanting as well. (Does that count towards our "green credentials"? Maybe light-green anyway.)

Anyway, your house is looking amazing ~ a very different living plan ~ unique! I'm sure it will be amazing to live in as well.

~ cheers, J

They're double glazed but I don't *think* they're tinted - we didn't ask for tinting though they look a little darker than normal single glazed windows which is probably due to the two layers of glass. The SHGC of the windows is not as high as I'd hoped, but we have so much north facing glass I think we'll be ok in winter. We didn't want to tint to maximise the solar gain during winter. And we'll have a movable shade on a pergola to protect all of the windows so in summer we don't get roasted.



Its a requirement in SA now for new house to get a rainwater tank plumbed into the house - probably most common is laundry or toilet. In retrospect since we have so much rainwater (44kL) we should have done both the toilets as well as the laundry.



Looking at a lot of the new houses around I think if you've got good orientation and a design to take advantage of that as well as good insulation you've done a lot more than most The government really needs to increase the environmental requirements of house designs.

btw if you haven't already had your slab laid, one easy and fairly cheap thing to do is get the grey water separated from the blackwater. Don't need to do anything with it straight away, but makes it much easier later to install a grey water system for watering the garden.

Hello! And welcome =)


Questions are always welcomed - I hope that I can answer them well enough to be of some help! =)


On the plans, up is north, so we get all that northern sun into those 5 big windows. This was a major component of our solar-passive design - as much sun into the main living area as possible to heat the house in winter, and a retractable cover system to protect all of that glazing from sun in summer. Everything is timber frames for insulation, and everything is double glazed with the exception of the front door (which was our compromise on function versus sexy

The windows seem to have a slight tint to them, although I'm not sure what it is called or what percentage of tinting it is - we didn't ask for it as were a little dismayed when they were greenish as it could hamper our plans for allowing winter sun to heat up the thermal mass of the slab. Having said that, it may just be an artifact of the double glazing. It shouldn't be too big a problem. Overall, we're very happy with them.


We had no problem with this - I think the legislation here is that the laundry or toilet (or *something*) needs to be plumbed to rainwater.

It might be worth ensuring that your plumbers at least install the water hoses in such a way that will allow you to easily switch the washing machine over to rainwater. They seem to like to run one hose and snake it around to anything nearby, so unless you specify to do separate runs you might end up with rainwater in a location that you otherwise wouldn't want it - be it for sanitary (ie, toothbrushing in a bathroom or ensuite vanity) or sheer volume reasons (you don't really want to run all your showers and things from it if you only have enough water storage to run a toilet cistern). They should be able to split the run for the washing machine tap from the rest of your hoses as ceiling level with very little cost in terms of time, materials, etc. This is one that you could possibly get your plumbers to do on site for you without needing to go through your builder (just in case your builder is one of those who would be likely to charge you a $500 admin fee for the privilege!)


I think it is a good idea to wait until you're in to decide on additional tanks - above ground ones are awesome for shielding sections of the house if you think a particular room gets too warm =) They make awesome insulators, too, if you get those slimline tanks built up against a wall. Living in a home is the best way to determine where you could best benefit from something like that!! We deliberately used above ground tanks (44kL thereof!) to shield the western wall of DHs office as he HATES the heat!


Absolutely it counts =)))) We were talking to another building company early on who didn't know how to work with our "green" build as most of their customers were asking to REMOVE INSULATION to save on build costs!! So to have someone rock up requesting R6.0 in the ceiling space and the maximum available in all walls was unheard of for them. Sounds to me like you have really put a lot of thought into your own "greening". I'm sure it will serve you very well in the years to come =) External colour selections can also do a lot for your green cred - the paler you can go the better the heat reflectiveness, the less energy you need for cooling in summer. At least, that's the theory that we've gone with!


Thanks!! I hope it performs as well as we've planned it to! It will be like living in a resort compared to where we are now, so I just can't wait =))))

Not much new to update today - feels like a bit of a downer after such MASSIVE excitement over the last few days =)))

The ceilings were sanded today.

I contacted the SS to ask about when the tilers were expected as we really want to chat with him about floor heights before he goes in to prep and screed. Because our design means that you have to walk through a wet area to get to the bedrooms, we want to be absolutely sure that the wet area tiles match up perfectly with the height of our floor tiles (otherwise we'll have our 19 month old running through the house and cracking her head open on the tiles when she trips over the slight level changes). He said that he'd definitely give me the tiler's contact details before they start, and also that the second fix carpenters would be back from probabaly Monday next week to work on skirtings, doors and the wonky wall =) The tiler won't be in until some time after that, so we're all good at the moment =)

And that's it for today!! Like I said, bit of a let down after the kitchen, but it's all progress!! =)

Oh - and anyone reading please feel free to tell Pipe (the hubby) that we should buy the beautiful bengal kitten that was offered to us today!! OMG she's perfect (and she'd LOVE living in that house!!)

Whoa! I'm so glad you pointed out that camouflage kitty! I so didn't even see it until I read what you wrote! Gorgeous. Take it!

I LOVE your kitty litter defense barrier idea, wish we had thought of that! We deleted a whole linen press in our laundry just so there'd be room for an oversized kitty tray to be tucked away without being in the walkway. The things we do for our fur babies!

And your kitchen looks fabulously sleek with the kickboards on now. Noice

=))))

the camo kitty is the Bengal we already have. I want another

it is quite insane the things we do for our cats... Our ensuite has a platform for them to sit on and watch when we're in the shower!!! Have been scratched before from nosey cats without enough landing space at the top of the shower door

LOVING my kitchen!!! Love it =))))

Woopsie ok it makes sense then that I never saw stairs in your build pictures! Duh (Note to self - read properly before posting!!)

What a great idea with the cat litter - Cant wait to hear feedback about how it works, as I think we will do something similar. Is there anything more annoying than bits of cat litter all over the floor?

Your cats are gorgeous and I am particularly a fan of the Bengal - what a stunning looking cat!

Hi somewoman, your kitchen is looking fabulous.
You could fit 2 of my kitchens in there easily. It's huge!!!
Isn't it amazing that you have just about caught up to us.
You might be in before we are!
Today we found out that PCI will not be happening on Monday 15th, this is the second time it's been changed. What's the old saying "third time lucky"

Jose - oh no =\ So have they given you a new date yet? Any explanation for why they've changed it again?

no new works to report, although we have had a delivery!!

Our sink, trough and four boxes that look about the right size to be our vanity basins! There were a few other small boxes in with it, so am thinking it might be the taps or door handles for the cabinetry. Maybe it's even the door handles for the internal doors - the carpenters are due back to start installing skirtings and doors next week, so anything is possible =)

Can't get in for a proper sticky, have to wait until we catch someone onsite for that. Just got a lookin from our back windows =) So excited! It's all progress =))))

Hi somewoman.
Congrats on the superb cabinets. Kitchen is huge compared to mine and I would love a laundry with all those cupboards as well. It won't be long and you will be admiring all your hard work you have put into this fantastic home

Thanks!! I can't wait to have space to put all our crap! I know I've gone overboard, but I really don't care... We won't be doing this again in a hurry, and every house we've had up to now just hasn't had enough storage. Even where we are now - staying at MILs house (she's in a house that we're renting for her - her idea as we would have had a hard time renting with three cats) - she has loads and loads of storage, but when she moved out she left all the storage full, so we STILL have no storage! We're living in a pigsty because MIL decided we didn't even need to use the linen cupboard. Took ages to make enough room in the wardrobes to even store our daughter's clothes. I'm so completely OVER not having enough space to put things that I'm determined to never go back there again =)

There is still more storage yet to go in, but it will wait until after handover so I can build it myself to be the way that I want it =)


And lamenting all the work we need to do in the back yard

I can't wait!! =))))))