Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Feb 03, 2010 9:32 am My partner and I have been searching for two months now trying to find a house design to suit our block. The block itself is 405m2, with a 10m frontage, so only suitable for narrow lot designs. The problem we have is that we need the house raised at least 90cm to meet council requirements for flood protection. As you can imagine, it's incredibly taxing trying to find suitable designs that meet our requirements (two story, open plan living downstairs with media room, four bedrooms upstairs with leisure room, large rear deck/alfresco) while fitting on the block, and also being raised. Does anyone know of any Brisbane builders that have such designs, or are we doomed to spend the $15-20k on an Architect to draft something customized to suit our very specific needs? Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 2Feb 03, 2010 1:00 pm Check this builder out: http://www.mod3r3sid3ntial.com.au I will be using them when I build my small lot home in the next six months (just waiting for my current home to sell first). They are friendly and will custom design free of charge if their standard design doesn't suit. They are reasonably priced, but specs are towards the high end with 2.7m ceilings, miele appliances, sqaure set ceilings etc. Another to consider is http://www.smalllothom3s.com but I have talked to the guy and he seems quite expensive. Also nice, but not cheap is http://www.civicst33lhom3s.com.au If you want a builder that is associated with a main stream brand try http://www.d3signbuildhom3s.com.au as it is owned by the same company as adenbrook homes. I think they are expensive for what they give, but does have a big builder behind them. I am building in Morningside soon on a 10m x 40m block of land. Hope this info helps, I have been doing research for the last 5 months, and these are the best I have found so far. Main stream builders that do small lot homes are adenbrook (only one design), plantation homes (only one design), and metricon are releasing 2 designs, but is not on their website yet. Good luck. Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 3Feb 03, 2010 3:25 pm Thanks for the info chipmunk0709, much appreciated. We'll look at those builders you've listed and engage with them to see if they can meet our needs. We've already engaged with Plantation, but are unsure of the design of the Kiara Q2 (also doesn't help there are no displays with this home in SE Qld), plus we are unsure if they would do a raised foundation for one. We've engaged with one of their sales guys, but getting this information out of him and getting him to walk us through a near finished Kiara Q2 in SE Qld has been VERY difficult. We've tried Ausbuild who have a design we very much like, but they wouldn't do a raised foundation. We have engaged with Civic Steel Homes but they are horribly expensive, even if they do some lovely homes. Given we are building inner city (Wooloowin), we are looking for a quality build with quality fit out. But the $450-500k construction price we've been receiving from some boutique builders is well beyond our budget. onc_artisan, that's not really what we're after. The design we liked best so far was the MLI4 from ausbuild as seen h3r3, and we'd be after a similar style of home just with the raised foundation we need. Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 4Feb 03, 2010 3:52 pm It depends on your total budget. I have gotten a quote from mode residential, and at first I was shocked at the price as well. but once we sat down and talked to other builders we found out that mode was not too bad. the biggest additional cost to you would be the raised foundations. the house we were looking at building with mode was the small lot home elements 357 which is a 38 square home. our quote finished including ducted air, tiles to all downstairs areas, wooden floors to upstairs landing and carpets in bedrooms, as well as tiled outside alfresco, on concrete base, driveway, alarm system, and a generous allowance of $10000 for electrical ugrades etc was around the 480k mark. That works out at about $1344/square metre, which when you consider their stadard specs is quite reasonable. Just make sure that you aren't sucked into a small base price then finding out all the extras you need to add in. I got the base pricing from ausbuild as well, and just their basic finish without floor coverings, driveways, any allowance for ducted air, security systems etc already put them at around 300-330k. spending an extra 80-120k to fully finish a home isn't really hard these days, blink and the money is spent. you may have to rethink your budget, because a reasonably specced home with your requirements is not going to be finished and ready to move into these days for less than 400-420k, the extra is for the level of finish. just check their specs they use good stuff. Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 5Feb 03, 2010 4:03 pm Understandable, but it's amazing to see just how different various builders price their homes. Hell, the entire housing market is a rort at the best of times (particularly real estate agents). For example, Plantation will do the Kiara Q2 at 238k, which doesn't include paint, non-wet area flooring, driveways or landscaping. We deliberately want to do those three things ourselves anyway (we have family who can do flooring and driveways at cost, and we intend on doing the paint and landscaping ourselves), so the only extra cost would be (if they could do it) the raised foundation. This falls well within our $300k budget (even with the extra's we need to factor in) and provides a high level of quality and fit. On the other hand, similar designs with similar appliances are up to $200k more with some builders. Then on the other end of the scale, you can step down to Tamawood/Dixon where you could build the same structure of home, with basic fitout of lesser quality items for nearly $100k less than even Plantation. The difference in pricing between builders is amazing, and often the cost benefit of the more expensive builders is nowhere to be seen. Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 6Feb 03, 2010 4:13 pm carefull when you use plantation. my current house was built by them. it took nearly 13 months to complete . also, when you start changing facades, and things like that, it charge like a wounded bull. also kiara is only a 30square home, so you aren't getting a lot of living space. I went to the adenbrook display for a their 30 square home and the living areas were really squeezy. good luck anyway. Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 7Feb 03, 2010 4:18 pm chipmunk0709 carefull when you use plantation. my current house was built by them. it took nearly 13 months to complete . also, when you start changing facades, and things like that, it charge like a wounded bull. also kiara is only a 30square home, so you aren't getting a lot of living space. I went to the adenbrook display for a their 30 square home and the living areas were really squeezy. good luck anyway. 30 square is more than ample, as my partner and I are both young professionals and simply wouldn't use the space of 35+ squares anyway. As long as the living areas are open and flowing, and the house has a layout suitable for families should we want to sell down the track (so 4 bed and some sort of rumpus/media/leisure area that could be used for children) we don't really mind how big it is otherwise. And to be honest, neither of us are thrilled on cleaning any more than about 30 squares anyway Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 8Feb 03, 2010 8:53 pm Look at small builders instead of boutique builders. We currently building with a smaller builder which we choose due to the slope on the block, we have a mix of slab and raised floor some of which is two storey. We had $100 000 difference in quote. If you don't mind the trip out to Springfield there are a few builders in their display village that build on difficult sites. And that are happy to build without a slab. Have a look at my blog and if you are interested in the builder I am using I can PM the details. Cheers Lou http://take2-customdesigndownslope.blogspot.com 07-10-09 omg they have cut the block 14-05-10 we finally have the keys Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 10Feb 04, 2010 1:04 pm HI Break
I actually work for [***********] and I have spoken to the Director about your needs and he says that he can help you out with your dilemma. He is happy for you to contact him directly at your earliest convenience. I hope I haven't broken any rules here!
Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 11Feb 04, 2010 1:10 pm JennaMcHomes HI Break I actually work for [*************] and I have spoken to the Director about your needs and he says that he can help you out with your dilemma. He is happy for you to contact him directly at your earliest convenience. I hope I haven't broken any rules here! Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 12Feb 15, 2010 12:20 pm Just an update for everyone, Currently engaged with McCarthy homes who are drafting up what we want. So far so good, but they seem a little slow drafting (it's been over a week without an update, we went into the sales office again over the weekend and he assured us it would be out asap) Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 13Feb 15, 2010 4:37 pm They have nice homes, we took a few ideas off them, we came across them after we signed with our builder their prices where in the same ball park thou. Be patient drafting can take a little while esp when you are designing for a specific block. Cheers Lou http://take2-customdesigndownslope.blogspot.com 07-10-09 omg they have cut the block 14-05-10 we finally have the keys Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 14Feb 15, 2010 5:23 pm Hi Break, Can't really help you, but do remember this build on here a while ago - MrT's place. viewtopic.php?t=9959&highlight= viewtopic.php?f=31&t=12591&hilit=+narrow+flood viewtopic.php?f=31&t=14345 Enjoy and good luck! Bel Still not in. Don't ask!? Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 15Mar 18, 2010 11:36 am Just an update on our progress for anyone interested. We received a quote from McCarthy after a large number of delays (took them ~5-6 weeks for the quote, very slow with returning calls and informing us of the progress), which ended up being $50k over the budget they said they could meet... and that didn't include a number of fundamental inclusions. So, we're currently getting a price for a similar sized design from Cosmopolitan homes who seem far more realistic with a price per square meter nearly $300 less than McCarthy for the same level of finish. It's been five days since we sat down with them and we've already received two follow up calls and confirmation that the price will arrive today. AV Jennings were also happy with custom designs and raised foundations, but we didn't really like the quality of the finishes they provide. Hope this helps anyone else looking for a similar solution (narrow lot with a raised foundation) to us. Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 16Mar 24, 2010 2:29 pm Hello. I so understand your dilemma haveing gone through nearly exactly the same thing as you. Our difference was we actually did go and get a plan done by an architect so we could get the plan priced by different builders of our choice. We went to a lot of the builders you did includeing plantation, mCcarthy and Civic Steel before decideing to get the plan drawn. This was a BIG mistake. We spent many months and money gettingthe plans drawn only to find the price was way over our budget. As well as that the only people that would even look at it were all custom builders anyway. The architects prices they had suggested throughout the process were nowhere near the real price. We finally ended up back at Civic Steel homes. The reason we went back in the first place was because they were happy to look at the plans we had drawn. but then the price they came up with while a little better than some we received was still high because of what we now know as an inefficient plan. I should make the point that Civic had quoted us in the beginning and we were shocked at the price. As time has gone on and we have educated ourselves about the prices it costs to build custom and what you actually dont get for your money, it has turned out the Civic were giving us the only REAL price in the beginning. They had in fact given us a price that was nearly exactly waht we ended up spending. None of this "Extra" $50000 at contract or " sorry we forgot about you needed a foundation". They have since come up with a plan we have built that was while more expensive that Plantation,dixon or those other cheap and nasty builders, was in fact a lot cheaper than some of the other custom guys came up with. The secret (i now have learnt this!) is they have an architect (a real one not just a designer) sitting next to thier pricing guys and checks everything as he designs. It keeps control of the price. I have always been a believer in you get what you pay for. I can now walk into a cheap project home and point out 20 things different that i had no idea about in the beginning. Its like once you see the difference you can never go back! I know i might have been able to take a plan straight out of a book and plonk it on our site in ashgrove (but they didnt want to change anything) but the thing to always remember about inner suburbs is that we go up into a different real estate market by haveing a house designed to the block and by an architect. We spent more but are extremely happy with the outcome Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 17Mar 26, 2010 10:03 am Yeah, I was certainly impressed with the finish of Civic Steel Homes.... but our issue was just how far over budget they were, and how inflexible they were with letting us do most of the finishing work ourselves (my partner and I are both well versed renovators, and want to do as much of the work as possible ourselves) Any chance you have any pictures etc. of your finished house I might be able to look at Re: Brisbane raised narrow lot - Does anyone make a design? 19May 29, 2011 8:15 pm break My partner and I have been searching for two months now trying to find a house design to suit our block. The block itself is 405m2, with a 10m frontage, so only suitable for narrow lot designs. The problem we have is that we need the house raised at least 90cm to meet council requirements for flood protection. As you can imagine, it's incredibly taxing trying to find suitable designs that meet our requirements (two story, open plan living downstairs with media room, four bedrooms upstairs with leisure room, large rear deck/alfresco) while fitting on the block, and also being raised. Does anyone know of any Brisbane builders that have such designs, or are we doomed to spend the $15-20k on an Architect to draft something customized to suit our very specific needs? Sorry I've only just come across this site so you have probably built by now.... In any case, & for others reading the forum, check out Blue Ridge Homes - Carl & Meg. They are small/boutique hands on builders that specialise in custom built quality homes, get the job done on time & are not over the top on price. Have recently completed 2 small lot homes in Graceville on slabs but they do alot of highsets & combinations. Thanks again for this information. If you do hear anything different, would be great to know 4 8242 dimensions on your original plan are inconsistent and with accurate dimensions (including site plan, upstairs and down) i could make a proper scale drawing with furniture… 3 7513 if i have understood your dimensions correctly my suggestions include using the smallest toilet and wall hung handbasin eg Caroma Urbane with in wall cistern, small wall… 1 8166 |