It has been a few years since I was last here. We built our current place and moved in about 2.5 to 3 years ago. We also built twice before this home hence the name 3timesbuilda.
We have been very happy in our place but things change and so we are now planning to build again for a fourth time. Practice makes perfect they say.
We have just put in an offer for a piece of land and are waiting to hear back if it has been accepted. If it has, all the wheels start turning and we swing into motion.
We need to sort out finance, tidy up our existing house and grounds (finish a few things off) and get it on the market. Then we need to start arranging things for the build. Busy busy busy!!
The block we are after is a 1 acre block with nice views in a rural suburb of Melbourne. The plan is to build a 3 way house. There will be 2, 3 bedroom sections with 2 bathrooms each and 1, 2 bedroom section fitted between these with 2 bathrooms (one not fitted out).
The house will be a split level design with 2 levels. The roof of the lower level will be used as a verandah for the upper level bedrooms. All rooms other than bathrooms with have at least one full wall of wall to ceiling windows looking out on the views. The design is long and stretches over 30 metres (Just as well we have a big block). We will try to align the windows to face North East - North would be nice but would not work with our block.
All windows are to be triple glazed and all external walls will be triple layered with timbercrete - strawbale - timbercrete. The roof will be wood frame with strawbale acting as the insulation. Internal walls will be timbercrete except the 2 dividing walls between the 3 sections ie. the 3 bed sec, 2 bed sec and 3 bed sec - these will also be timbercrete - strawbale - timbercrete. We will custom design our timbercrete bricks. Floor will be concrete with concrete stairs too and earth abutting walls to be concrete.
The design is actually very simple and repeating so as to help keep costs down. One of the 3 bed sections will be rented out and the 2 bed section will be reserved for my MIL.
I have created a preliminary design on my computer and when finalised, we will pass it to an architect/town planner to bring it up to code and put it in a suitable form for council. This is where it gets REALLY SCARY - we will then subcontract all the bits of work to various contractors - effectively managing the build ourselves.
This is going to be our Grand Design (perhaps we should call then in??) and is going to be all the more difficult because of council and a limited budget.
In the mean time, we wait to hear back from the RE agent about the land. Wish us luck....