Hi there. I have been around for a while with a few posts here and there, but nothing really about me.
My wife and are I going to knock down her family home and build a new one. She bought if from her family, and we've been talking about rebuilding or renovating since before I moved to Australia. I've only been in Australia since June of 06, and we've been married since Dec 06.
However, in the seemingly short time I've been in this country I have learned a lot about the building processes, Councils, etc and don't really have any questions.
Just wanted to share, and we'll be keeping up the blog.
We've decided to build with Binet Homes in Epping. They have what we want and will do what we want, how we want it custom style. Basically building exactly what we want (well, not exactly, we do have quite a lot of site constraints).
My major problem I have right now is that we spent the last 4-5 months agonizing over the style of custom house we want and had it all settled, floorplans, arrangements and all in early Dec. Then, in mid December, Ryde Council changed their DCPs for single dwelling houses.
Now, our design is not in compliance and will have to be redone. details on my blog.
What we're planning to build is a 2 story, 4 bedroom house with a 3 car garage. Binet have done a great design, putting together exactly what we want. However, Ryde have totally stuffed up a great looking house by making everyone with two storeys build square boxes. They seem to have this thing too throughout the DCPs with items designed to minimise garages. It seems like they don't want houses to actually have garages, and when they do, want them to be as small and unnoticeable as possible.
I can't post any floorplans because they are Binet property and have not given me permission yet to display or transmit. What I can do is show you the floorplan we gave them to work off of that we came up with. There are a lot of changes since this one, but you get the general idea. I'll post that to the blog later.
Currently on the blog has my current house layout, the one we're knocking down. Our lot is fairly large for the area, but we have a diagonal easement for stormwater across one corner, and we have a total fall of about 3.1 meters from front to back. Given 2.5 of those are from the street to the back of the existing house, and the fact that we have to be set back at least 6 meters from the front boundary, we are slightly limited on the width and scope of the house. Ryde also has restrictions on height, so nothing can be three habitable levels at any part, including the back.
So, we begin again the fun of re-doing the floorplans (most likely) or fighting the Council by submitting it as is (less likely) and should have a house sometime in the next Millennium:)
Thanks for reading,
Greg
Updated to add demotion info.
Updated house pics