Hello
My name is Katie, i'm 27 years old, and my partner and I purchased land last year to build our 1st home on, and now we don't really know what to do with it.
The problem is the block is an unusual shape, it is kind of squarish but pretty flat, around 600m2, and most of the houses that the big building companies offer won't really fit because they're too long. We have found a few designs that we could build so long as we could make a few changes, but in general, all the designs are too deep for our block.
We know basically what design we want, i drew it on a piece of paper one day, and I was thinking that i should take my ideas to a draftsmen/architect and get plans drawn up. But that sounds really really expensive. And we are really going to try and build on a budget, we certainly have financial constraints, but we are definitely not considering being owner builders, we're smart enough to realise that's not going to work for us.
So here are my questions:
1) Are we better off getting plans drawn up for what we want, or should we just find a design from a big builder and work our way around that? We're trying to go with the cheapest option.
2) If we do get plans drawn up, can you take them to a big builder, or are you better off finding a smaller independent builder?
3) Do those big builders charge like a wounded bull when you make changes to their designs?
If anyone could answer any of my questions, i'd be really grateful. I just feel like i'm lost at the moment.
Thanks for reading!