Building the Chifley with Rawson - Update Photos - 24th Aug

Hello everyone... New to the forum. My husband and I have decided to build the Chifley 42. Unfortunately have suffered set back #1- the block we were about to buy is 581m2 but our councils floor space ratio is 1:0.55. As first time builders we were lucky the Rawson rep explained that requirement to us! Still excited as we know one will come up soon. It's great that we can share in your journey before we get to start ours!

I was wondering whether anyone knows where I can see the various vanity/bathroom tile/floor tile/basin options... I also read that you get a choice of 3 kitchen styles... Can anyone expand on what that means?

We are you located? If you are in the Sydney area, you can ring up Tiles Direct in Seven Hills, tell them you are building with Rawson and want to come in a look at the tile selection before you go for interior selections. They will show you what you have to choose from, why you need to ring is because they are an appointment only supplier.

Basin options are pretty much the oval or square basin. From memory the kitchens are Gourmet, Cafe and Linear. I think the linear kitchen was the one that had shadow line cupboards, basically no handles. But not 100% sure as it was quite awhile ago now.

Thanks onggie! Great idea! I'm just so excited, I want to start planning!

Are there any options for the basins that sit on top of the vanity like a bowl?

No problems. Here is the only pic I took, they may have a round bowl as well looks like just on the right edge of the picture. You have the option to have the bowl sit on top or be an insert. But the bowl can only sit on top if the counter is big enough.



With vanity selection I assume they are all floating. You can choose drawers, cupboard or (not sure what its called) but an open space. Depending on your inclusions you may need to pay for Caesarstone in the bathrooms.

Do any fellow Chifley builders happen to know the exact height of the structure?

This DA/CDC approval is going to kill be before long... looking at a block today but CDC and COuncil requirements are that distance from boundaries must be at lease 900mm + 25% of building height greater than 4.5m. Does that mean if Chifley is 8m tall, it is 3.5 over the 4.5 limit and we take 25% of the 3.5, or is it 25% of the entire building height?

It's the height at the eaves, MrsJM. I think you'll find on the garage side of the Chifley you'll only need the 900mm for CDC, but the other side will be more like 1.5m.

Thanks Forg...

So is that because on the garage side, the top floor doesn't come right the edge and so because the garage is <4.5m in height, it only has to me 900mm, then because the other side of the home has the top floor coming right to the edge, they would then do 900mm +25% >4.5? Sorry about all the questions. I have never built before and I am just trying to avoid buying a block that just won't work.

Yep, you got it spot-on.

Actually if you have the Guide to Complying Development the diagrams explain it fairly neatly (link here - that version is from April 2011 so it's old but the diagrams are still useful IMHO).

Wow that doc is fantastic! Thanks so much!

In reply to the bolded, when we did our selections in August last year we were told there is not really much difference between the 3 "styles" of kitchen. Basically you just tell them what you want. The differences are very subtle.

On our house we had trouble with the setback on the "not garage side". We ended up having to change the wall of the top floor to matrix board, rather than brick, so that the top floor was not too close to the fence. For some reason the bottom floor was fine. We also had to bring the garage in slightly.

We went through CDC for our approval. If we had gone with council we would have had problems with the long side of the house being a flat double storey brick wall over 10m in length. Our council required some "articulation" - so initially they proposed making a step in on the side wall to break up the long flat wall.

So the matrix board made the walls thinner, allowing it to fit on the block?
That's pretty cool actually.


I've heard of this "articulation" thing on side walls with councils; it sounds a bit silly to me, who's going to see a wall that's up against a fence?
And yeah without CDC we'd never have gotten anywhere near as close as we have to what we wanted. The 2nd double-garage wouldn't have been doable, and council rules about the size of the back yard would've seriously hampered our ability to fit a house with decent-sized living-areas as well as 4-car garaging. The Chifley 42 wouldn't have been possible, the Chifley 37 was only juuust possible according to floorspace-ratio stuff.
Plus I suspect it was probably easier to have warned the neighbours it was happening for years so they got used to the idea but had no letter turning-up prompting them to complain about it ... particularly the couple who don't speak English, I suspect their children probably would've gotten all protective of their Mum & Dad (whereas they claim, via the kids of course, that they don't have a problem with it - but their eldest looked a bit dubious ).

Yeah, we had the articulation thing with our council. Had to go through council as CDC requires you to put the house in line with the neighbours, all of whom built at the back of their blocks and I need a backyard for the kids.
We ended up doing some brick columns on the side and a little pitch roof over the top of them. The side of our house will now look really lovely, tis a shame nobody will see it!! Cost us $3,500 but worth it for the backyard. We ended up a little close to the boundary that we were just outside of the building envelope, but got an exemption from council. They didn't seem to consider the columns as the new edge of the house though.

Kitchen installed today! Photos on the blog. I'll take better ones on the weekend!

Just added a stack of photos I took this morning.... Find them on the blog, link below! Enjoy....

New video posted on the blog! Check it out!

Some great progress there. The kitchen is coming together really well.

Thanks! It is looking great!

A few new photos added to the blog!

Enjoy...

More updates over the past few days. Check out the photos on the bog!

SheridanBenjamin - just a quick question. I've noticed your blog post with the picture of a cupboard. Is that the laundry one? Because the display home in Gledswood Hills has shelves all the way across and that wasn't listed on the upgrades list.

I've already got a broom cupboard as part of the birthday bonus and I'd be rather unhappy with a half broom half shelved linen press.