Browse Forums Building A New House 1 Feb 05, 2014 2:27 pm Hi, so we are thinking of revisiting the whole building a house thing since canceling our build and selling our block a couple of years ago. As usual I can never seem to find a design that I REALLY love and I was thinking how much it would cost to custom design a home and then take it to a builder such as Hotondo, East West or someone else that will do a custom design. I'm happy to go all standard inclusions with one or two exceptions. We are thinking a 4 bedroom + study, theatre/ rumpus, single story. Would love to know how much people are paying for their custom design & if you would recommend your builder. PS. Looking at building in Greenvale, Vic on a 16m wide block. Thx Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 2Feb 06, 2014 10:33 am A competent draftsman or building designer would charge you somewhere between $2500-$4000 to draw all your plans ready for submission to the council for a DA ( subject to complexity of design, how many storeys etc. Survey fees , engineers fees, council fees etc on top of that. Stewie Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 3Feb 06, 2014 11:00 am IMHO ... if the structure of the project home designs is the problem, keep looking because you'll find one eventually that suits. But if it's fittings & finish that bothers you (eg. wanting under-floor hydronic heating or thermally-broken frames on double-glazed windows when you live in Sydney), then if it were me I'd be getting an architect to draw something up & pimp the design around some builders ... although if you go this path, you are paying 5-digit figures upfront before a trowel or shovel has been raised in anger. I say "architect", even though everyone says a draughtsperson will do the same job, because it's my novice understanding that a decent architect will take a bunch of stuff (aesthetics, solar facing, airflows, etc) into account whereas a draughtsperson will more tend draw what you want drawn (even if you've not thought of the above stuff). Another thing which was suggested to me after we decided to go with a project-home builder (and hence which I've not looked into) is that quantity surveyors should be able to take an architected & engineered design, and give you a cost estimate. As I said, I've never investigated the reality of this (it came from a guy who worked with a quantity surveying specialist for a few years) ... but it makes sense that there must be companies who can design/draw/engineer something as well as give you estimates? Then when you start pimping the design around builders, you have a good idea of what it'll cost. Again ... I really dunno what I'm talking about, but it would've been good if I'd read something like this on here before we started so I could have looked into it. Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 4Feb 06, 2014 1:45 pm We're a half-custom, half-project builder build... I had the same issue in that the project builder plans didn't quite achieve what I was after. I'm not sure whether this is common but we sat down with our builder and had a chat about what we wanted and had a custom plan drawn up for us which was then priced on one of their existing plans that had similar key features (eg. 4 x 2 w/ study & theatre) along with the additional changes I had made such as a raking ceiling, double shower and bath in ensuite, etc. There was no additional cost to have this done aside from a couple grand for the drafting plans to be drawn up, all organised through the builders drafting team. We are building with Plunkett, not sure if they build over East though? Custom Farmhouse Build in the Great Southern | https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=67188 Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 5Feb 06, 2014 2:51 pm Sammi_O We're a half-custom, half-project builder build... I had the same issue in that the project builder plans didn't quite achieve what I was after. I'm not sure whether this is common but we sat down with our builder and had a chat about what we wanted and had a custom plan drawn up for us which was then priced on one of their existing plans that had similar key features (eg. 4 x 2 w/ study & theatre) along with the additional changes I had made such as a raking ceiling, double shower and bath in ensuite, etc. There was no additional cost to have this done aside from a couple grand for the drafting plans to be drawn up, all organised through the builders drafting team. This pretty much describes what we've done ... most project builders will do this, at least the ones we asked. The way one of them put it was that the staircase was fixed, everything around it was moveable ... . Our ground floor has a couple of rooms the same as they originally were, the alfresco has been spun 90 degrees to suit a notch out of the backyard fence-line, a "module" of two bedrooms & an ensuite has been "inserted" downstairs (borrowed from another design by the same company), and upstairs is unrecognisable as the house it's based on. I guess most external walls are the same place as the standard design, although most windows have been resized & moved. Where it gets tricky is in fitting things they don't usually fit. So, for example, most won't allow anything to be supplied or fitted unless it's via their standard suppliers ... if you want a particularly nice Italian stove or one of those weird oven/heater things that the poms are always going-on about in Escape To The Country, the only way that's possible is if it's available through the standard suppliers (some won't even go outside their standard appliance packages). Another example is if you want something like under-floor hydronic heating; we only found one company in Sydney who would fit that, but they wouldn't fit the OdourVac system we wanted (which is so simple I could've done it myself). We've paid what seems in exorbitant amount for our windows, but it was a real problem getting thermally-broken double-glazed windows that weren't wood frames (which need more maintenance than we want) ... if we'd gone with a custom build, we could have sourced cheaper windows which work just as well, because we could've chosen any supplier we wanted. Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 6Feb 06, 2014 4:13 pm Quote: if you want a particularly nice Italian stove or one of those weird oven/heater things that the poms are always going-on about in Escape To The Country, the only way that's possible is if it's available through the standard suppliers Custom Farmhouse Build in the Great Southern | https://forum.homeone.com.au/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=67188 Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 7Feb 06, 2014 8:34 pm We have gone through a completely custom builder. We are supplying (and in same cases even installing) some things ourselves ie tiles, splashback, heating, cooling, data points, some electrical, kitchen laminate panels, basins, mixer taps etc. Our builder has been ok - great price and quality seems ok so far. No major issues have been detected during inspections. Our only gripe is the slowness of the build. Custom downslope build Build thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=61873 Blog http://www.buildingroyalmanor.blogspot.com.au Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 8Feb 07, 2014 9:00 am Thanks for your responses everyone. I think the half-custom, half-project builder would be the cheapest way to go. I'll have to start looking through more home design ideas to see if I can find one that I can "tweak" and that I know the builder would be happy to accommodate. Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 9Feb 07, 2014 10:30 am Do keep in mind the thing about the layouts being easy to change & the fittings/fixtures/finishes stuff being a lot more of an issue, though; I found it really difficult to know what was going to be a simple change, and what was going to be either expensive or difficult (and hence error-prone) or just not allowed. As another example, most standard display-home bathrooms look great but there's not enough storage (plus you want power points inside that storage, for recharging toothbrushes & shavers & blood-sugar-level measuring devices & the like) - a custom builder won't even blink at the thought of having a tall-boy integrated with your bathroom vanities, it'll just be a simple addition to the joinery already being installed, but describing what we wanted & having that change made for one of the project builders we were trying to use was an extremely drawn-out process that I doubt would've resulted in what we actually wanted. Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 10Feb 11, 2014 1:54 pm Forg Do keep in mind the thing about the layouts being easy to change & the fittings/fixtures/finishes stuff being a lot more of an issue, though; I found it really difficult to know what was going to be a simple change, and what was going to be either expensive or difficult (and hence error-prone) or just not allowed. As another example, most standard display-home bathrooms look great but there's not enough storage (plus you want power points inside that storage, for recharging toothbrushes & shavers & blood-sugar-level measuring devices & the like) - a custom builder won't even blink at the thought of having a tall-boy integrated with your bathroom vanities, it'll just be a simple addition to the joinery already being installed, but describing what we wanted & having that change made for one of the project builders we were trying to use was an extremely drawn-out process that I doubt would've resulted in what we actually wanted. I agree, most of the big builders homes that we like have small bathrooms, and I have two girls, so a larger bathroom is definitely a must for us, with lots of storage. We used to have the mirrored cabinets in our old house with power points inside to charge our toothbrush, electric shaver etc. I asked one of the bigger builders about installing one if we bought it ourselves (as they didn't have them as an option) and it was a flat out "NO". I know a small to medium builder would be a little more accommodating. Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 11Feb 12, 2014 6:32 am Agree with above. I think that with the large amount of business the large volume builders receive they have the luxury of being able to say 'no'. Custom downslope build Build thread viewtopic.php?f=31&t=61873 Blog http://www.buildingroyalmanor.blogspot.com.au Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 12Feb 12, 2014 7:32 am HomeAngels Agree with above. I think that with the large amount of business the large volume builders receive they have the luxury of being able to say 'no'. It does cost them quite a lot. Because their staffing & pricing-models are aimed at cookie-cutter reproducing the same thing over & over, it costs a Metricon (hey that's no longer a rude word!) more to change a design around than it does Bob's Neighbourhood Building ... and because they need to manage & check & QC & etc a whole bunch of people, a new product they know nothing about costs them a disproportionate amount of time (and hence money) to figure-out. We were kinda lucky we got a builder who were willing to take the gamble that if they spent the time looking into the stuff we wanted, we wouldn't just walk because it was too expensive (or say "oh OK don't bother then"). Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 13Feb 13, 2014 10:29 am Hi PolkaDots I noticed in your past threads that you had seen Keogh Homes as a builder. We have Keogh building our custom home at the moment. We took the drawings to them and then used Andrew Meiers (Architect) to finalise bits of the drawings. We are at lock up now (you can see some pic's on my posts) and so far all have gone to cost and timeframe. Our overall cost is a little over 550k for the build but I would guess it will be a little more as we might change a couple of things shortly. A Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 14Feb 14, 2014 2:26 pm andsuz Hi PolkaDots I noticed in your past threads that you had seen Keogh Homes as a builder. We have Keogh building our custom home at the moment. We took the drawings to them and then used Andrew Meiers (Architect) to finalise bits of the drawings. We are at lock up now (you can see some pic's on my posts) and so far all have gone to cost and timeframe. Our overall cost is a little over 550k for the build but I would guess it will be a little more as we might change a couple of things shortly. A your house looks AMAZING. Can I ask how many squares your house is? Did you deal with Frank, he was so lovely when we met him. I wish we could build with them, but I'm pretty sure they'll be too expensive for us. Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 15Feb 14, 2014 3:32 pm Hi, we dealt with Dennis and then Pat has taken over as the PM. Ours is just over 50sqs under the roof line with 38sqs of internal living. Keogh has been great to deal with and the quality is second to non. Not understanding what you are looking for, but it would be worth while going back to them and having another chat. A Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 16Feb 17, 2014 1:20 pm Hello Polka Dots, You'll probably never fond the right "plan". One that you can "tweak"?? Are you looking in the right place? Have you spoken to some great designers? The easiest way tou come up with the home that is perfect is to write a compleate list of what you want in your home. A competant / talented designer will achieve that easily. I hear many people look at display homes and say "I really like the quality of their work....". Unless you know what your looking at do you really know what is good or not? Was the build on time, on budget, did the painter leave a mess? follow up service? and the list goes on. As for costI see a couple of prices for a draftsman / designer...You get what you pay for. The lower the fees the less time and effort is spent on designing your home. The design part should be included in your budget for the home. Just like the plumbing, wiring etc. The moral of the story.?? If you want to find a "plan" off the shelf and spend the least amount of money on a draftsman then you'd be better off talking to one of the volume builders. Custom design may not me for you. Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 17Feb 17, 2014 5:38 pm Regarding plans, I would suggest you allow 12-18 months to get it right. In my experience, you need this amount of time to think about how you live as a family and what works for your lifestyle. It is all the incremental changes that you settle on over time that makes a plan really work for you. Re: Anyone doing a custom design? How much? 18Feb 17, 2014 9:15 pm Hi, I'm doing a totally custom build. I agree with the above in that it takes about 12 months to really hone down your plan. I designed my house myself and it was a long and frustrating process but I'm really glad I did. Once I had created my plan myself, I took it to a local draftsman. He charged about $600 to do our plans and has since done variations for nothing. Our builder is always quoted as being the best in town. It was a slow time when we approached him to do our build and he really worked hard to come into our budget because he really wanted the job. We are also providing a lot of our own PC items and installing them etc. Also doing all the painting and the end build clean to keep costs down. There are all sorts of ways most builders will let you save by doing things yourself etc which I think really helps. I wanted to build a house that had the best solar orientation possible that would fit on our block AND have the smallest footprint possible to save money. That's why I designed it myself. There was no way that I could have found what I ended up with through a volume builder. My house may not seem like a lot but it's exactly right for my partner and I's first home. So far it has been 3 months from earthworks to the roof starting and that's including Christmas. The builder is working as hard as he can to get it in as quickly as possible. You really have to shop around to find the best builder you can for your budget. 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