Coral Homes - help picking design

Hi all

My wife and I are pretty settled on Coral Homes but struggling to pick a design.

Has anyone seen all of the below designs?

Stradbroke 32
Marcoola 32
Daydream 32
Casuarina 34

They are all similar in price/size and we keep looking over each design and it's doing our head in haha.

Any feedback to help us?

Cheers
Agent009

Anyone?

Hi,
They are great. Just depends really where you want the rooms, what space you want in and around them and what you want to spend. We couldn't see anything just right that suited up so swapped, added and removed a few things to get the right layour for our block at the right price. Good luck.

Thanks Jen! We are leaning towards the Daydream 32. We loooove the beachmere facade but it's $32000!!

Wow, thats alot just for a facade. I do like the daydream though it's such a great home. The rooms look like there well placed. Good luck deciding and if you like a certain facade, have the funds available and know if you ever sell you'll recoup what you spend I say go for it.

My choice would be the Casuarina.

a) the Master bedroom is not at the front

b) the kitchen layout is my type of kitchen. With the daydream you always have to walk around the corner, would any me endlessly.

cheers
Evelin

I like the daydream 32. BUT I would HAVE to reposition the kitchen orientation. Which could be easily flipped, so you wouldn't have to walk around to the pantry.

Having bedrooms so close to entertainment and outdoor living is just so annoying, especially if you have children. I love front rooms, if you can have a front fence, this would make you feel more secure - and also allow for more yard space for kids.

Defo the daydream plan!! but flip the kitchen around so it's horizontal

[quote="Agent_009"]Thanks Jen! We are leaning towards the Daydream 32. We loooove the beachmere facade but it's $32000!! /quote]

I also liked this facade, so asked the questions on it. It's not just the facade that changes when you choose it (the beachmere facade) - the entire roof line changes and there is a cathedral style ceiling to the opening of the house (varies in size depending on house). Also requires colorbond roof. If you are interested in it, look for a display and go take a look. If you are in Brisbane, try the Ormeau display village - it's on display in the Avoca 24 house.
Looks great, but was just too expensive for me.

My thoughts on each plan (my own opinion of course! Feel free to disagree.):

Daydream 32:
- Dislike the pantry. That would annoy me to no end having to walk around to the pantry all the time. Also it's as big as the WIR! Looks like they had space to fill.
- Entry door will block off the garage door if you have a 1200mm front door. Move the entry way forward 500mm or so and it will probably be fine (at your cost of course)
- Kitchen layout seems funky to me. Not sure why, just does.
- Toilet/bathroom is a bit far from the bedrooms.

Casuarina 32:
- Pantry... Oh dear. Look at how far away it is.
- Dining is a bit far from the kitchen. Not a huge deal, swap it with the living area.
- Bedroom right next to the master? Might be interesting if you have young kids...

Marcoola 32:
- Visited the display for this house. It's not bad.
- Kitchen makes sense.
- Media room works well.
- Outdoor living is a bit large. Not sure if you can do anything else with it.
- Ensuite was a bit bad in the display - way too open to be functional as a normal house, the plans though seem ok.

Stradbroke 32:
- Kitchen is fine by me.
- Ensuite only has a 900x900 shower? In a 300sqm house? Odd
- Garage sticks out like a sore thumb. Good luck getting grass/garden to grow next to the lounge/media
- I consider this a house for young children. The ability to lock off the activity area with the CSD is nice. The bathroom/toilet is very close to all bedrooms - great!
- Bed 2 is next to both the laundry and the outdoor living... with my family, i would hate to be living in that room!


My favorite? Marcoola 32.
Likes:
- Kitchen works for me
- bedrooms are relatively close to the bathroom/toilet
- Master bedroom is well separated from the other bedrooms.
- Media room design suits me well

Dislikes:
- Ensuite is rather open, but this seems to be a common issue for front of house master bedrooms. Which is why i stick clear of them.
- Outdoor living is rather large. Unless you entertain a lot, look at adding another room or something (storage room?)
- Acitivty area. It's like they ran out of ideas on what to put there. It's not that big, so suggest visiting a display first.

For all the houses consider additional storage. All of them have two linen closets, but they are pretty average in size. Some only have 1.5 linen closets...

Also consider the Noosa 29 - slightly smaller than the above but still has the same number of rooms.

Good luck.

daydream gets my vote, i would just add a door past the pantry to be able close off that wing of the house, and also check the master is big enough for a king size bed, or queen with wide side tables....

Hi Agent, we're having the same dilemma! We are tossing up between the Daydream 28 and Stradbroke 29. The Daydream is just winning out at the moment for a couple of reasons. I don't like how in the Stradbroke guests would have to walk through the kids' loungeroom to go to the loo and I like the family/dining layout better in the Daydream. The pantry in the Daydream doesn't bother me - the location or the size. In fact, with three growing boys, I sometimes wonder if ANY pantry will be big enough

We are leaning towards Casuarina 34

Very nice. It's a HUGE home

That was one of the main reasons

Plus the layout really works for us.

We just can't decide between the Retro vs Neo Modern kitchen. We know the Neo modern is the most popular but we really like the Retro. Only thing is we're not sure how the built in meals table will look? (compared to full island bench). And also not sure of the heigh of the meals table...can this still be used to prep food etc.

Decisions! Decisions!

I love kitchens with high benches and breakfast bars but compromised so much with my husband we get the backbar kitchen which is nice but might be too high for bar stools, just saying so maybe take my opinion with a bit more than a grain of salt. Practicality a ling bench is great, heightwise, you wont always want to sit down to cut/mix whatever but great if kids. Will you really want your dining table inbuilt, can you realistically get chairs around the top. Tablecloths/ parties just a couple of ideas to think of.
Hope your loving the building journey as much as us so far. Enjoy.

Ive seen all except the Casurina.

My thoughts are based on my taste though.

Marcoola 32- was my favourite for a while but all the displays I visited were very dark in the kitchen/dining area once you turned the lights off as there is not much natural light nor much natural ventilation for the family/kitche/dining as the only window is the doors to the alfresco. I do like the kitchen layout of this design though. I also disagree with one of the above posters as I feel the entertaining area is quite small. I LOVE the layout of the kitchen and dining room and media room though but the downside is the light factor.

Daydream 32 - is ok but I personally hate the fact you can stand at the front door and pretty much see out into the backyard through the patio doors. I feel it makes the house look and feel very small. I also feel that the media room and family room backing on to each other isnt great. If my kids are playing xbox loud in the media room or watching a movie I could easily hear it if I wanted to relax in the family room.

Stadbroke 32 - Ive driven out to see twice now and I love the design though would tweak it with a media room similar to the 30 so I could add a powder room in the hallway near the garage. I love that the kids have their own wing. there is plenty of natural ventilation and natural light. I also love that the family room and media room are away from each other and the huge entertaining area is also a bonus. I also love the potential of this plan. My kids are teenagers so they pretty much could have the entire back wing to themselves adn I could easily convert it down the track into a self contained little unit (I would just have to add a laundry into the garage area and convert bedroom 2 into a kitchenette. Also would be easy to add another room behind the media room (backing onto the garage) down the track with a door through the media room (Im thinknig a games room)

Sorry cant help with the casurina but from my memory I didnt really like the plan, I dont like the master bedroom right near the kids bedrooms.

We are hoping to find a block of land that fits the Stradbroke as its by far my favourite and has well thought out design.

My thoughts (personal opinion )
Stradbroke -
a bit of a hike from the garage to the kitchen (annoying when you have arms full of groceries)
kitchen bench space - not huge
plusses, kid zone away from main bed and lounge (although if you have little ones this could be annoying as you have to trek through the house at 2am)

Marcoola
I like the kitchen/dining/media setup, although if you wanted a true media room you'd want to add some doors so you could close that room off

Casurina
Huge! Bed 2 being very close to Bed 1- pros and cons depending on your family situation. Plenty of spare roooms though, you could always use this one as a library/sewing/guest room.

Daydream
Pantry would a PITA to get to. I also dislike the minor bedrooms being close to the street, for noise reasons. And having to walk through half the house with a load of groceries, and the way the kitchen is setup it would become a thoroughfare and you'd have people under your feet while trying to cook.

Noosa-
quite like this one, although you would need to make sure you had plenty of sound insulation between Bed 2 and the garage. The ensuite layout also doesn't appeal to me.

I would also be carefully considering the solar orientation of your block, it will make a big difference to energy bills and comfort (viewtopic.php?f=31&t=55057&start=460)