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After stalking these forums for years (yes, literally!) my partner and I are finally building a home - it'll be our third home together but first build. It's been my dream to build ever since I was a kid (I was a strange kid....)
We purchased a 585 square metre block in Landsdale WA (Corimbia Estate) last year which is located opposite bushland. We quickly picked our builder and then came the time-consuming process of design, selection, pre-start, etc. Despite having a pretty high pre-approval from the bank, they rejected our loan application due to the house being "inferior". ie: They wouldn't lend us the money as we had opted for a smaller three bedroom home rather than something huge. It was pretty heart-breaking.
So we went back to the drawing board with our builder and adapted one of their designs - the Santa Monica - to suit us (we were pretty fussy clients but they remained lovely and polite throughout.) We both like the end result - the plan is bigger than we'd hoped for and probably not quite as well thought through as our previous design (which couldn't be altered unfortunately), but we like that the master bedroom isn't at the front of the house (as we'll be on a slightly busier road), the office (Bed 4) where I'll spend most of my days working overlooks the bushland across the road and the living, dining, alfresco will face north and get all that lovely winter sunshine!
Even better - this time around the bank APPROVED our loan application!!! So it's now all systems go and I plan on indulging myself and posting here as much as possible! Pics to follow shortly.
TIMELINE:
8th April: Loan approved (FINALLY!)
19th April: Block cleared
22nd April: Pre-lay work done
26th April: SLABBED
22nd June: Brickwork complete
13th July: Colorbond moment (Roof on)
24th August: Lock-up
31st October: Pre-Completion Inspection
Our floorplan:
As you can see, it's technically a four bedroom home, but Bed 4 will become our home office/study. I work from home and Himself has an after-hours business and needs a small corner to work from as well. No idea what we'll do with the theatre room (the room we never wanted!) A big kitchen was a must for me as I really love to cook but I'm not entirely sold on the galley style - our previous plan had a proper kitchen (when I say "proper" it felt more like a room than a corridor if that makes sense?) We've opted to have a small annexe in the garage to store an extra freezer, fishing equipment, etc and also have an external store for all garden equipment and messy things so a shed won't be necessary.
Elevations:
Our plan is to keep the house as exposed brick as most of the homes in our street are grey or beige render. However, to satisfy the estate design guidelines, we'll render the garage. As we really like the heritage look, we've also opted to put window skirts beneath the Bed 4/Study and Theatre windows as these are the ones visible from the street. One of the things we couldn't fit on was a large verandah out the front of the house to take advantage of the views across the road. Oh well - can't have everything!
Kitchen layout:
External selections:
Bricks - Mundaring Red by Austral (actually a bit brighter than this when you see them in person)
Roof - Colorbond Shale Grey
Gutters and downpipes - Colorbond Windspray
Gutter fascia, verandah post and garage door - Colorbond Surfmist
Render to garage - Solver Dewkist
Front door and window skirts - Wattyl White
Paving - Vistapave Stonewash Silver
Our beautiful front door - Corinthian Classic with Diamond Jewel Zinclight
Front door handle - Gainsborough Trilock in Bright Chrome
Hi Sally,
Great floor plan. I really like your outdoor store area. Would love hubby to have something like that so we didn't have to have a big ugly shed (he can be a bit of a hoarder,lol). Love your front elevation and colours.
Looking forward to following your build.
Thanks Nelly. The block isn't huge so we had to think how to use the space wisely - we both want a pool AND a small garden. By limiting the size of the house and not needing a shed, we'll be able to have a decent-sized pool, a lawned area, plus space for a small veggie patch and a few fruit trees.
We've already been through pre-start, finalized our plans and signed the contract so I thought I'd let you know what we've added into a bog standard definitely-not-luxury-spec build. Some items are little, some not so little.
ADDED EXTRAS
- Provide instantaneous gas hot water system
- Provide window skirts to Bed 4 and Home Theatre windows
- Provide internal painting throughout
- Upgrade paving
- Provide sliding windows to WC and ensuite WC instead of fixed
- Upgrade front door
- Upgrade trilock
- Upgrade internal doors
- Upgrade internal door handles
- Provide 92mm Colonial skirting throughout home
- Provide symphony cornice throughout
- Provide 28c overhead cupboards including bulkhead and trim to hotplate area and fridge recess
- Provide Polytec vinyl wrapping to kitchen cabinet doors
- Upgrade kitchen sink mixer
- Provide cold water tap to fridge recess at 1900mm
- Provide euro cargo bin to kitchen island
- Provide upgraded Westinghouse canopy rangehood and extend tiled splashback behind rangehood to suit curved glass profile
- Provide half stackbond tiling to splashback
- Provide Franke Seville undermount sink to kitchen
- Provide slimline mirrors to bathroom and ensuite in lieu of polished edge on clips mirrors
- Upgrades to all bathroom taps/fixtures
- Provide back-to-wall toilets in lieu of standard
We were lucky enough to have 20mm Caesarstone included in the kitchen and we also have ducted reverse cycle air-conditioning included as it was the "sign-up special" the month we signed our pre-works contracts.
Dales will also be doing all our flooring for us and I'll post pictures of all our internal selections soon.
I like the way you're going for a heritage look. Be interesting to see how you finish the kitchen to keep the 'feel' of heritage going. Love the store too, I'll steal that idea for next time!. Did you consider having a third wc & basin towards the front of the house? If so any idea what ballpark it would of cost?
Hi Sally,
Welcome to the forum and your Dales journey!
I see you've had a look at my thread, we are a few months ahead of you
Loving the heritage vibe, the colours you've chosen are fab - very similar to ours, but a different way round - plus you have the red brick.
Good choice in the vinyl wrap kitchen cupboards, I would love to do that, but far too expensive for our monster.
Which doors and handles did you upgrade to inside?
Jays - we had no intention of ever having a powder room. To be honest, I only wanted one bathroom as it's just the two of us!
W2T - I'll hopefully post our internal selections today.
Hi Sally
Your plan looks fantastic, I love your living area and the huge store room.
Our external selections were inspired by this display home by Plunkett.
However, because the style/facade of the home is very different in shape (and the fact we HAD to have render on the garage), we were concerned that using the darker Woodland Grey for gutters/garage door would look a bit too dark, hence why we've gone for a Surfmist garage door and the softer Windspray for the gutters. The gable is the same style and the bricks and front door are very similar. Obviously we weren't able to have the beautiful moulding going all the way around the house, but we've chosen a Colonial style window skirt for the five windows that will be visible from the street.
Below are just three of the inspiration pictures I used for the kitchen:
Hopefully this gives everyone a little bit of an idea of the style we're aiming for. I suppose it's a cross between Federation/Heritage/Hamptons. We sadly don't have the budget to go full heritage so we're doing what we can within our budget.
Thanks Kellie.
The living room is measured exactly to fit our current sofa set and the space between the two narrow windows will perfectly fit our television cabinet.
Love your selections. A little bit different. All the kitchens are gorgeous.
We also have an extra store in the garage and an external storeroom. We didn't have the space for a shed. Are you having dark wooden floors?
Following your build.
Yes Robina - we will be having dark floors!
Kitchen selections!!
We have chosen to do Karndean vinyl planking throughout the house - we considered wooden floors (jarrah) but they were prohibitively expensive and not as durable. When we saw this shade of vinyl planking called Atra in all it's dark espresso-coffee glory, we fell in love. Choice made! The flooring and paint colour (Solver Floral White) were the first things we chose as they are the biggest "design" choices to us and would influence other decisions. We didn't want to pick everything else then struggle to find a paint colour that would work with all our other choices so it felt good to decide on that early.
To get the interior look I wanted (Federation/heritage/Hamptons), getting the Polytec vinyl wrap doors with a simple profile was very important to me. We went for the Oberon profile and I must admit, we've paid a small fortune for it. I had to sacrifice a very beautiful bathtub in the ensuite to get these doors. I mourned the loss of my bathtub but when it comes to love, sacrifices must be made.
My original plan had been to go for black Caesarstone benchtops but with such a dark floor and the kitchen being an internal "room" we were concerned it would look too dark. White stone would look too blah with pale walls, white cabinets and white tiles so we've gone for Atlantic Salt which has lots of brown and grey mottled through it with darker flecks. It looks really good with the crisp white cabinetry and the dark floor. We've also chosen to have white subway tiles (which will have white grout, not black which seems to be really popular at the moment).
The tap had to be a statement piece and it definitely couldn't be modern. When I saw the Nicolazzi tap while perusing the Reece website, I just had to have it! It's the prettiest tap that ever lived.
To finish everything off, some gorgeous pewter knobs. We also have slightly different shaped handles for drawers but with the same finish.
For our appliances we are going with the Dales standard Westinghouse cooktop and oven with an upgraded rangehood (Himself thought their standard rangehood looked like something you'd see in a chip shop.)
EVERYONE we've spoken to has told us we should've upgraded to Miele appliances (!) because I love to cook and bake and apparently I can't be "serious" about cooking if we don't have top-of-the-range appliances. We haven't upgraded for two reasons. 1 - we aren't rich. This build is stretching us pretty thin. We've spent money on some luxury things (like the vinyl wrap kitchen cabinets) but we're being tightarses elsewhere (such as lighting and other things that can be upgraded or redone 5 years down the track.) Reason 2 - this is what I'm currently using (except much older and not as fancy).
In case it's not obvious, bog-standard Westinghouse appliances ARE an upgrade for us. And you know what - I can cook everything from cupcakes to bread to stir frys to tagines on our antique and slightly sticky cooker and they all turn out pretty good. Fancy appliances don't necessarily make you a better cook.
Love the look of your appliances. The rangehood looks really great and I think they are easier to keep clean. We have also gone with Westinghouse appliances.
Some great choices in there
We kept the Westinghouse oven and hob too, with an upgrade to an integrated Rangehood. My splurge was an additional Slide n hide Neff oven at my end of the kitchen for my baking business - partly I need two ovens for the space and this ones is awesome for pastries.
I've won a few prizes baking in my old technika crap oven in my first home though, so yep the oven contributes only so much
Thanks Robina - we currently have a very cheap integrated rangehood and have found that the cabinetry above gets quite greasy and dirty very quickly (and it doesn't clean easily.) So we're hoping the Westinghouse rangehood will be a piece of cake - time will tell!