Sloping Narrow site: Hamptons style build. Cabinetry

Hello everyone

I've been following this forum for the last 2 years or so with great interest and have learnt a lot so thought I'd share some info about my upcoming build

We have a 397 sq/m block in inner northern suburbs about 8km from Melbourne. It's quite a bit of a challenging site, 5.5m slope, narrow block width of only 9m wide and inner city access issues.

In hindsight it would have been better to get a nice flat block of land instead but unfortunately we weren't that switched on back when we bought the place 8 years ago!

We outgrew our house and decided we wanted to try knock down rebuild about 2 years ago to instead of selling and moving.

It has been a very long journey to get plans done. After about 2 years and 30 plan revisions, a building appeals board appearance and some angry neighbours it finally looks like we have workable plans.

We found a builder who we are happy with. Unfortunately the build cost is quite high however it's reasonable given then site issues and size of the house (40sq).

Our objectives were to maximise use of our tiny block, push the limits of what's permissible and have enough space for the family. We also have a city skyline and valley view so we wanted to stick around and redevelop it to make use of the position we are in.

I'll add some photos over the next few days of the floor plan when I can get to a PC to upload them, for now I have attached an image of our facade.

Thanks for listening!

Ok some photos of floor plans and elevations to share


Ground floor


First fooor


Front



Back


Side


We have managed to just squeeze in slightly over 40 squares, the front is built boundary to boundary.

Good luck for your build. Why where your neighbours angry?

Building mine would mean blocking part of their city views. Not much I could do about it unfortunately

Wow amazing design! Love the curving staircase.
Very jealous of your block, wish I could afford to live closer to the city, I grew up in Fairfield, inner north is the best. Great investment. Good luck with the build.

Thanks for that! Honestly nothing to be jealous of with our block it's been a curse! What I wouldn't give for some flat wide land!!

Tuned in Chris. Can't wait to see you strike ground and start the build.

Looking great Chris - glad you have managed to wrangle the site with a workable design!
It's been a long process but it will be worth it in the end mate . Looking forward to the updates.

Thanks Trav much appreciated. You've been a great source of ideas too!

This weeks update.
Protection works notices issued to both neighbours due to replacing part of the fence with brick wall on both boundaries.
Let's see if they have any issues.

Love how you've made use of the space you have!

Your views sound undeniably amazing.

Sounds like you've been through the ringer already, did your neighbour take you to the building appeals board?

Your place sounds like prime real estate.

Following along, looking forward to seeing your build come to life


GJ Gardner Modified Coolum 277
viewtopic.php?t=83643

Thanks. Yeah we tried to make the most of it.

Yes we had to go to the BAB previously it was not fun. Out appeal wasn't successful so we had to redesign the house with steps everywhere to make it work.

Ahhh man that's awful, designing your perfect house only to be told no re do it

That was my biggest fear as we have a vegetation protection zone on our block and if weren't allowed to have the trees cut down then we would have probably sold our block to start again.


GJ Gardner Modified Coolum 277
viewtopic.php?t=83643

This will be a really cool build to watch. Sloping sites seem to be a huge pain but result in such unique building designs

Hey Chris!

Been a bit busy mate, really glad to see you're going to get this out of the ground.

Love to know which builder you ended up choosing. Unfortunate isn't it that sloping blocks are expensive, but reckon your place is going to be cracking.

We've decided to go with a single storey split level with the Big M. Still not cheap, but cheaper than our custom would have been. Will eventually do a post on it, just too busy atm.

Cheers
M

Sounds great mate!

I'm going with a local builder who only does custom builds. He literally lives in the next street 5 houses away! Can't get more local than that. Agree it's more expensive but hopefully the views will make it worth it. It wasn't too bad I think we ended up around 16k / square on average.

I'm sure you will be fine with the big M. Just make sure you stay on their case with quality and get inspections done at every stage I recon.

Small win today. One of the protection works notices was approved by one of the neighbours today. Should be able to get moving soon I hope.

Look forward to seeing your build too!

Alrighty then. Lots of updates this week.

We finally found a rental property so family has been busy packing to move out within a few days. Stressful. As. Hell.

Am getting more calls from buyers interested who want to salvage stuff from my place which is great. Air conditioning units, oven, Rangehood, dishwasher. It's all going.

Had a small setback due to a site issue, so my rear deck requires some minor design tweaks. Plans are being tweaked and engineering will also require a minor update. Hopefully not too much of a setback.

Oh and the interior designer was appointed today

Good luck with selections - fun as (or not... depending on how much you guys agree on that sort of thing).

I hear you with the rental. Stacks of them around, but I have a few solid requirements like they need to accept pets and be near a train station. Am obsessing about it right now.

Ok so we survived the family move to the rental! Stressful but we did it. The removalists were amazing but I still did 20 trips in the car for all the small stuff.

Have started salvaging what we can before the demo. Appliances mostly sold just waiting for pickups

Demolition looks like it will be early January as I wasn't fast enough to book the demo guys unfortunately so their jobs to the end of the year are already full.