Hello Wonderful people!
This forum has always provided insightful experiences from people building their homes. The time has finally arrived to get some direct feedback for my own first home! I'm hoping to build in North Kellyville on a bush facing, 600 sqm block. The house is architect designed and we're in preliminary design phase.
Would be great to tap into you people's minds to get some feedback on what could to be changed further. I mostly love the design but do have a few reservations - but will avoid mentioning it so as to not drive conversation in any particular direction. Thanks in advance for all your feedback!
Not a big fan of irregular wall angles myself.
My take is that you could have made more roomy design with straighter wall and a bit shallower courtyard on the ground floor. But may this is just me.
Your family and cinema do not make any use of the northern glazing which should be ideally maximised while your western glazing minimised (I realise you have covered alfresco over there, but still... Do you really need both 2.7 m high sliders there?) when it gets to passive solar design (unfortunately, not a lot of architects are thinking much about that).
I don't see any good reason for your ensuite shower not to take the full opening.
I would say swapping cinema with sitting might be not a bad idea followed by opening up family and sitting north facing glazing.
Your bedrooms are relatively small and placing bed in front of the door is usually a bad practice (Bed 4).
Having bathroom to the West instead of South (and re-laying out accordingly) may not be a bad thing as it will help to keep your bathroom drier.
As long as your are having a flat roof, you could certainly consider putting up a nice roof terrace on top as well as turning roofing over Family and Cinema into nice terraces (it doesn't really cost you much to do so) with access from your First Floor.
Just my 2 cents.
Not a big fan of irregular wall angles myself.
My take is that you could have made more roomy design with straighter wall and a bit shallower courtyard on the ground floor. But may this is just me.
Me too. But its just the dimension of the lot. Plus, if you notice, the house is well beyond the APZ line. The lot is zoned E4, but apparently R2 controls apply! I wonder why developer priced an R2 land as E4!! Anyway, the other concern is also BAL rating.
You're right about cinema room and I'm swapping it with living. So the new sitting in front will have L shaped glass wall around it.
Ensuite: I wonder how to have full opening on ensuite when some of it would already be blocked with WIR shelves on the sides. Do you have examples of what you were suggesting?
Small bedrooms: Yup, every time I bring it up, I'm told its mostly to contain budget.
Terrance: This is a brilliant idea! Provided it doesn't cost much as you say. I'll have the architect draw it up.
Really appreciate your input. It helped. I'm on a really tight budget and I wonder how even this restrictive design it going to fit into that budget. Soon we'll bounce this off a few builders to get some quotes. Hope the covid situation will help lower building cost. Apparently new builds are falling off the cliff and it'll only get worse.
For ensuite, I meant just extend the shower all the way to the right (up until the WIR wall), WIR -> Ensuite door opening can be moved a little bit up or reduced in width.
What are you planning to build it with when it gets to materials?
Interesting project overall, it looks like you would need pier and beam foundation for the most of your house (with the exception of the garage which can bit on standard in ground rafted slab).
IMHO a perfect house to be built out of AAC blocks and you can use hybrid concrete flooring such as Speedfloor or Bondek between your floors as well as for the roof.
You can also go and consider Durisol ICF for the house like this, PM me and I can give you contacts of the only builder in NSW. Double brick will cost much more and it might be really challenging to build a house like this with wooden frame and brick veneer. Tons of steel beams will be needed, either.
Tons of glazing too, so if you are looking into double glazing (which I think is a must of Hills area), you might be better looking for the right window manufacturer, especially those 2.7m could be overly expensive. Ask EcoEco, he can give you a guide pricing, but from what I see - you would be really lucky if you end up with less than $60K-70K on just windows only.
Thanks
alexp79. I guess double glazing is out of question with my budget. However the suspended concrete roof might be promising - but I'm sure even that is going to blow the budget.
Based on your experience, what sort of final bill i should be expecting on this build? (Basic / Medium / Highend finishes)? ballpark...
I would say this custom home would be in the vicinity of $800k-$1000000
Durisol home with suspended concrete slabs, medium finishes and premium triple glazed composite Internorm windows - around $2.5K per sqm + GST.
For high-end finishes - only sky is the limit.