Hi everyone!
This is a thread begging everyone to be brutally honest in order to help me and my partner formulate the perfect floor plan for our sloped block! We began our search with a bulk builder, Big M, who did a sitting on the house we had fallen in love with. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, their solution included a lot of cut and even more so of fill...
So the journey continued. We have spoken with a few smaller builders who state they specialise in sloped blocks, in order to get their thoughts... To be honest, I'm not happy with any of their suggestions. I have attached them below, along with some of my own opinions on them, but i'm hoping as a large group we can together pick them apart, throw around suggestions, and hopefully we can come up with something we may actually build!!!
So lets get started...
Firstly, below is the sitting which shows our awkward shaped block, with levels at certain points. At the front, from East (D) to West (C) we have a small slope of 0.99m. At the next points, (A) to (B) we have a slope of 3.28m. On this particular sitting, there was 2.61m slope across the building envelope.
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The plan we originally wanted to build, was as below:
http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/x391/j0anne04/twostory_chop.jpg
Two story design, with some modifications as you can see by the grey sections. Addition of dining & alfresco, porch in lieu of study, garage extension, rearrange the ensuite, etc. This is the first (and last) plan we have both looked at and said, Yep, we'll build that. Since then, we have agreed to disagree... lol
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We then went to one builder who we particularly like, and asked if they could help us formulate the above plans, into a split level that would work on our block. See below.
http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/x391/j0anne04/concept2.jpg
The main thing we disliked about this plan was that as soon as you walk in the front door, there is a huge set of stairs, and two doors. Nothing else. A little daunting IMO. We like to stand at the front door and see to the rear of the house, clearly not possible with this house plan... This was the biggest deal breaker.
This version is take two, to include things we really wanted (such as a cat porch which I want to enclose as an outdoor area for my cats - we back on to bushland and i dont want them wandering off, or being eaten by wildlife).. but im not sure on the location, as it means you cant get out of the laundry via that door to hang washing out, without opening the porch area and letting them out - which is the whole point of building it, so they DONT get out.
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http://i1179.photobucket.com/albums/x391/j0anne04/originalplans.jpg
& last but not least, these are the plans that were drawn for the block for the previous owners... they moved interstate, so sold the block with all existing plans. Main thing with this was it was set back at 26m, when the neighbours (in comparison) sit at 9m & 13m.
A few things we'd change on this are;
- make the "games" room a closed off theatre room
- make the old theatre room, a "kids retreat/study" area
- rearrange the kitchen - not sure I like the angled look, although it does make use of the strange block shape to look out on.
- some how incorporate an area we can use as a small porch (for the enclosed cat area, as discussed above).
Overall I like the design, however I dont think it would work if we brought it forward on the block where the main slope is, and my partner is not too keen on it either - still trying to find out why, which is a task in itself.
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Ideally, we would have loved to build the two story design. On the sloped block, this doesnt look like it will work. I threw the suggestion of making the bottom floor split level (3 layers, using high ceilings so the top floor remained level) but the price came back in way over budget - just as we expected I guess.
If anyone has any recommendations, suggestions, anything really, i'd love to hear it. We're at the point where we simply do not know where to go next with this journey, and its starting to get somewhat tiresome. I'm also trying to avoid harrassing the builders too much with my trivial questions...
Looking forward to seeing what others think.
Cheers,
Jo