Drawings

Site Plan

North is to the top, so we have an east facing back garden. Perhaps not ideal but the lot is long enough that we should be able to chase the sun in one way or another.

We have a nice rectangular, flat block but it comes with a large easement at the back. There isn't a lot we can do with it but it will allow us to have a good size back garden. We may put in a pool one day, lottery permitting, so PD were able to include that in our site plan. It just means that any essential pipe work is kept away from the possible future pool location.

All setbacks (front and sides) are more than they need to be. The size of the block allowed us to do this without too much sacrifice. We did this primarily to respect the neighbours privacy where we could. We are going to be living next them for many years to come, hopefully, so it was something important to us. It also meant we only needed a building permit from our local council as our design was well within all their boundaries and restrictions. No special planning permission required.

We only need to provide privacy glass to 2 windows. They turn out to be our guest bedroom and one of the windows in the upstairs activity area, so again, an easy sacrifice to make.

The plot is in a flood overlay zone. We've had to jump through a few hoops to get Melbourne Water approval but nothing too drastic. The main item is that first floor level of the house has to be about 300 - 400 mm above ground level. Therefore the whole slab has to be elevated somewhat above the ground. It may look a little silly but similar newly built houses in the area have had to follow the same guidelines. With a bit of landscaping it should all look fine.






First Floor Plans

We haven't made too many changes to the standard plan. The main change has been in the kitchen. We didn't like the idea of having to go into the pantry every time you need to get a drink from the fridge - and every Aussie house needs a drinks fridge. So we decided to use the standard fridge space for our drinks fridge and then add a custom piece in the kitchen itself that includes a space for our main fridge.

We then decided to use this to also put our oven and microwave tower. The size it takes up is very similar to what is in the display home in Greenvale. Being able to see the display home gave us confidence that our custom piece would work.

The other changes we've made are to put a sliding door on the pantry so it can be closed if/when it's a mess and we have company. We also put a sliding door on our en suite. We love each other very much but we don't need to see the other clipping their toe nails. Finally we put a door on the Study and double doors on the Lounge. Initially we see the lounge being the kids' rumpus room. We want to be able to close a door on the noise if all starts to kick off.







Second Floor Plans

We have made even less changes to the upstairs. We choose to have the en suite option between bedrooms 4 and 5. Bedroom 4 will be our guest room and so this layout allows our guests access to an en suite but also giving one of the kids in Bedroom 5 their own en suite too.

We also liked the way this plan meant that no bedroom was sharing a wall with another bedroom. This should give everyone a little more privacy.





First Floor Electrical

We decided to put mostly led downlights downstairs as this is hard to update after the build. Porter Davis were not good consulting with us. Nothing was added unless we asked for it. I am sure there will be elements that we have forgotten about until it's too late. For example, we mentioned that we might need to put a reverse cycle air conditioner one day. It was later when we found out for ourselves that this should be on it's own electrical circuit. Hence the 15 amp GPO on the outside of the house.

We even had to ask for a phone line and internet connectivity. C'mon Porter Davis, who doesn't need this?

The under counter lighting was so expensive that we can only assume it's something that Kitchen Culture looks to avoid, for whatever reason. Therefore, we simply have put GPOs in the overhead cabinets. This will allow us to add our own lighting afterwards.

We also made sure we asked for battens at appropriate spots for future pendant lighting. In particular, we made sure there is wiring in place for future void lights.



Second Floor Electrical

Upstairs we have been more frugal with lots more included batten lighting. Our attitude is that this will easier to change with roof access if we want to improve the lighting in the bedrooms later.


No comments:

Post a Comment