Floor Plans

Okay back again (* >ω<) 
Last night I thought I would draw up the plans in Microsoft Paint so I could give a rough idea of how I am planning to use the space (probably should have said we there but I am so excited that I've made all the decisions for all of us （*/∇＼*）). Unfortunately for anyone that actually reads this I am very crap at drawing plans and so the result is a plan that is no way proportionate or realistic. If you want an idea of the real layout I recommend clicking the link in my last post, however this should still give an idea of how we are using the space. Lower floor:

The red squares are doors and the blue squares are windows. Very professional looking isn't it haha. As you can see the main living areas i.e kitchen, dining and living rooms are on the bottom floor. The main bathroom and most of the bedrooms are also on this floor. Where I have crossed out laundry is where the laundry was on the original plan. Like I said previously though we have a laundry in a large shed out back which we prefer as we don't have to hear the washing machine or dryer so we are having the plans changed to convert this to a study which will then become a bedroom if we qualify as long term foster parents.

Upper floor:

Again the red squares are doors and the blue squares are windows; and that purple circle is a vent as on that side we have cathedral ceilings for the main living area on the ground floor so it's all void. Upstairs will mainly be our escape floor (*´∀`*) It has the master bedroom and parents retreat with built ins, an en suite and what we will use as another bedroom pending the success of our foster parent application. The master bedroom also has access to a small balcony which will be lovely.

The floor plan gives us 176.4m2 of floor space. It's not a massive house but it's still 56.4m2 more than we currently have with a much better layout. Our current house is quite hard to fit out because there are random walls and windows- drives me nuts. The actual house will sit sideways on our block so the the side of the house with the cathedral roof will face the street as our block is deeper than it is wide. This will still give a nice profile from the street so I am happy with that. I love gable roofs and our current house has a flat roof so I am excited to not live in a box anymore. Especially excited not to have a roof that leaks anymore. Every time it rains I get a couple of "lovely" indoor water features (#ಠQಠ#)

So now that's the floor plan and I can use future posts to discuss how I am planning on decorating the space. That's my favourite part as I would have loved to be an interior designer. Unfortunately there isn't much call for them where I live so I never bothered but I think one day I will go back to school and study it just for interests sake. Well after this build though!!

Dreams into Reality

I thought I would start a new blog to document my family's journey on our quest for a bigger, nicer house. I am also hoping it's a welcome distraction from quitting smoking, alcohol for a year and red meat (some of my New Years resolutions). The actual knock down and rebuild won't happen until the start of 2015 but I figured I would start at the very beginning of the process ヽ( ★ω★)ノ

We live in a small 3 bedroom house. Not only is it small but it has a strange layout and because it was originally only a 2 bedroom home it means my daughter has to walk through her brothers' bedroom to get to her own. It felt a lot bigger when we had one child but with three children now all getting older it is starting to feel cramped and we are forever tripping over ourselves. Plus no one has any privacy at all. This doesn't worry us too much now but with kids fast approaching their tween/teenage years it will need to be rectified fairly soon. I'm sure my daughter won't be wanting to walk through her brothers' room when they hit puberty!!

Anyway, we tossed up many ideas on how to achieve our goal of getting a bigger house. We don't have a huge budget as I only work casually so we needed to consider our options. We weighed up moving but for a nice 4+ bedroom home in our area (and we really wanted to stay here) it was nearly 3 times as much as we owe on our current mortgage. We looked at extending our house but it was going to cost at least $100,000 due to repair work that would need to be done and engineering the ground floor to take extra load etc etc. Finally we thought we'd buy a block of land on our equity, do up our house as best we could and then sell it and build. 

We very almost did this! We discovered a cheap block in our area which was small and had a sewerage easement on two sides and started to sign the papers to make an offer because there was no way we'd get a block cheaper in our area. Blocks here go for at least $135,000 and that's more than we owe on our mortgage. Then just as we were going to sign the papers we changed our mind. Why not just knockdown and rebuild on our own land? We had already established that we owed less on our home than our land was worth (thanks to following the rule of buying worst house in best suburb if you don't have much money). We had no major sewerage easements that couldn't be built on like the block we almost bought did and our block is also a lot flatter than the one we almost bought. Plus we have a large colourbond shed already existing on our block that we could use as storage whilst the house was knocked down and rebuilt. I'm not sure why it had never occurred to us before but I am glad it did before we signed anything. What's more is that knocking down our house and building a 4+ bedroom kithome on the block will work out cheaper than renovating and extending. Plus it has the benefit that everything will be brand new and we no longer have to worry about the dodgy DIY work the previous owners have done (I swear our house is a death trap due to some of their DIY electrical work)      щ (*ㅇ△ Φ☆)ノ. 

This final plan felt so right. It meant we'd get our nice big, new house and we wouldn't need to leave our neighbourhood or take a risk with new neighbours. I researched kithomes from all around Australia (and even some in the UK and America) but we finally settled on a design by a local kithome company- Kitome. It was one of the cheapest we found that actually looked like a nice home instead of a rectangle log cabin:

If you would like to see the floor plan click on this link and go to Chalet.
We are going with the smaller (read:cheaper) version which is called Chalet 19. It still has 4 bedrooms and a study which is more than enough room for us and because we have our laundry in our shed we can also convert the laundry in the plan to be another room instead. This gives us 6 bedrooms. Obviously more than we need but as my husband and I wish to become long-term foster carers - it's perfect!

Until such time as we actually get around to the knocking down and rebuilding in a years time, I'll be using this blog to detail my ideas for the interior and landscaping designs. It'll be a long hard wait as I am totally impatient but I am enjoying coming up with decorating plans in the mean time. I adore interior decorating and have plans for a Victorian/French Provincial inspired interior. Fingers crossed I can achieve my champagne tastes on a beer budget    

＼(*T▽T*)／