Finally got all the plans and documents last night!!! So happy with them. He may have been a bit slow but he was inexpensive and thorough. We got 4 sets of A3 size plans, the Energy Assessment certificate and it seems he's also filled out most of the Building/Planning/Plumbing application forms for us!! He's told me to contact him if we have any issues with council. apparently our local council can be a bit of a pain to deal with!
Here is a picture of the new and improved electrical plan (front door is at the top of the plan):
He's actually left in an extra down light which I didn't specify (the internal entry light) but I'm glad he did. I think it actually needs a bit more light there :)
So now next step is getting a quote from BIL (he's our builder) and then tackle council. Hoping we have time to get everything submitted before baby comes but may not happen!
So we got the final plans last Monday. There were pages and pages of them. Building regulations have gotten so much stricter. Most of it was fine but he'd done the electrical plan without any consultation with us and as such had put down lights everywhere in the Lounge, Dining/Kitchen and a couple in the Master. I have asked him to remove most of them as I'm not a huge fan. We will just have 3 above the back bench in the kitchen and the two above the bath in the Master. I'm keeping the Lounge lighting the same as what we have (except I want to change the fittings) and we will have 3 pendants over the island bench. At the moment I like these ones from Bunnings:
Then a large pendant over the dining table. again I have found a light at Bunnings I like:
He was going to get those changes done and back to me by the next day apparently but of course it's a week later and still nothing. I've paid him now though so I'd better get something soon!
In other happy news we have a date for my c-section. I had my midwife appointment last week and asked about some pain I had been getting around my c-section scar. They wanted someone to check me over just in case so I had a lovely registrar check me and tell me to come in if it gets worse (haven't had an issue since though). Then she asked if i wanted to make my c-section appointment now instead of waiting until my 36 week Obstetrician appointment. Of course I did- I hate not knowing things :P So anyway, long story short we will be welcoming our 4th child on July the 6th :)
Well all excitement here this morning. I was walking out the gate to walk my kids to school and noticed there was something in the letterbox. Turned out the draftsman had dropped off the Preliminary Plans :D I've had a look over them and I am very happy- they are pretty much exactly what I asked for. I only need to talk to him about two small things (he's listed the French doors as aluminium framed and I'd like timber and he appears to have left the window in our current bathroom which I'd like removed as it will become an internal room). I have pictures but you'll have to excuse them as they aren't the best.
So here's a pic of the current house layout (the porch is at the front of the house, it's a bit confusing the perspective he's drawn from):
Then this is the proposed extension (again from the backwards perspective):
And this is the view from the front with the new roof:
The draftsman has said that once we give him approval of the plans he will go ahead and do up the proper ones for council submission. Those he said he should be able to have to us early next week. Eeeeeeekkkk it's getting closer!!!
Okay I have finally uploaded a picture of the newest plans- the ones I recently gave to the draftsman so that he can use it to draw up our plans properly:
So as you can see it's very similar to the last ones I drew except without the upstairs and the second living is now a bedroom and mudroom. The circles with an X in them that you can see are where I want lights and I have my bath back in the bedroom. I had thought maybe I shouldn't have it in there and had second guessed myself. However I was rewatching one of my favourite renovation shows the other day and the host said "Makes sense [to have the bath in the bedroom]. After all the main purpose of having a bath is to relax and how can you do that if people may be coming in to relieve themselves." Very true albeit a little gross haha.
The builder also talked to us about making the gable a steep pitch. I didn't think we'd be able to because of building regulations so I had abandoned a steep gable but the draftsman was the one who suggested it so it must be fine. Knowing that it's possible we are now going back to our gothic revival style house idea. We are replacing all the windows anyway now (with double glazed ones) to make sure we meet energy requirements and to counteract our lack of wall insulation, so why not! It won't be heavily gothic though, just have a bit of that Gingerbread House look about it.
We have also made the decision to definitely stick with the weatherboards. It's going to be more expensive but in the end my husband and I just plain prefer real weatherboards. We love historical type homes and weatherboards just look nicer on older style homes, even though vinyl has come along way. I'm also tossing up cladding the bottom concrete part of our house in the stone cladding you can buy. I think it would look nice with the weatherboards. That's something we'd do down the track though- heaps more pressing and expensive things to get out of the way first! Here's a picture of what I mean- even with the same colour exterior and door I want (oh I think I forgot to tell you I'd changed my mind on that too lol):
Well the draftsman ended up cancelling that Thursday. I have to say I was getting a bit worried and thought we may have to start looking for a new one. However he came around the next Thursday and took the measurements XD He has told us that he should have some preliminary drawings for us in a week or two so I cannot wait to see them. Basically they will just be to make sure he is drawing what we want and then we can either make some changes or give him the go ahead to draw them up properly for council submission. He's taken my new drawings though and seemed to have a pretty good grasp of what I wanted so hopefully his drawings will be pretty spot on.
Just a quick update to say we finally got hold of the Draftsman. He's coming round Thursday evening to take measurements. So exciting to finally be on the way. It's taken so many mind changes and so much time to get to this stage. I'm hoping the rest is smooth sailing but that's unlikely Haha. Now I just have to try and clean the house a bit so that the Draftman can actually get to the walls to take the measurements!!
We had our scan the other day and the baby appears very healthy and active. I'm getting lots of kicks now which is lovely (and lots of heartburn which is not!). We also got to find out the baby's gender and....
So that evens things up ;) As you can see I went straight out and started shopping lol. As I've said (I think) we got rid of pretty much all our baby stuff after our daughter was born thinking we were done so we are pretty much starting again.
Not much to report yet on the House front except that we have simplified our plans so that we don't need a second storey. It does mean the two girls will have to share when the baby stops sleeping in our room. My daughter wants to share a room with someone though so that shouldn't be an issue. She's pretty happy about it at this stage :) The draftsman was supposed to be round by now to take measurements so we have to give him a call tonight. Hopefully this isn't a sign of how things are going to be!! My parents used this guy and recommended him to me though so fingers crossed it all works out.
I have quite literally just emailed off the house plan changes to the Kitome representative XD Very exciting!!! We have kept the extra bedroom (just moved it) which we weren't originally going to. However we have been talking about maybe having another couple of children so this way there would be room for them!
I have also found an oven that I adore. It's quite exxy though so we may have to wait and see if it's cheaper closer to the date. Otherwise I may have to go for something different. I do so love ths one though:
I've changed my mind again -.- We did a check of the size of our block and to make the house fit we would have also had to rip out 2/3 of the driveway and another concrete patio area. Plus we'd be getting dangerously close to the 50% roofed land area regulation that we have here. So it's back to the design we liked before I even started the blog. It's called The Brighton and it's still by Kitome but it's a two story design. This means our slab can be a lot smaller but we can still have the space we need and we won't have to worry about removing our other concreted areas to make it fit.
Here's the outside view of the Brighton:
And here are the house plans:
The only issue is it's a little too wide for our block given that two
story houses need to be at least 3 metres from the side boundary. So we
are changing it so that 1.8m is removed from the width. This basically
equates to removing the side verandah and space equal to that. We will
just have a smaller dining area (which is fine because it's still pretty
big) and we will have 5 bedrooms instead of 6. We'll move Bed 4 across
getting rid of Bed 3 and just increase the size of the study slightly to
account for the little extra room from removing a bedroom. We will also
get rid of the laundry/toilet addition at the back as we don't need a
laundry or third toilet. Hopefully this will also make it cheaper as
this one is more expensive than the other plan.
In other news I picked up the Dining Table today and I am so happy with it. Such a bargain given it's solid timber (and very heavy) yet cost me less than half the price of an 8 seater setting from the local discount furniture store (which is cheaply made, so nowhere near the craftsmanship and longevity this table has).Totally loving Gumtree right now!
When moving it I managed to trip over my son's bike and land on my bum with the table on me- so co-ordinated! It's finally in the shed though awaiting my makeover. I feel kind of bad about painting it now because they even oiled it for us but the top will still be wood and so will the seats (just stained a darker walnut colour). I'm also not going to paint the underneath of the chair seats because they have all been stamped as it's part of the Flinder's Collection. I'd like the stamps to remain :)I cannot wait to sit at this and eat as a family!!
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!!
