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:
Showing posts with label House. Show all posts
Showing posts with label House. Show all posts
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Altered House Plans
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 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:
Sunday, June 1, 2014
The House (Take 3)
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!!
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!!
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
New House Layout
Sorry it's been awhile! Kids are back at school and I am flat out working so haven't had much of a chance to get on here. Anyway this is the new Kitome house I like's layout:
I do want to make a few changes though (just minimal I swear)!
1) In the laundry I'd like to make a mud room and put the bathroom sink in there (because as I have mentioned we don't need a laundry as we have ours in our shed). This way the main bathroom won't seem as cluttered and it means that you can both relax in the bath in peace without people needing to barge in after using the toilet and that if you're working in the garden outside you can come in through that door and wash your hands/remove shoes etc before going inside.
2) I'd like a wall across the Family room to make it a separate playroom/rumpus room. Otherwise it's one weird shaped room!
3) I'd like to eventually put a deck area out from where the dining alcove is down to the end of the house and fill that weird space.This will probably happen a few years down the track though.
I'll also be using the living area as the dining area as I'd like a nice big table and don't think we need a second lounge area- especially with a playroom. I'll use the alcove as a little reading nook I reckon.
So there you have it. The new (and possibly not the last lol) plan for the house XD
I do want to make a few changes though (just minimal I swear)!
1) In the laundry I'd like to make a mud room and put the bathroom sink in there (because as I have mentioned we don't need a laundry as we have ours in our shed). This way the main bathroom won't seem as cluttered and it means that you can both relax in the bath in peace without people needing to barge in after using the toilet and that if you're working in the garden outside you can come in through that door and wash your hands/remove shoes etc before going inside.
2) I'd like a wall across the Family room to make it a separate playroom/rumpus room. Otherwise it's one weird shaped room!
3) I'd like to eventually put a deck area out from where the dining alcove is down to the end of the house and fill that weird space.This will probably happen a few years down the track though.
I'll also be using the living area as the dining area as I'd like a nice big table and don't think we need a second lounge area- especially with a playroom. I'll use the alcove as a little reading nook I reckon.
So there you have it. The new (and possibly not the last lol) plan for the house XD
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Another Change of Mind!
You know how I said I was bad with my constant mind changes about how I want the house? Well this is probably my worst yet ＼(●o○;)ノ I have decided on a different house altogether! I know, I'm so indecisive! However I think this design might work better as it's Federation style like a lot of the houses around my town. It's still one of the Freedom series by Kitome.
I'll draw up another plan for you in paint when I have time to show you how we will divide up the space. If you click on the link though it will take you to the floor plan (which will be much more accurate than mine)!!
This house is single story and also is narrow enough that our front door could actually face the street which would be nice. I've also already found a picture of a Federation house that has a colour scheme I want to use:
This colour scheme should also match our existing shed and fence as they are both a heritage green colour!
So there you go! I'm crazy aren't I?! It will be a miracle if our house even gets built at this rate!
I'll draw up another plan for you in paint when I have time to show you how we will divide up the space. If you click on the link though it will take you to the floor plan (which will be much more accurate than mine)!!
This house is single story and also is narrow enough that our front door could actually face the street which would be nice. I've also already found a picture of a Federation house that has a colour scheme I want to use:
This colour scheme should also match our existing shed and fence as they are both a heritage green colour!
So there you go! I'm crazy aren't I?! It will be a miracle if our house even gets built at this rate!
Monday, January 6, 2014
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!!
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!!
Sunday, January 5, 2014
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!
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*)／
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