Browse Forums Building A New House Re: Split level 42Apr 07, 2009 12:54 pm Hello everyone, I'm new here! Just bought a piece of land near Camden (south-west Sydney). . . a one-acre block with a sideways slope as well as a backslope. Initially the idea was to put a long rural-style house on it, but due to cut and fill restrictions (and the price of retaining walls) we're now veering towards a tri-level. We've had a look at the Clarendon/Lily Homes/Masterton/Tulipan floorplans, but they all seem to cater for a block which just slopes down to one side . . . as our block slopes to the back as well as the side, we need the lowest level to come back around the back of the house (like in an "L" shape) to avoid costly drop-edge beams, and to allow us to walk out at ground level along the length of the back of the house. Anyone know any good builders in the Southwest? Thanks, Jo. Re: Split level 44Apr 09, 2009 7:57 am Quote: anyone willing to share ball park estimate of your site cost because of the slope... ? at least easier to assess if the builder is charging too much or if it is just right? esm, this is a really hard one to answer...a bit like how long is a piece of string. To give you an idea, yesterday I had a meeting with Huxl3y homes and they said anything from 30k to 80k. Just depends on your block and the design you choose. Quote: one-acre block with a sideways slope as well as a backslope. Hi Jo, Welcome to the forum and congrats on your purchase of land! Exciting times! Montgomery Homes has a design - the Trieste. Oh I just looked and they say to suit diagonally uphill - maybe they could modify??? I have asked for more info as they don't have much on their website. They are based up in Central Coast/Newcastle. I've found that you really need to sit down with your preferred home builder and talk about what plans they think suit your block and your needs. Still not in. Don't ask!? Re: Split level 45Apr 13, 2009 5:13 am thanks bel. Finally got the fix tender from 2 builders and they are comparatively have the same site cost... the house has a similar layout so similar case of a split and drop edge beam. thank God some builders are offering free site inspection and fixed price tender. Re: Split level 46Apr 17, 2009 9:49 am esm Finally got the fix tender from 2 builders and they are comparatively have the same site cost... the house has a similar layout so similar case of a split and drop edge beam. thank God some builders are offering free site inspection and fixed price tender. Hi Esm, Any chance of telling me the ball park for some of your tenders? What designs did you eventually decide on? Cheers, Bobster Re: Split level 47Apr 17, 2009 10:35 am Guys, Thought I'd give you an update also...... On Saturday we are meeting with "E" at Huxl3y to preview the first draft of our plan. We have given HH the go ahead to do a custom design, after negotiating the deposit price. We met with them just before Easter and their advice for us was a custom design. I didn't think it was possible in terms of $$$ but they showed us the price scale and it is in budget. We will most likely be getter a similar size home as before, but I'd say less upgrades as the base will be a lot higher. We have estimated the site costs to be lower so looking good so far. Will keep you updated Bel Still not in. Don't ask!? Re: Split level 48Apr 17, 2009 3:37 pm Hi Bel, "E" did a pretty good job on the sketches for our custom. Bet you can't wait to see them. We end up signing the Tender with HH 2 Saturdays ago so have been having surveys & soil test done on the block over the last 2 weeks. Waiting on the survey to come back so they can get started on the hydraulics design for stormwater(may blow out). Can't wait to firm up the numbers on the site costs as on the Tender the site costs are all estimates pending reports. Re: Split level 49Apr 17, 2009 5:17 pm Hey Mick, Congrats on signing the tender - you must be excited that you are making progress. Yep we are excited - can't wait to see what he has come up with. Any words of advice for us for the meeting? How did you find 'E'? He couldn't wait to get out of the room once we started talking $$$. I think it made him feel uncomfortable! I'm hoping all our estimates are pretty spot on, as we already have contours/soil reports etc with the old builder. We have shared that info with HH so there should be now surprises for us. (I say as I crossed fingers and toes!) Oh btw because I'm a sticky beak, do you have a blog? Are you going to start a thread? Dying to see your floorplan!! Bel Still not in. Don't ask!? Re: Split level 50Apr 17, 2009 6:00 pm bel Hey Mick, Congrats on signing the tender - you must be excited that you are making progress. Yep we are excited - can't wait to see what he has come up with. Any words of advice for us for the meeting? How did you find 'E'? He couldn't wait to get out of the room once we started talking $$$. I think it made him feel uncomfortable! I'm hoping all our estimates are pretty spot on, as we already have contours/soil reports etc with the old builder. We have shared that info with HH so there should be now surprises for us. (I say as I crossed fingers and toes!) Oh btw because I'm a sticky beak, do you have a blog? Are you going to start a thread? Dying to see your floorplan!! Bel Hi Bel. . . We've used our builder's basic shell and designed the interior of our house ourselves (I use CAD at work, so I've been able to do everything to scale) . . . Over the time that it's taken to get to the stage we're at, we've come up with a few criteria that the design had to include (as I was telling bobbuilder yesterday). . . it might be useful to go in there with a list of your own and check off each of the items against his design? Anyway, here are mine: - Huge walk-in-wardrobe in master bedroom (we're putting in the shelving/rails/drawers ourselves, as most builders just put a single rail and shelf all the way around, or use wire shelves (which don't look too good to us). We want rails at different heights for different types of clothes, different sized shelves as well as drawers) - Big kitchen with walk-in-pantry (you can actually cut down on your kitchen costs if you make a really big pantry. . . kitchen cupboards are expensive, and pantry shelves are dirt cheap. . . ) just shove a normal hinged door on the pantry instead of a kitchen-cupboard-style pantry door to save even more money (our builder said that he got quotes on both and the kitchen-cupboard door was going to cost something stupid like $800, and the normal hinged door would be about $100 (including all the door jambs and stuff)). - Kitchen sink in front of the window (so we can look out while doing the dishes . . . hold on . . . we're having a DISHWASHER!!!) - Walk-in-linen cupboard - Separate theatre room (so I can lock the man in there to watch his football and get some peace) - TV in living room situated so you can see it while stood at the kitchen bench - Combined living/kitchen/dining areas (so when you're entertaining, you don't have to leave the party to check what's in the oven) - Large spare bedrooms with walk-in-robes where possible - 3 toilets (one in ensuite, one in bathroom and one powder room - good if you have a party, then you don't have to let people use your ensuite toilet if the other is being used) - Laundry big enough to incorporate a folding wall-mounted washing line (this is a bit of a luxury, so I don't have to go outside when it's cold) and ample benchspace (we're having kitchen-type cupboards put in and using two cupboards as hidden laundry baskets) - Ensuite with double vanity and double shower (no more fighting) - Bathroom with spa bath and double vanity (though now we've decided to just put two vanities in each bathroom, as double vanities are EXPENSIVE!!!) - Large undercover alfresco area (must be as close to high side of land as possible to eliminate need for drop edge beam and handrails . . . we have a BIG sidewards slope) - Beds 2, 3 and 4 must have access to bathroom without having to walk through any living areas (if you have kids (which we don't), this means that the kids are probably more likely to stay in bed, as they can't make excuses to come through to the living room and catch a bit of TV.) - Door between the bedroom area and the living area (for good sound protection from the bedrooms) (and to keep the living areas warmer in winter and cooler in summer, as you're not having to heat the hallway as well as the living.) - 5.4metre triple-stacker doors leading out onto the alfresco from the living area . . . they're a lot cheaper than Bi-fold doors and come with flyscreens There's just the two of us, so we didn't want to waste too much space on areas that we'd seldom use (apart from the spare bedrooms, which will come in handy when people come over, and for resale). . . so we ended up just having the combined living/dining/kitchen area and theatre room as our living rooms and using up most of our space allowance to enlarge storage areas like the wardrobes, pantry, laundry, kitchen etc.) I'm going on a bit. . . I'll shut up now! Anyway, that's all I can think of for now. . . you've probably already thought of everything anyway, as you've been through the whole choosing process before. Good luck!!! Jo. Re: Split level 51Apr 17, 2009 6:11 pm Jo - wow thanks!!! What a great list of info - and you made a few points that I didn't even think of. The idea of the walk in pantry I always thought would be a luxury, but you are so right, can save $$$ on less actual kitchen cupboards!!! Will start a list tonight!! Bel Still not in. Don't ask!? Re: Split level 52Apr 17, 2009 9:12 pm Glad to be of some help Bel. We've been designing for the last 8 months (we had a 6-month settlement on the land) so we've had lots and lots of time to think about what we do and don't want. . . though I'm quite sure that we'll still move into the house (hopefullly) and think "Damn. . . I wish we'd done that differently". Re: Split level 53Apr 17, 2009 11:46 pm Oooh . . . I just thought of a couple of other things . . . We don't want one of the fancy 900mm free-standing ovens (pure laziness, don't want to bend over to check food in oven). . . so, a wall-oven is the plan. . . The ones with an oven and a half look pretty good, but they can get quite expensive. . . my boss suggested that we buy two standard 600mm ovens and put one on top of the other (you can get these ovens for about $600 each, so you're paying $1200 instead of maybe $1700+ for the 1.5 ovens). Obviously you're going to use the top oven more than you use the bottom oven (as it's easier to reach). . . so every now and then (6 months?), just change them round (most ovens now just come with a standard plug on the back, and they're only held in with a couple of screws. Very good for Christmas dinners, parties or if you have to cook two things on different temperatures (and you're not heating a 900mm oven every time you want to cook up a pie). Have you heard of induction cooktops? We popped into Domayne in Parramatta Road (Auburn or thereabouts), just taking a bit of a look at the bathrooms. . . we saw they had a kitchen section so went up for a look. . . a salesman collared us and we told him we were looking for a gas stove and an electric oven. . . he did us a bit of a demonstration on an electric induction stovetop and we were absolutely sold. . . the model he showed us cost about $4000 (obviously well outside of our budget), but you can get them for a lot less if you shop around. . . do yourself a favour, go into either Domayne or Harvey Norman and get them to give you a demonstration. It's good to have two entrances to the kitchen (especially if the fridge opens up in one of the entrances) saves traffic jams. (Our builder said to allow at least 900mm of room at the entrance with the fridge. . . so you can open the door! Best to measure your fridge door I say.) We thought we might be able to save some money by having a cheap wooden door in the laundry with an aluminium sliding window, but it turns out that a 1.5metre sliding aluminium/glass door ensemble will only cost us about $400, and when you put together the window, the wooden door, the deadlock on the door and the fitting of everything, it would actually be about the same. We did a design with one of those bifold windows above the kitchen sink. . . builder told us the window would cost $3500 . . . ouch! Dumped that idea. Think about where you're putting everything in the bathroom. . . think about positioning the toilet, bath, shower and vanity so you can have a toilet-roll-holder within easy reach of the toilet, a towel rail next to the vanity and/or the shower/bath. Take a trip to Bunnings and check out their bathroom accessories range (towel rails, towel rings, toilet roll holders etc.). . . we've been looking at house stuff for about 15 zillion years and are still amazed at the quality and cheap prices of the Bunnings stuff compared to the stuff in the bathroom shops. Check with your council to see if you're in a bushfire zone. . . our builder still thinks that we're not in a bushfire zone, yet the councillor that we've been so see twice insists that we are. . . if you are it could mean that you have to include gutter guard on your roof, aluminium or other fireproof screens on your windows and doors (amongst other things that I can't think of). . . check this with your council, as it's better to know before you start so you can set aside money from the start. We've been to see the councillor that will be processing our application a couple of times since we found the land, we've built up a bit of a relationship with him, when we first walked in he seemed a bit bored, but got rather excited when we pulled out a scaled google maps printout of our plot and our planned residence so we could discuss the orientation and get an idea of what he thought would be good on the land. . . we're hoping that when the application goes in, he'll remember us and see us as more than just another number. Think about the things that bug you about your current house. . . try to eliminate these problems in the house you're building. Somebody told us that some people had paid a few thousand dollars to start the ball rolling with a project builder, the project builder had quoted on a house, done up the plans, put it in to council, but that the process took so long that they lapsed their "fixed price tender" period by 4 days. . . the project builder informed the people that, because the fixed price tender period had expired, the price would increase by tens of thousands of dollars . . the project builder apparently told the client that the plans had taken a long time to get through council (about four months) . . . our source told us that the council had only actually had the plans for 30 days . . . needless to say, the people dumped the project builder and lost their deposit (and a fair few months), transferring to a local builder. Obviously this is second hand information, so I can't verify how true it is, but I'd say it's definitely worth keeping tabs on your builder and maybe checking with council as to the status of your application. We've included TV recesses, picture recesses, a recess for the bed in the master bedroom, shower shelf recesses in the house . . . we like recesses, we think they add a bit of character. I found a very interesting blog by a family in Geelong who are currently building their house. They've done all sorts of different DIY stuff to the house when it was being built, like putting soundproofing in walls, installing a home network (data cabling so you can hook up a phone or the internet in every room), going in and wrapping the kitchen when the floors were being laid / house was being painted (hmmm. . . maybe I read this somewhere else) and lots of other stuff. . . well worth a read if you're looking for some tips (I hope they don't mind me putting the URL here. . . http://www.perryr.com/homeblog). What with the expense of building, we won't have much money left for extras once we move into the house . . . We've designed some of our window sizes so that we can get cheap IKEA and/or Freedom Furniture blinds to fit. . . saves a fortune off the price of custom blinds. We're thinking of putting venetian blinds in along the front of the house . . . we've heard that for wider windows, venetians can tend to sag in the middle, so we're planning to go with a couple of narrower windows instead of one wide one. We've included a walk-in linen cupboard and a broom cupboard in our design, we're planning to use offcuts of carpet to lay in these areas (saving money again). We wanted external architraves around our windows at the front of the house . . . our builder said that they could be extremely costly, and instead suggested that we have the bricklayer create brick features around each window which could be painted white and would look the same as architraves from a distance. . . he quoted approx. $10 per metre for the sides and bottom, and $15 per metre for the tops. We want a texture coat paint finish on the exterior of our house, but (because of labour costs), we've decided to do it ourselves. . . our builder said that he doesn't think it's too difficult. . . he's suggested that we use the gel undercoat as the first coat and use something called "Dry Zorro" to coat underneath the weep holes (to prevent the texture paint blistering and peeling, though I haven't been able to find any info on this stuff yet. . . must google harder). We've had a bit of a google on using Taubmans Moroka and it says to do one undercoat and two coats of texture, though we went into a Dulux trade centre and they said to do one undercoat, one coat of texture and then one coat of paint. . . we don't really know what to do yet. . . any suggestions? (I priced up the texture paint, ended up being about $1500 for the materials (if we do it ourselves), or somewhere between $5K and $8K if we get the contractors to do it. We're currently deciding on flooring in the main living area. . . I want bamboo, the man wants laminate (he wants us to lay it ourselves, as if we won't have enough to do.) Does anybody have any experience with bamboo? I've heard rumours that if you get it cheap it's likely to crack and split in time. . . is this true? (Bad batch from China apparently). . . also have heard that you need somebody with plenty of experience to lay it. . . anyone heard of a good layer? That's all folks. . . sorry, I did go on a bit! Jo. Re: Split level 54Apr 18, 2009 12:42 pm We only met up with "E" on site prior to doing sketches to go through requirements. The sales consultant met up with us to go through the sketches after. Was a bit of a shock as the estimate jumped a bit at that stage. A few sketches to look at below IMGP1870.jpg IMGP1866.jpg IMGP1868.jpg Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Like ⋅ Add a comment ⋅ Pin to Ideaboard ⋅ Re: Split level 55Apr 18, 2009 4:36 pm Hey mick looks great - are you happy with the sketches? Did you use the Monash as your base plan - can't remember think so. Really like your Kitchen/Family level, I think it works better than the original! We had a great day - I'm pretty tired but we walked away happy with the design. We made a few changes then and there with "E", and will take the next few days to think and think and think about it! Jo - wow I think you can talk more than I can! Seriously thanks again for your words and ideas Bel Still not in. Don't ask!? Re: Split level 56Apr 18, 2009 5:32 pm Very happy with the design. Only wanted to change the stacker door at the rear of the house to be closer to the kitchen as it is currently where the couch is going to be located. Based on the Monash. Had to shrink width by a few meters so the Monash kitchen/living wouldn't work. Also added a few skylights into the raked ceilings at the entrance that should be quite unique. Added a big Alfresco of the back of the house that has worked out to be pretty expensive. You should upload your design too so we can have a look. Re: Split level 57Apr 18, 2009 7:14 pm micks_k You should upload your design too so we can have a look. Just did it onto the blog - not sure if it has worked properly - I think you'll have to click on the pictures to get all of it. Was having a stack of trouble! Blog is in my signature! Bel Still not in. Don't ask!? Move your linen into laundry and access laundry from your present linen space 1 8312 isn't a garage level with the rest of the house a given? pretty sure they 'came around' long time ago. if you have a flat block, the garage is usually level with the rest… 1 17956 they can, it's a fairly standard solution when the slab isn't recessed. the falls need to be in the main floor, if it hasn't been done then you need to ask them to redo… 4 6822 |