We designed the place ourselves, basing ideas on things we'd done and liked at our first build; things we'd seen since and liked better; the site and aspect of the new block; general observation and only slightly critical analysis of any other place we've been into; magazines; the web; etc...
First came the block. We'd started thinking about the idea of building again, and talked about some of the very general changes we'd make, but a piece of land has to come before the plan. I'm no architect, but still get frustrated by houses that are obviously planned before the land - then just 'put down' onto whatever block someone happens to find. See them quite often. Once we found the block we knew what direction it faced, where the sun would be, what views we had, the slope and aspect, where neighbours might be (none yet!) and could use all that to influence the plan.
Then we started planning. Without a great deal of IT skills, I used Publisher rather than something more high-powered, to draw in the first few drafts of floor plans - stored on our hard drive somewhere are something like 10 or 12 variants as we refined the ideas and gradually developed the plan to something we felt really comfortable with and could 'see' ourselves living in.
One exciting step along the way was having a young friend of ours, an almost-graduated architect, play around with some 3D renderings of our plans, based on a rough description from us as to what we were thinking. Having someone take our flat-pack drawings and turn them into something more like a photo really helped. What also helped was that Sam did it for free as it helped him build an extra layer into his portfolio - so benefits both sides.
Since we're having trouble transferring the pdf floor plan from the draftsman into the blog, we'll use Sam's images to give a bit of an idea of our floor plan and possible end-result:
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| Floor plan from above and to the north-west. Foreground is open plan lounge/dining/kitchen To the left is our bedroom and ensuite Far right is the garage, linked to main house by workshop/storage area Smack in the middle, an enclosed but open-air courtyard to let light into the kids hallway Top left is the family room/rumpus/kids play area Along the back are three bedrooms and the bathroom Study/Spare room between garage and the entry (which is at the top of the stairs off the driveway) |
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| Same but from the opposite view-point. Some slight changes were made between this and the final building plan but this is basically it. |
The three levels are:
1 - Garage with attached workshop and storage ('ground' level)
2 - 1200mm (4ft) higher are the entry, study/spare room, main lounge/dining/kitchen and our bedroom
3 - Another 1200mm up from this main level is the kids' area with bedrooms, bathroom and play room (+ laundry and an outdoor-access storage for all those bats, balls, raquets, mowers, shoes, nets, etc that never seem to have a good place to be...)
Idea is to earth-move the site to make a flat area for the kids (to the right of and behind the second floor plan above) with dirt from there going out in front (to the north) of Level 2 to create flat ground in front of the house at that level as well.
Sam's efforts gave us a sneak peek into some possibilities:
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| 3D 'render' of the hypothetical front of the house, based on what we told Sam. Idea for face-brick in between rendered/painted 'pillars' is ours. Not sure if we can manage a set of stairs like that though... |
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| Inside the lounge/dining/kitchen according to Sam. We will have bamboo floors in the dining and kitchen and will have big sliding doors (furthest away) onto a deck. We'll put in carpet in the lounge however - probably similar colour to the rug depicted but covering the whole area. Breakfast bench, bulkhead over kitchen and raked ceiling are all according to plan. |
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