Fernside 38

After the thick book that we were given with all the house designs, we settled on the Fernside 38. It had 5 bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms, study and home theatre.

Originally I did not want 3.5 bathrooms. My mum has 5 bathrooms in her house and she has just had to replace 3 of them.  To me more bathrooms means more cleaning. However, for re-sale value I didn't think we could lose any of them.   Bedroom 5 on the ground floor will be our guest room. Guests don't want to be travelling upstairs to have a shower, so it had to stay.

Another idea originally was to lose the bath in the ensuite.  I used to take baths all the time and but could probably count on one hand the amount of times I had one in the last 8 years.  We were giong to extend the size of the bedroom where we had lost the bath.  Again for re-sale value we have kept it in.  We are going to lose the door from the ensuite into the WIR. There is no need for this and allows us to have extra hanging space.

In the lounge at the front of the house we are making the opening to the room a normal door. This is going to be the home theatre room and we want it dark.

We are also losing the cut out in the study that connects to the dining area.  The desk in my study is never clean, I don't really need it on display.

For me the kitchen area was not really big enough. In my last house my island kitchen bench was 3.5m and in this house it is 2.4m - however there is not enough room to extend it as it is at the back of the house.  Our idea was to have the alfresco option, which is an additional 4m and to add this as part of the house. Adding the alfresco is part of the promotions package at the moment, so we have paid an additional $6,000 to make this part of the house and not have it as an alfresco.

Remember that budget - if we thought it was smashed before, it really is going to be now.

To add to this, we have extended the kitchen including the island by 900mm each. We have changed the splash back into a long window.  There will be 40mm ceasarstone including waterfall ends. Undermount sink and a tap for the fridge.  We have taken out the door in the pantry to the laundry and we have put it in the hallway.  I dont want to have to talk through the pantry to get to the laundry and I get the extra storage in the pantry.

Our tender request went in last Monday.  On the weekend we had another thought.  How much was the alfresco option worth on its own. We need an undercover area on the house and were going to get one built after we had the house handed over, but we might as well get it built with the house if it is reasonable.

Another call to our trusty salesperson Paul and he gave us the price and reminded us that we were already at our limit. I advised him that we had already smashed our budget a long time ago (more than $20,000 ago) and so now we were really going to give it a beating.

We are now waiting on the final price.   If you take the floor plan as it is above, add an additional alfresco option on the back and you will have the house we are planning to build.

The house will be 14m wide and 27m long (so will just fit into the building envelope - length ways anyway)
It will be 42 squares when it is finished.  The price, well that is offensive, but as my dad told me years ago, always buy/build the biggest house you can afford. It costs a lot more to extend/move later when you realise you need the extra room.