Lets start at the very beginning

We are building a new house. We have toyed with the idea for many years, but it has always been in the too hard basket.   In January this year we decided to put the house on the market.  We were going on holidays and thought that we would give ourselved a month after we returned to finish everything off and then we would sell it. We wanted to buy a bigger block of land, but the main objective for me was building my dream house.

This was our house before, it is still pretty nice.   We moved up to Port Stephens from Sydney in 2009. Our decision to move was dictated to be able to own a house like this, our house in Sydney was tiny compared to this. The house when we bought it was only 8 months old. It was unfinished. Basically there was the house (minus floor coverings) and 1/2 an acre of dirt.  A couple of pictures to show you what it was like before we sold

Entry hallway with study to the right.





Study

Home Theatre



Main living/kitchen area.



Deck/Alfresco

Pool

Part of the backyard.

We acheived a lot in just over 3 years, but maybe we have been spoilt by what we can afford compared to Sydney. 

The house sold to the first and only viewer before it was officially on the market.  We had to find somewhere to buy quickly and to organise somewhere to rent.  As with property, nothing goes as smoothly as you hope.  

Firstly, we had agreed to purchase a 1 acre block of land. We thought it was all going smoothly until the agent decided to play silly buggers with us and try to rip us off.  We pulled out on the purchase of the first block and settled on a second block.  Things worked out though, it was $10,000 cheaper - so more money to spend on the house build.

The land is 1 acre (4000m2)  There are way too may trees at the moment, so there will be some clearing to do before we can start building. The positive is, we will have free firewood for life.

The reason we were going to sell the house - this house

It is the Mcdonald Jones Bronte Executive Grande.  It would have been perfect. 5 bedrooms, 2 studies and an activity room big enough for a pool table.    The problem we were going to have is the block has a pre-determined building envelope.   The envelope is 20m x 28m, the problem with the Bronte is it 29m wide, so was not going to fit on the building envelope.   So our first port of call was to change the building envelope, how hard could it be?