Plenty of updates!

Frame is up!
Brick work is finished!
Windows and doors are in!
Gutters are on!

Front garage area, showing height of garage, all of this brick will be rendered.

Our super expensive Bowral Blue brick. Double fired, solid dry pressed brick. We love the look of this brick but due to its cost we only used it on the rear of the house. I worked on a commerical job that used these, they are literally twice the strength of a normal brick.

Front of the house, facia and gutters are on, safety rail installed. Brick work completed. Taking shape.

 An in progress shot of the side wall after the first day of brick work.

Wide shot of the front.

No updates for a while. There is a reason for that. I am going to be happy and positive.

Slab poured picture. Picture taken 8/3/2016

Slab was poured onto screw piers. Excess fill removed. PS Don't try to remove that much fill with a trailer and shovel.

Wife and I posing. Bi-folds out the back should open up completely to the backyard. 

 Frames are up. We have a 3 metre ceiling height throughout the house. Again, it seems as if non one has ever done this before, only split levels. While costly, it wasn't outrageous and add heaps to the feeling of space. Even the small bedrooms feel much bigger. I am with shoes on almost exactly 200 cm tall, so as you can see the house is very tall and spacious throughout. With 2.4m doors it makes everyone look tiny.

I am worried about site access to the rear. With only <1.3m only narrow machines will be able to get round. However small dingos and excavators should still be able to get access.

However the build is motoring along now. The frames went up in days, Brick and Roofing are next then you start to focus on the inside.

Landscaping plan

Here's our basic landscaping plan. I think the front is OK, I have much to say about the rear, where's the jet ski parking, fishing boat, the pool, the Bali hut, the garden office getaway, the sauna? A jungle to get lost in?

Too much lawn?

 My wife wants lots of unlimited grass lawn. Apparently kids are only allowed/want to play in the backyard. Over the very quiet road there is a park 3 times the size of the back yard, with a pond. There is also a proper park within 300m of the house with a football sized kicking area, kids playground etc. Then within 500m there is ~2 football grounds with change rooms, seating, warm up areas. Plus we are only about 800m from the river with various river beaches and what not.

Bona vista Park which is ~300m from our house. Contains swings, BBQ area, rope castle etc. While not as elaborate as some of the ones around like the massive complex at the Ponds, this is shared with a smaller community. Plenty of grass for a picnic. Could use a few more trees, but the two at the back are massive 100+ year old things.

Vermont boatramp - Well this is the Architects dream of what it should be

Nearby boat ramp upgrade. Apparently we will also be painting the grass a luminous green as well. Currently parking is problematic so any attempt to improve parking would be great. 

Ray Hadley is apparently moving into the area, so maybe its better if we keep our kids locked up in the backyard.

Plants and landscaping

This is what we are thinking about plants out the front, natives with a few hardy introduced classics like Yukka and Jacaranda.

Out the back we want some citrus trees (oranges, lemons, limes, mandarins) I love how neat these plants are and they produce useful fruits. Would love a mango tree, passion-fruit vine, and a few decorative stuff. I want the garden to be both useful to produce fruit, but nice looking and low maintenance with low water requirements. Our place used to be an orange orchid so I imagine they will do pretty well out here. I secretly want he back yard to have a bit more of a tropical feel, maybe a bali hut or something, some low palms, more yukkas etc.

Pool?

I would love a pool but I don't know yet how to pay for it. Quotes are crazy prices. I would like 3x8 or something, comfortable but not huge. Also I would love for it to be heated with a heat pump setup. In Sydney you can swim in most pools comfortably for 2-3 months of the year, which is fine. Then there is about 2 more months you can put your feet in and drink a beer. But if you have heating you can swim ~9 months of the year and get a whole lot more use out of your investment. Feet in all year round. Because your using it all the time, you take better care of the pool and don't let it green up over winter (something which many do in Sydney).

 Heat pumps are very efficient. Plus I can run it off my solar PV cells so during the day (even in winter), 3-6 hrs of pool heating can occur. This is usually enough to keep the pool significantly warmer and swimable. I will need a cover for it too, to keep the heat in, sun off the water (it breaks down the chlorine) and hopefully any ducks off it. But I want it to be basically uncovered while we are at home, because heck, pools just look awesome.

  Solar tubes verse heat pump and PV solar?

Heat pumps are better heaters, they can work at night, cloudy days, etc. Your PV solar can also power other things like your house, your aircon, your electric car etc. If you have a party, you can say stuff the electricity costs, I want the pool nice and warm. 

Solar

 I LOVE SOLAR. I've been off grid for over 8 years now. We have lived on a little 1kw battery setup that whole time. Now I want something decent. We have 3 phase so I want it to be 3 phase as well. If you are going over 5kw you need 3 phase anyway. So I am shooting for a 6Kw Solar setup with a 5.8 Kw inverter. Most will be on the north roof side, with some on the west (~1.5kw), this is a pretty good compromise as I will still be making decent amount of power in the afternoon, when you want things like air con (cold in summer and warm in winter) on before the night starts. 

Main things the solar will want to offset are:

* Aircon - big 3 phase unit that was a deal with the house. Actron, good brand, decent size.

* Pool filter - will hopefully get a 3 phase pump

* Pool heater - will hopefully get a 3 phase pool heater. 

* Electric car - I WILL get one of these, ideally a 2nd hand model S Telsa. Or a leaf.

 We will have an electric oven, gas burners on it, but gas instant hot water, so really not a big amount of electrical house hold appliances. 

I also want a Powerwall when they come out so I can make the most of the solar even offset evening usage. But expensive. 

Plans

The Block!

Here is our block. Long and skinny. Rear is north facing (off by only 10 degrees- should be good for solar!). Its pretty flat too, not perfect but pretty close. While its a cut and fill, they will only be cutting ~10cm and filling ~10cm, which is small enough not to really be of concern, no real fill to remove either. Site is pretty sandy, no one has found rock in any of the development around here and the site is very close to its origional height (the developer didn't have to do a lot for this part, it was an orange orchard and before that an airfield or something).

 Anyway you cut it 800m2 is big, but being narrow has limited some of our choices. The area also requires 1.2+ m each side, but that means a regular Milano 16 doesn't fit (just by like 30cm!).  I would have also preferred to have access to the back with 2m or 2.4m side access. This would make digging, landscaping, storing a boat/jetski/ etc easy. Many houses in the Pitt town area have drive through garages for boats (we do have a boat ramp on the estate) or big side access.

 However 1.3m is still big enough that you can get a Dingo down the side, or a small jetski, and if your boat is a tinny, its easy to carry it around the back. So it doesn't really exclude those options, and you get a bigger house instead. I'm not planning anything bigger than a Jetski or tinny (at least for storing it at home).

 Plenty of room for a pool, maybe a rear poolhouse/study, a small shed for storage etc. Still leaving room to kick/throw a ball in the back yard.

On the Street.

Here it is from the street. We are told that ours might be the only MacDonald Jones house that has 3m ceilings throughout (inc at the front) the house. I don't believe that, but very few houses at 3m all the way through, most of the display homes are 2.7 or split with a 3.0 out the back. Combined with the Vermont development required angles it makes for a very tall imposing single story house from the front. We weren't going for that look, we really just wanted high ceilings inside as I am 2m tall and our kids will most likely also be quite tall. Plus the house isn't huge, so higher ceilings will help make it feel a bit more airy (I hope).

The roof actually makes the house look quite narrow, its not. This is a wide house with two front bedrooms a hall way and a double garage. Many single story homes only have one front bedroom. Its just the roof is so bloody big. In the roof, the apex to the interior roof height is like 3.3m!.

This picture is wrong, we are getting timber windows with a corner window near the entry. It was specified in our original contract, but they can't seem to put it on the plan or drawings.

 The front will be rendered (at added cost), but I think will go nice with the Balinese resort façade. We want to clad the bottom of the two pillars with sandstone, I want nice sharp cut, wife wants rough more organic.

 There is no house on the otherside of the street, we actually overlook a nice little pond with reeds and ducks and the like. So we envisage using the front deck time to time to look out at the kids playing on the grass near the pond. This will be south facing so possibly very pleasant in summer

 Sides will be bagged (cheaper!) and the rear will be wonderful Bowral Blue brick. This stuff is expensive, its costing nearly $5k just to get the rear done, a whole house is ~$20k+. However the blues are a f

The Plan

Ok we have our floor plans - This one is a draft, we have moved some of the water points, gas points etc. I have cut and pasted the bed 4 robe to where it will be too (making bed 4 a bit bigger). Bed 4 will nearly be a cube. ~2.8x3.6x3 - We think this will be a study as its the smallest room. Eventually when we build the study out the back this could be another bedroom (for guests or gasp more kids?) or a play room.

 We have also put in a sink in the toilet up the front of the house so you don't have to go to the bath room to wash your hands. I think this should be standard in the 16. Theres room for it, every toilet should have a sink, its basic hygiene. If someone is in the bathroom then the only other options are kitchen (No!), Master (No No!) or laundry - none of which are nearby.

 Children activity isnt' as huge, but its large enough, as a play area while they are little, as a study/work area when they are older.

 The outback.

Out the back we have two sets of bi-fold doors with a small wall between them, an alfresco covered dining area, rear window from the master bed room. Rear should feel very spacious with two sets of bi-folds and a 3 m height, combined with the skinner central pillar. Our sales contact tried to talk us out of bi-folds at the rear. The insects! The maintenance! However, being able to basically delete the entire rear wall of the house during pleasant times of the year to look over a significant backyard is just too tempting.

 This is one of the main reasons we chose a Milano, the rear completely opens up and there's no master bedroom in the way. Just family living blending to undercover and outdoor areas.

 The roof will have solar panels on it, nicely north facing on a nice angle. I want a 6 Kw+ system, this may mean I will have some on the West side as well. Not a bad thing either as West facing will mean we will still be making significant power well into the afternoon.