27.6.10

From the inside out!

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , , ,

I had a little peak inside our house on Saturday and took some photos, dreaming about what it could look like from the inside in just a few short months.


Standing in the position of the kitchen bench and with all the windows and side sliding door in, it wasn't hard to imagine living here. Many people avoid buying a corner block because of the extra landscaping and for some estates the covenants for a corner can add $20,000 to a house.

For us, we are very happy we bought a corner block; the thought that we won't be boxed in on all three sides is great. We will never be built out, and the homes across the road are single story. So we have perfect, unobstructed views across our estate and to the mountains. Beautiful!

Of course we will have a fence taking some of our view, but not all of it. And we'll only ever have neighbours on two sides. The fence will be high enough to give us privacy from the road and neighbours, but low enough to still give us a spacious outlook.

Looking from the road into the Alfresco.

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10.7.09

Corner block & Custom builders

Posted by Cath Swan | Labels: , , ,


Custom builders are great if you have a specific idea of plans for your home. If you're happy to just go with the standard plan, any mainstream builder will help you out.


But what if you need to move walls, add a room, or fit the plan to your block? Something we have learnt along the way is that if you make too many changes to a standard plan, you need to check that you are still eligible for the luxury upgrades so many builders include in their advertising. If there are too many changes to standard plans, it's then classed as a custom build, and you may lose the luxury inclusions.

We have a corner block, its around 19m wide and 32m long, its a 600m size block. Not huge but not tiny either. But because this block is on the corner, we lose a couple of metres of the front corner.

So whatever plan we choose, it has to fit on the block with the garage to the left and enough room for the corner.

The other thing that is a requirement for having a corner block at Laurimar, is we have to address the corner. Which means that whatever facade, windows, render etc we have on the front of the house, has to carry to a certain percentage of the corner and side. This can make things a little expensive, we have to allow about $3000 to our budget just for the corner treatment. Ultimately it will look great, but it's also finding a plan that has a good corner layout to fit our particular block.

For us we are looking very hard for a custom builder who will help us to build our home and not shoot us if we want to change the plan a little. As for luxury inclusions, you don't get something for nothing, so my advice is to always read the fine print and make sure you are aware of all costs hidden or not, because luxury inclusions will have to be factored into the overall price somewhere.

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