Our Dream House . . .

We must have visited over 100 display homes over the years. There have been houses we've liked, and a couple we thought one day we may build. But with most of them we wanted to change or move something. We (more myself than Daniel) considered Owner Building. I love the idea of being really involved, but it's not practical to be a wife, mum and builder :)  Daniel liked designs from a Melbourne company and we toyed with the idea of a weekend trip to see their displays. We tried designing our own home but it never quite worked.

There were only a few things we really wanted in a home we built.  Well Daniel only really wanted 1 thing, a media room!  I wanted the bedrooms away from the living area and away from the laundry.  Our front loader sounds like a jet plane when it's spinning so not good to use when the kids are asleep.  It would be nice to have 2 toilets too so there's less queuing.  And a good amount of bench space in the kitchen would be great.  Not too fussy are we...

When we found our block we realised that due to the slope, a sprawling acreage house would use up most of the flat area, and we'd also have a hefty bill for cut & fill and piers.  We spent several nights looking online at all the designs we liked, and how we could fit them.  They were all single storey homes.

Then I remembered a display I had been through a few months earlier by myself (a mad dash across town during school hours to look at land and display homes).  It was 2 storey, and I really liked it, but dismissed it as we'd never planned to build a 2 storey home.  But it made sense on our block so I showed Daniel the plan and we visited the display and he loved it too!  We knew this house was the one for us so we paid our deposit and got the ball rolling.  Plantation had some great discounts at the time, and good thing we did sign up as the next day they had a $5k price increase!  It was weird 'having a house' but no land to put it on...  We had put an offer in on the land but it hadn't been accepted yet, a small technicality!

There's not much we've changed in the standard plan.  Most changes through the builder are soooo expensive so we've stuck to the ones we can't change or add later without extra expense or hassle.  We've changed the facade to one with an extended porch.  A balcony would be nice, but at $20k+ we'd rather use that money elsewhere, if we had it!  We've added cavity doors to the living room (will be the media room), study, and ensuite.  And a door to access under the stairs for storage.  A double sink in the kitchen and we'll also be providing our own kitchen appliances - yay!  And changed 3 windows to double hung (a fixed window in the kitchen looking out to the alfresco, and 2 sliding windows in the family room), hoping to get better airflow.  Oh, and adding a bench & cupboards in the laundry.

It looks huge on the plans, but when you're in the house it seems homely and not massive. Yeah, okay it's lots bigger than our previous home. We plan to live here a long long time.

So what's the house design? Plantation Home's Trinity Q1.

It's more than we'd ever dreamed of...

Downstairs

The porch will be extended across to the study wall by the garage

Upstairs

This is the facade we will have though it will look slightly different 
as this is on a different house design, but it's pretty close.  We don't have 
windows over the garage, and we'll won't be rendering.

Daniel has a video he took of the display which we'll add later when he converts it.