I thought the title of this blog post was going to be: "The Finished Plans", until I decided I should confirm with my mum that these plans we received the other week were the final done and dusted deal. Turns out they're not. They were supposed to be, but they've spotted a few things they'd like to tweak. It’s taken a year and a half to get this state we thought would take six months, but at least we can say our plans are almost finished, and it's getting closer to builder time.
The last few architect meetings have been focused on refining design details, and there have been heaps to go over. We got our engineer's plan back with all of the beams detailed, and an energy survey completed, as well as one for the site. A few small additions have been made, a few unexpected revelations have occurred, and an electrical plan has been laid out.
I’ll start with the situation we encountered with the windows. One member of this family suffers from claustrophobia, which created a priority requirement in our design brief for this house: windows, windows, and more windows. So much so, she asked the architects to build this house as if it were a glass box, and fill in sparingly the areas that have to be plasterboard. I wouldn’t go as far to say that this house is a glass house; to me it comes across relatively normal (before you contest that, no the above CAD rendering doesn’t depict a glass wall, it’s actually just a sectional view). You will see in the images to come that there’s a plethora of roof windows and a living room covered 270ยบ in glass. Wherever a window was allowed, a window has been included. But we had to push to get as many as we have, like in the ensuite. Two slivers of window either side of the vanity were not enough, a generous roof window was required, as were the five individual roof windows over the living room and dining room, and the one in the master wardrobe (below).
This is a CAD rendering of the house. The materials are just for demonstrative purposes; I know it won't be a beige box in reality.
Speaking of wardrobes, the size of my sister’s and my wardrobes have dramatically changed, and not in equal favour. Take a look for yourself:
This is the heritage part of the house, with three original rooms. The middle room is the one being transformed into the walk-in-robes and store room. It has an existing window, and unfortunately this window is off-centre. To divvy the natural light fairly, the wall is going in the middle of the current window cavity. This off-centre window I have always known about, but none of the previous plans had the wardrobes drawn like this. I assumed the window was moving to give my sister and I equal wardrobes. But now it looks like my sister has drawn the short straw, and her room is smaller than mine to begin with! I have a suspicious feeling we won’t be moving the window because that’s a structural job, i.e. costly. Perhaps we can board up the window on my side and we can create equal spaces.
- The cross with a half circle is a regular powerpoint with the plug holes.
- The black circle with a tick on the end is a light-switch.
- The circle with a “P” in the middle is a pendant light.
- The circle with a dash running through it is a downlight.
- And the black line that runs through each light fitting shows where the light switch is that turns it on or off.
The above floor plan also shows the electrical layout. It also features a floating air conditioner unit in bedroom 2. (I think that’s a mistake.) The symbols you can see scattered around the rooms are construction symbols for the builder and electrician to understand where everything electrical is going.
In the bedrooms we’re having a light-switch by the door and one by the bed. We also have a few powerpoints that are above the ground - according to my request - such as the ones that have 600, 300, or 900 written next to them. The 600 ones are for the bedside table lamps; they’re up high so that if we have bedside tables with an open back you won’t see the chords running behind (I’m very particular). The 300 ones are for underneath the desk, they can be standard height really, I just wasn’t sure what the standard height was. The 900 powerpoint is for above the desk for convenient access. I read an article a couple of weeks ago that said renovators are now installing USB powerpoints to charge iPhones and other devices that have USB chords. I think it's a cool idea, and clever for now, but with technology evolving so rapidly nowadays, I wonder if the USB plug will become obsolete. Would you install these types of powerpoints?
The kitchen has had a reshuffle. Again. For a while the stove top was in the island, overlooking the dining and living rooms. This was good for the cook's view, but the aesthetic of the ranged over the island wasn't favoured. We looked into range hoods flush with the ceiling (I blogged about this in a previous post) but we decided to go with a more conventional layout and put the stove top against the back wall; the sinks and dishwasher in the island; and the wall oven and refrigerators against the long wall. You can see this in the floor plan above. I like this layout because I think it looks nicer with the sink in the island and the range hood against a wall, but I fear that the length of counter adjacent to the wall oven will either be wasted space, or an enclosed preparation space. This would be because the sinks take up most of the room on the island, leacing minimal space to spread ingredients and utensils out. But on the other hand, the sink is convenient in the island for dumping used pots and pans. Kitchens are costly, so I hope my parents are 100% happy with this layout.
I think I've convinced my parents to change the above depicted island with wooden legs to a traditional style island, in order to avoid trend changes and boredom with such a strange design.
Along with the plans came a surprising and frustrating revelation/roadblock. If you've been reading Casa Almora for a while you'll remember the blessed palm tree the size of the Big Pineapple. Well, the earth beneath it is *~supposedly~* going to require six months to settle before any building work can be done above it. Oh. My. God. That brings us to November! We wanted to start building before the middle of the year!! The tree got removed the other week; the unexpected news whipped us into action. No more pondering over an eBay sale - it was time to call the lumberjack!
My mum met with a builder last week who built a house in a nearby street which we got to visit, and we were very impressed with his work. I believe she's about to meet a second builder to compare costs, etc. If all goes well, and we really finalise the plans, I'll have a construction site to blog about soon.
When the plans are actually, finally locked in I doubt I'll really believe it. It'll seem like the boy who cried wolf. I always think we're ahead and then we're not. When the builder is signed up it will be a miracle in itself, a major milestone, let alone the official construction of the house. I've read that every renovator at some point feels as though the end is so out of sight it's as if it's never going to happen. I think we're in this lull right now; if my parents aren't then I certainly am. Whether this is unnecessary on my behalf I don't know, but I have so much emotional investment in this project because it is so freaking exciting to me. No hideous renovation story lessens my excitement and anticipation to experience renovating for the first time. It's probably the only time where all I'll be investing in a renovation is emotion. I imagine the next time a renovation comes my way it will be my own (i.e. financial investment) or a job (i.e. professional investment). So with this in mind, I'll continue my emotional investment of excitement and anticipation while I can; carefree of monetary expenses and other renovation owner/manager stresses.
Thanks for checking back!
XOXO
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