If you’ve ever built a new home, you know that it’s up there with death or divorce as one of the most stressful times you will go through!
But there are keys that can help you to make it a smoother process, and I hope to share some of these with you as we move ahead with our own building project…our new dream home!
When you first begin dreaming about your new home, start by keeping a file of all the great ideas from magazines and brochures that you like and want to incorporate. (I have four of these folders and also a folder on my computer with images that I have gathered from the internet).
Once you have your folder, find a great architect or draftsman to draw up your plans, incorporating the ideas from your folder….if you can part with your hard work for a few weeks, leave the folder with them. A good architect will get a grasp of what you are trying to achieve and will work to make the concepts flow in the home, rather than being a hodge-podge of ideas that have no clear direction. You will probably notice as you begin to make collages on your pages for each room, that your style will begin to show and speak to you, because the things that draw you will be similar no matter where you are getting the pictures and words from. (eg a colour scheme, style, or feel)
Then you will get back a draft plan…something like this
And this is where things can get tricky!! You look at the lines and the measurements, and you’re overwhelmed. What will it actually LOOK LIKE in reality?!
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TIP NO. 1
If you have existing furniture that you know you are going to incorporate in your new home, measure it now and ensure it will fit in the room sizes that you have designed. Allow room to move around the pieces (eg beds etc) when you are figuring this out. It seems like a stupid thing to add, but many times I have seen rooms where the space around the bed, or dining table is so tight, that the owners have to downsize their existing table or bedroom suite to fit the room they had built.
Once you are happy with the overall concept, go ahead and have it approved and begin building. Have your slab poured and then STOP!!!!!!!!!!
TIP NO. 2
This tip might not be taken too kindly by your builder, and he could even charge you a bit to do it, but I guarantee you it could SAVE YOU THOUSANDS down the track.
When the slab is dry, have the builder chalk out the walls of your home onto the slab (including the thickness of the walls) using a chalking tool (this uses chalk that will not wash off in rain etc)
Your slab will look like this:
You can see in the photo above two parallel lines…that’s the thickness of the wall to each room.
From there, go ahead and mark out the kitchen on the ground. (arguable the most important room of the house, and one that you want to get right!!!)
From the plan, draw lines on the ground to show cupboards (600mm width), where the fridge will be, the oven, cooktop, sink, etc.
In the walls, mark where the windows are so you know where overhead kitchen cupboards won’t be, and you will begin to get a real sense of what will work for you.
After you have finished setting out, walk around your kitchen, just like you would if it were built. Go to the fridge, open it…is there enough space for the door to open and for you to get things out? Is there a bench nearby to place the items? Turn and go to the sink…is it too far to walk/too tight? Now walk to the cooktop, how did that feel? Does the flow work for you? How is the natural light in the room? Check where the windows are in the wall lines, will they bring light to your work area?
Now is the time to make any changes to these areas, before any wall frames are built.
Do this for each room you are not able to ‘see’ in your mind from the plan.
Check the measurements of your lounges/dining table/bedroom suites etc and mark them on the slab.
We did this with our home last weekend, and found that the room we have set aside as our lounge/movie watching area was just a little bit too tight with the large lounge suite we have. We saw that we could move the wall between the lounge and the dining room out by 500mm which would give us more room to move around the back of the lounge and have a small console behind it, without making the dining room too tight.
If you do all this planning before the builder has organised the ordering of frames, it will do save you in so many ways:
1. Money – if you want to make changes once walls are up and gyprocked, you will be up for thousands of dollars in variations.
2. Stress – the worry is taken out of the build early in the piece because you can really visualise your home with your furniture etc in place.
3. Relationship – possibly most important (and I say this from a builder’s perspective being on the receiving end of angry clients). When the home is going up and rooms are taking shape, this is usually when the client says “That’s not what I wanted”….yet the builder is building to the plans YOU HAVE APPROVED! It’s actually because you didn’t know what it would look like until it was up that you couldn’t visualise the finished room!! Then, when you ask the builder to make changes, he will charge you for it and then the relationship gets rocky!!! You think he’s in it for the money, but he would much rather have NO VARIATIONS to the plan as it costs time and money for the builder to alter his schedule to make these changes.
A bit of work and time spent on this up front, will save you in so many ways further along the road!
Hope this helps,
Shani
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