Final design

Today is Queen's birthday holiday in Australia, so there's been no construction work happening. Never mind, I can entertain you with my building approval story.

My third and final design was completed around October 2008, that's one year after my owners bought the land. Squeezed left, right and front by the building regulation, it's amazing that they can still fit a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom and 1 car port design. One advantage of this really compact design is I have plenty of outdoor space around me. My overall dimension is around 12 x 12 meter while the land is approximately 20 x 25 meter.

Ground floor has the combined kitchen/living room, a master bedroom, a guest room and a bathroom. The guest room does double duty as a study. The car port sits on a cut and fill land with retaining walls around it.



Lower floor has the children's bedrooms, a shared bathroom and a small laundry. There will be a door, not shown on the plan, that connects to the outdoor area.



There is a small porch at the entrance, to serve as a welcoming space for visitors. There will be some usable space underneath the porch and kitchen, shielded from the sun and rain, that could be used for clothes hang drying and maybe outdoor barbeque area?



On the left and rear elevations, you can see the decks on both ground and lower floor. These decks are located on the north/east area facing the conservation park. A perfect location to catch the morning sun while enjoying the forest view.



Did this design got approved by the City Council you asked? YES it did! They finally got it approved just before Christmas 2008. There's one more problem though. When my owners told the builder to start construction, there was one tree that had to go as it sits right in the middle of the land. When the tree-lopper came, they told the builder that the land is within a plant protection zone, so they need to get a City Council approval for cutting down the tree. And no, the people who approve the building had nothing to do with the people who approve the tree cutting. Sigh.

More time spent waiting for approvals...

Surveyor's markings

There are orange spots all over the land now, made of square wooden pegs nailed to the ground. I think that's the surveyor's marking where the concrete should be poured to make the pole foundations. You can almost figure out my room layout based on those markings.

Okay, back to my building approval drama. After the first design got declined by the City Council, my owners got a help from an architect who made sure the design satisfies the height restriction, and for added measure put enough distance from the left and right hand side neighbor. The new design was gorgeous. You've got to love this architect's sketches.



The builder and my owners were confident this design will get approved in no time. Not so. After waiting for another 2 month, the City Council sprung a new restriction that they neglected to mention in the first design review. It turned out that I must be built at least 6 meter away from the borderline with the conservation park. The architect's design is such that you can't simply push the whole house back by 6 meter without part of the house going straight into the front neighbor's land.

This is where my owners almost gave up and seriously considered selling the land. They were wondering if I was just not meant to be. They have persisted for 9 months, and to be given a new restriction that forced them to start the design from scratch at this stage was just too much to bear.

But my owners finally decided to have another go. They were both born on the Chinese year of the Ox you know, not easy to give up, a bit stubborn more than they care to admit. The husband happens to have a bachelor's degree in Architecture, although he never practiced that profession as he worked in IT industry as soon as he graduated. Still reeling from the two knock backs from the City Council, my owners made the third design. I will show it to you in the next post...

Land preparation

Whoa, I owe these guys one. They did a really good job at preparing the land using a bobcat and an excavator. Land preparation is important because if you don't do it right, it will affect the whole house structure. I do want to stand on solid, well prepared land and foundation.

The land is now cleared and ready for foundation work. One of my owner, the husband, loves grass. No he doesn't eat it, he just like the colour and finds patches of well mowed grass lawn pleasing to look at. He's already itching to plant grass on the bare, cleared land although fully aware he has to wait until my construction is almost finished. Patience boy...


In the last post I promised you an explanation why it has taken so long for them to start building me. Soon after buying the land, my owners started looking for builder, preferably one who has some experience building on sloped land. They found one that looked really good, have plenty of house designs to choose and modify from. They specialised in steel structured houses, which suits my owners fine as they don't really want to build a wooden house anyway (termite problem and what not). Brick house is a bit of a challenge on sloped land, so pole steel house seemed to be a good choice. Here's what my first design looked like. A massive 7 rooms, 3 bathrooms house.



It took almost 3 months for the City Council to evaluate the plan. At first they told my owners that the planned house (that's me!) was too close to the right hand side neighbor, so they asked them to get a statement from the neighbor that he is okay with the design. After gotten the neighbor's declaration and waited for another 2 months, my owners were told the design wasn't approved because it did not meet height restriction, a maximum of 8.5m from the ground.

Aaaargh!!!