1. Starting Up

Firstly, a bit of setup. I'm writing this blog mainly for family & friends to follow my home build experience. I've found some really building handy tips from  blogs of others who have recently been through this process and will be happy if anyone gets a few insights out of my journey.

Carl 

Finding Where to Live

I started looking for a block outside of Geelong in late 2014. Torquay was a bit expensive, the blocks on sale in Ocean Grove were far enough back from the beach that it was just like being in the suburbs anywhere, the huge Armstrong Creek development is a convenient location but I didn't like any blocks that were available at the time. 

I ended up on the Bellarine Peninsula, not far from Drysdale. It's a less congested feel, Port Philip bay is 1km away, the area is surrounded by golf courses and wineries, so quite a nice feel. I don't have a view of the water - there were blocks with views available for extra $ but the water is likely to be lost as soon as the houses go up around them in the next couple of years. Hopefully the area will retain much of the current feel once all the homes are built in the new development areas.

Selecting a Builder & Design

I quickly narrowed down builders to 3 or 4 and then spent quite a bit of time looking into options & pricing, ending up settling on Boutique Homes. I started with a Venice 26 design, here's the original plan:

Modifying the Plan

The front of the house faces a little north of East (typical Victorian compass skew), so the plan below gets the winter sun on the bottom side in this view. We had to swap the front rooms around as the developer put the street crossovers along the whole street on the north of each block (stupid!). My block has the service terminations for the street so too expensive to get them to change it.

• I got rid of the dead space in the 2nd passageway
• Home theatre became home office. I can never understand why so many designs have the master bedroom closest to the street - I want quiet.
• Enlarged Bed4 & turned it into a music room. 
• With the front room flip, the bathroom moved towards the front & the both the loo & Bed2 also moved to the other side. By moving the loo away from the outside wall, I also recovered enough space to give Bed2 a walk-in-robe (guitar case storage!). Also added additional linen & broom cupboards.

Here is what it ended up as:

Now to get the block of land sorted so that the build can start.