Design requirements

The plan has always been to live in 19 and rent out 17.

Deb wanted a walk-in wardrobe and a bath, Paul knew there would be no space for a separate shed so somewhere to store bikes with some level of workshop would need to be under the main roof.

19 already had a cellar but it was fairly small. Ceiling access for storage was a must.

Having flexibility with 19 to allow 2 living areas with separate access to each fairly quickly led to the requirement for 2 stories at 19. This could have been done in a staged build but chances are that that wasn’t really an economic option.

Knowing that the front wall of the house was bluestone, we were keen to remove the rendering and flat veranda to make the street aspect look late Victorian as it did when first built circa 1900 with pointing and a concave veranda.

Space for one car would be enough.

En suite bathrooms were considered with a couple of options, one being turning the second bedroom into en suites but you end up with too many doors leading to dead space.

Separate the toilet from the bathroom please.

First floor balcony's were not required as there is really no view in a flat suburb.

The block is sited east/west which is not ideal so planning required to protect from the summer western afternoon sun and capture the sun from the north in winter.

While it was a great learning experience, reading up on the building code, understanding the requirements of council, undertaking a course on sustainable design, by July 2015, enough time had been spent playing with Smartdraw and with Sketchup now the weapon of choice, it was time to engage someone who knew what they were doing to get on with it.