In the beginning...

My partner and I decided to buy our very first home about 3 years ago. We knew that we wanted to build and after vigorous saving we finally put our name to a block of land. We then began the search for a house design to put on our pretty piece of dirt. It didn't take long until we decided that we had to go with McDonald Jones. We loved there open plan living style homes and thought that their finishes looked beautiful. The next task was to figure out which McDonald Jones house to put on our block. Now I am a really indecisive person so you can imagine how long it would take this personality type to consider ALL factors :) Factors like cost (obviously a big consideration), arrangement of kitchen/living/dining area, what direction the main living areas faced (we ideally wanted kitchen/living/dining to face North) the number of bedrooms, whether to get a media room, whether to extend the alfresco outdoor area. So many questions. It did my head in and probably more so, did my partners head in because of my indecisiveness (If thats a word lol). When I was a kid my parents renovated and I'm a huge fan of 'The Block,' 'Reno Rumble' and other renovation and interior design shows so I was right in my element and really enjoyed making sure we considered EVERYTHING. lol 

After many sketches, planning and thought we settled on the Nova because it had four bedrooms and a media room, an open plan kitchen/living/dining area that accessed the alfresco area. We chose it because the kitchen/living/dining area and alfresco faced North and because it gave us the opportunity to extend the alfresco. We also chose a Gen One Collection home (the lower price range McDonald Jones Homes) because we wanted to have a bit of money left over to extend the height of the ceilings to 9 ft, extend the height of all internal and external doors, add an extra stacker door to the living/dining area, change window configurations in the bedrooms and of course have some money to splash out on finishes like flooring, kitchen colour and lighting not to mention we wanted to be able to furnish the house when we finally moved in.

We also went with the classic facade to save some cashola :) So these are the final plans...

Position of the house on the block

(You'll notice we have a road at the front of us and a road at the back of us. What a 'hoo-haa' it has been to work out a house plan to suit that!)

Floor Plan

Major Changes to Original Nova

Master Suite

*Added set of stacker doors to north side to maximise North facing aspect and make the room feel more open.

* Added high long skinny sliding window to West wall. As a result of adding the stacker door, we had to remove the original three windows that were on the west facing wall because we would not have had a wall to put the bed on. The window is centred on that wall so it will be above the bed.

Ensuite

* Added Shampoo nook to shower.

* Added a set of draws to ensuite vanity.

Garage 

* Added a long skinny sliding window to the South facing wall.

Dining and Family/Living Areas

* Added TV pop out.

*Swapped original positioning of TV pop out and window.

* Changed original window to a stacker door to make the space to feel more open.

Alfresco

* Added alfresco dining area. Then extended standard alfresco area.

Media Room

* Changed position of media room window to face East (We didn't want to do this but council would not allow us to have an exterior front facing wall that did not have a window. So we had to move it.)
* Added internal cavity slider door to media room and extended the height of the door.

Kitchen

* Upgraded all kitchen appliances to Miele
* Added two sets of draws to the kitchen

Bedrooms

* Extended the length of built in cupboards in bedroom 2 and 4 because, let's face it, who ever said that they didn't want more storage?!?
* Changed windows of bedroom 2, 3 and 4 so that they had two small windows in each. We did this to enable us to centre a double bed in the middle of the two windows in each bedroom. And I thought it looked much nicer. McDonald Jones does this a lot in their display homes.

Bathroom

* Removed walls that made the separate toilet to make the bathroom feel bigger. We didn't care to have a separate toilet anyway.
* Added Shampoo nook to shower.

* Enlarged bathroom window.

* Changed position of bathroom window and bath so that the bath was above the window.

Laundry

* Changed position of laundry door to the East. (We needed to have a door that looked like a front door to allow council to pass the plans.)

* Changed sliding door to hinged door.

Other changes

* Added patio over laundry door. We needed to do this to be approved by council. We had to have a gable over the laundry door so that it looked like a front entrance door.

* Extended the height of Entry door and Laundry door.

* Extended ceiling height to 9 ft.

* Extended all window heights and stacker door heights to match the front Entry door and rear Laundry door.

Front View

Rear View

Left Side View

Right Side View

So I think I've covered most major changes. I don't think I've left anything out. I just wanted to include all the detail because I looked at A LOT of blogs when designing this house and I found these little details super helpful. Hopefully, I've helped design someone's home.

Much love, 

                 A x