Welcome to Home Building Like a Boss, the podcast dedicated to helping first home buyers in Perth build their dream home with ease and excitement. I'm Jamie, your host and go to building broker. Are you ready to feel empowered, in control and excited about your building journey? I'll help guide you with expert advice, insider tips and tricks and real life stories to help you navigate the confusing world of home building.
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Hello. We're back for another episode. I'm your host, Jamie, as always. Thank you so much for being here this week. I'm going to chat to you about five crucial things to think about when designing. your floor plan and looking at plans and getting ideas and custom designing your floor plan. These things are all structural things.
So they're things that you need to think about at the start, at the beginning, before you sign your prelim agreement. Most builders, once you've signed your prelim agreement, you cannot make any structural changes. So it's important to think about these things. At the start, because you can't change them later, the taps, the colors, the position of where the cabinetry sitting, the fridge recess, all of that is non structural and can be customized at pre start.
So what I normally tell my clients, one tip is, is to try and break it up into two stages. So it's not so overwhelming. First part is you want to focus on your structure. Your doors, your walls, windows, the roof, your structure, the structure and the bones of the home. At pre start, you can focus and change and adjust and do what you need to do on all the little non structural things.
Instead of thinking about everything. All at once and getting overwhelmed, forgetting something, missing things. Focus on your structure at the start. It's the most important thing. And then worry about all the finer details. the customization and the little bits and bobs at pre start. So the first thing on my list today, none of these are in any, in particular order is the front door, your front door size, essentially, how big do you want your front door?
And this is obviously going to depend on a few things. One, your block size to your house size. If you have a small skinny block and a small skinny design, making your door wider. is probably not going to work because there's no room to go wider, especially if you're boundary to boundary. And this is where it comes in with the front door.
There's pros and there's cons to it. Bigger front door. Great. But the con is if you have a wider front door, The space has to come out of your house somewhere. The hallway's gotta go bigger, so either your garage has to go smaller, or if you have your master at the front, let's say the right hand side, your master becomes smaller to fit the door to widen the hallway in the house.
Unless you are adding more size Into the home, which is then going to cost you even more money than just upgrading the door So there's a few things to think about your sizes for the front door are 820 Which is your builders standard range, then you've got 920 1020 and 1200 is your biggest single door.
And the bigger the door, it's great. You can move furniture and you have a wider door, a bigger entrance, and it gives that more open feel. The thing that you trade off is obviously bigger hallway. So you need to have a wider block or a big house plan to go wide. And not a lot of people have the ability to do big houses, big blocks.
big doors, big hallways. So you have to think about, okay, how does it work for my block, my budget and my house size? It usually ranges from a cost of, if you're looking at a nine 20 door, let's say. 700 to 1, 200, 300. If you're looking at the bigger doors, so that obviously does cost. And then depending on if you adding size into the home, because you don't want to take out space to make your room smaller, that also costs money.
So that upgrade essentially is costing a lot more, but it is so important having a wider door and a bigger door is a nice feeling upon entry. more light coming in depending on what type of door you have. If you've got some glass in there, easier to get furniture in, but you need to make sure it works for your design, your budget, and your block.
Second thing is side access. And same as kind of the front door. This will depend on your block size, your house size and your budget. How wide is your block and how Why it is your house design. If you're a boundary to boundary. So that means you've got your garage wall on the boundary, and then if your master's at the front, your master wall is also on the boundary.
So your house is all the way pushed to the side. Therefore, you don't have a side gate and you can't get through to the backyard. I highly, highly, highly recommend adding an 820 door in the garage at the back so you have side access from inside your garage. to the side of your house, especially if you are boundary to boundary.
If you have one side on the boundary, so your garage is on the boundary, but your bedroom on the side has 1500 mil, you can add in a side fence and you have side access down there. So that's great. So you can be like, okay, cool. I'm going to save the 800 to put in an eight 20 door in the garage. I don't need it.
I've got side access. Or you might want both. You might have side access on the left side and your garage with a door on the right hand side and then you have the ability to do both. But, that is structural and it is something that you need to think about so you can get down the side of the house. Think about how am I going to get the lawn mower through the house when out the back, you know.
Those things, you're going to have to drag it through the house just to mow the grass at the back. Not ideal. Especially if you're boundary to boundary. At a door. In your garage to get through the back on your side access. It is going to make your life so much easier. Number three is storage. Storage is so important and I feel like you can never have enough storage.
So where in your floor plan and your design, are you having a storage? You could extend the garage and have a little storage room in the garage. or on the side. Do you want your storage or linen cupboard with the laundry? Do you want it with the minor bedrooms to put your fitted sheets and bed stuff all in there with the other bedrooms?
Do you want it in the hallway? Do you want a walk in linen? And those things need to be thought about at the start because you need to know where is that going in your house plan. Do I need to find space next to the laundry to put in a walk in linen? Or I don't have enough room there? Okay, it's gonna have to go.
in the hallway because there's dead space here so I might as well fill it up with storage. Putting storage in dead spaces on a house plan is great because you're maximizing that space. You don't want to leave it as dead space, use it as storage. Number four is your garage ceiling height. Now this same thing, it's structural, you cannot change it later.
What kind of car do you have? Is the car lifted? Has it got high tires on it? You know, what is the height of the garage? Do you have a four wheel drive? Do you have a big truck? The standard builder's range is 25 brick course for your garage height. Now it's not super high and then you can increase 28, 30 and 31.
Now in your garage you also have The helmet on the front, which that limits your garage opening as well. I actually have a cheat sheet on this on my Instagram and it gives you all the measurements exactly and the openings to the ceiling heights. I think Maddie and I might also create a free downloadable as well.
Stay tuned. If you're listening, we'll do that over the next week or so with a guide, um, measurements, some car examples and things like that to help you understand and plan for your garage. You do not want to pick up your keys and go to drive your car in the garage and it doesn't fit and your car is going to have to stay out on the driveway.
with your nice new house. So super important, make sure you measure your car and increase the garage if you need to. Costs can roughly range from between three to five grand depending on how much you upgrade and where you upgrade. Sometimes maybe two for your 28 course. And by courses I mean that's your brick course going around.
So how many bricks? is going up, essentially. Five is the natural light and solar orientation of your house plan. Good orientation can reduce or even eliminate your heating and cooling, which leaves you with lower energy bills, basically. In Perth, the best orientation is north facing. Now, what does this mean?
North facing is essentially where your living areas are facing north. Now, you can have a north facing block, but with your living areas at the back of the block in the south, your living areas are facing south. So, the idea of north facing is you want your living areas facing north. And this will maximize your heating and cooling efficiency with your living facing north to maximize the sun in summer and winter.
And you want your bedrooms in the south away from the sun, which is going to leave you with cooler rooms. So you want your bedrooms in the south, which leaves you with cooler rooms and your living facing north. And that helps with your heating and your cooling in summer and winter. How does that work?
The brief rundown during winter. North facing, the sun is lower, so it heats into the house more directly through the windows, which therefore helps heating your house during winter, whereas in summer, the sun sits higher, so it sits on the roof rather than going through to your windows. And then the idea of north facing is your sun comes up on the east, all the way up over and then on to the west, so you have your maximum all day sun in winter and summer, going from sunrise to sunset.
Over the top and then depending on how your house is orientated and your block which is important to think about when you purchase your block too, not just when you're designing, how that all works and what sections of your house are where. If your living areas are facing north they're getting the most and maximized sunlight and it also is efficient for heating and cooling and your energy bills.
That wraps us up for today for our five important things to think about when designing your home. You've got your front door size, your side access. Storage in your home, your ceiling height in your garage and your solar orientation of your floor plan. If you have any questions, please feel free to shoot me a message on Instagram and I'll talk to you next week.
Thank you so much for tuning in to the home building like a boss podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something new. Remember you've got this and I've got your back until next time. Stay inspired, stay informed and stay confident. on your building journey. I can't wait to chat with you on the next episode.
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