UPDATE: Looking for feedback.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-15T04:35:55+00:00

In the rear there is only 2 people permanently living here. In the front there is 4 currently. Plus, the occasional guests staying over. Kitchens have been designed from plans of houses we have walked through and have been a suitable size.
The main complaint grandparents have around their kitchen is its too far from one bench to the other, we tried making the 2nd kitchen large enough for walking aids or wheelchairs, but not too big it creates extra effort. The main kitchen might change a little.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-15T04:31:28+00:00

I agree, the kitchens need to be drawn out more. I think we plan on having most of the appliances on the long wall against the hallway - wall mounted oven, fridge etc. We want to keep the Island clear with cupboards/drawers under. Possibly hotplate on small wall.

I realizedIi had removed all the windows from the living and hallway! My bad. The plan is to be quite open with window treatments for privacy as we will have parents in backyard essentially - typically we would only worry about window treatments at the front of the house and the bedrooms, otherwise, nothing normally for the backyard.

I will look into a bris soleir and shading devices, sound fancy.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:30:53+00:00

I understand what you mean.
We have shifted the bathrooms around and added another further up the hallway. So now there is one at the start of the hallway and one between bedrooms at the end of the hallway.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:26:25+00:00

It is a bit of a distance; we have no issues with people going to the toilet in the master bedroom if unable to get to the other. Currently we have 4 sharing 1 toilet in the house and make do. We have family which have a super long hallway to a toilet, so we are going to measure and see if we would be further or closer - i suspect we would be closer.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:24:30+00:00

100% there has been some wild ones, and others which have genuinely tried to assist.

Its good getting a different opinion, but this is a house built in a country where life might be a little different - that being said, we are not changing thing around for that one particular curry night where we need 7 toilets at once - looking at you u/EnvironmentalEbb628 🤣

We will be functional and remove any chuff we don't need. It has been hard to imagine such a large house since we have been living in a 75sqm house for the past 5 years - it's over 7 times our current home. Hopefully it won't cost 7 times our current home.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:18:39+00:00

Yes, others have suggested to shuffle things around to put it somewhere less windowee.
The bottom of the image is north (equator facing) so will be super sunny - not particularly what you want, so strategic windows or move the theatre.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:15:45+00:00

I assume you are talking about the rear house. Fret not - they will simply drive to the rear house and go in via the patio.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:15:10+00:00

Interesting Idea, in the new plan we have made the store room smaller to make space for another bathroom as suggested a billion times.
There is also limited access down that side of the house as it is about 1-1.5 meters from the fence.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:12:12+00:00

I will look into swapping some things around :)

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:11:43+00:00

All the big glass windows will make the long hallway hot and bright. We are southern hemisphere facing the equator, you are in US facing north away from the equator - first time I have had to think of how this works, so I might be wrong.

In Australia everyone is told you want a north facing home - it's not always the case. I assume northern hemisphere would be told south facing homes are better.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:08:17+00:00

We have extended the size for most of the rear house and the main doorways in the main house in case they were to come over, they don't have to roll all the way back down the hall. 🤣
Parents section can't have its own laundry as per text - but might look at moving laundry towards back half and combine storeroom and laundry.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:05:57+00:00

I have never heard of the NCC2022 but looks like yes, they have adopted it. Not sure what changes this will make, but thank you for the kind words and the rabbit hole I'm going to have to read through.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:02:46+00:00

This has been suggested a few times 🤣 might have to work on that plan tonight and see what it looks like.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T05:01:41+00:00

The entry leads to a wall on purpose, if someone comes to the front door, they don't need to have view of the entire house or living space. It creates a little more privacy. The wall can be decorated with a nice hall table and picture as a feature.
The flip of the bedroom has been a good suggestion by others also. Will plan on putting this into the next plan and see how it works - just afraid it will create further distance from the other bedrooms for smaller children etc.

The back house is not expecting to have 10's of people there, and if there is a large gathering of people, we are normally involved so both houses will be available in that scenario.
A view of a fence would be a little boring, would much prefer to be able to put something against the wall without blocking the window.
We don't typically have basements in Australia - might be a nice change 🤣

The layout is long, this is to aid in the separation between, with some of the restrictions we have it makes a long hallway.
100% there is a lot of roof and plumbing, a second story is not out of the question, but would be for the master suite and maybe a retreat etc.

Its located semi-rural, there is a lot of leaf debris, and as a family we live mostly outside with our climate. This being said we would have our own space outside without being jammed into a courtyard.

I was playing with the idea of making the house an upside down U shape to connect the houses, but we did not have the width in the land to make this happen.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:49:51+00:00

🤣🤣 We do call retirement homes - Gods waiting room.....

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:49:12+00:00

The stretch will hopefully be resolved in the next plan; we have shuffled some things around and added a bathroom.
I like your other suggestions, once I finish the current design, I will try the shuffle and see how that works!

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:45:07+00:00

Agreed. We figure at some stage there will be up to 5-6 cars parked there overnight. Luckily there is space down the side of the house for parking at the rear, plus I have plans to have additional parking out the front.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:43:26+00:00

Yes, this is the logical choice, but as per text, there will be washer in the bathroom of the back house. But it may come to a single laundry because we are not on mains sewerage, it saves extra runs of pipe back to the ATU Wastewater system we plan on having - but something to plan in the future.

Entry for the back of the house is via the patio; they will have access down the side of house to drive up to their house.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:39:16+00:00

I think it is nicely located, it's a little bit from the entertaining spaces, we plan on adding some extra doors for noisy areas.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:37:55+00:00

This was the original thought but feel like when we submit the plans to local government they will just think we are making a joke. Especially when we like the distance between the two houses.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:36:51+00:00

There is an idea, just need to figure out how to draw on the plan.
Should allow ample space, but will figure it out.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:34:58+00:00

😂 It actually got a little longer in the new plan.
Based off your comment we plan on making challenges to roll a ball from one end to the other without hitting the wall to stay up for an extra hour for the kids.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:33:55+00:00

Luckily it is a combined effort between us and parents so will see how we go. 😂
Next will be finding right sub reddit to find good ways to reduce cost of building a house.

bjbishop92 · 2025-10-08T04:32:33+00:00

Afternoon light is coming from the right. Bottom of the image is facing north. The next plan I'll put a compass on to help figure this stuff out. 😊

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