Alka, start a dilemma in the advice section. Copy and paste everything you said here and put as many pictures as you can of the area. Use the URGENT, et al, as the title. You should get a lot of help from Houzzers that way. More than just posting a comment here. Hope that helps you get what you need!

Crossed posts. :)

What about the number of loos in little rooms with no where to wash your hands BEFORE you touch the door handle!

hear hear!

Hahaha, what a totally alien concept @ Clever Closet, a family actually bonding, sharing and shock horror! talking to each other around a table over a meal? OMG what will the new age therapists think of that--each child (even the 23 year old!) must be traumatised having to share any space. Oh yeah family and social connection, done via a screen surely?? When we built our home 4 years ago there was much shock expressed because there is no provision for TVs in the bedrooms or kitchen, apparently TV in the laundry is a thing too, who knew!!!!

It's a brave new world.

We're living in a rented project home whilst our house is being rebuilt.... whilst the home is nothing special, the main thing that gets me is the quality of the paint they have used. Cant touch it without leaving a mark, dare you brush something along the wall it marks! drives me nuts!!!!

Why cant they use proper washable paint? we have demanded that in our new place!! and I will be there checking!!!!

And don't even think of letting your kids draw on it with Chinese made crayons. Just can't get those asbestos stains out.

chook chook 2 thankfully my kids are 20 and 23, we have moved beyond crayons,,, but your point is well accepted! never got that crayon out of the back of the couch years ago.... :)

Darn kids!!!

Some aussie homes are as timeless as 80's haircuts.

Jeannie maybe I should have said they serve the lower end of the market better then they do as the budget grows. Some of the smaller tighter plans are responsible because they have to be. Certainly there are still some strange decisions made. Most often in the house build for the clients, not the display home, some of this would be down to client request without getting and design push back and advise that maybe this is not such a great idea.

@ ChookChook2 - lol I know that feeling! especially after a few Martinis!

@ Hack Architecture - we looked at some project homes in our early phases and found one we loved. to have it at the same level as the display home it nearly doubled in price!!! sometimes the project homes are built down to a price rather than to a quality standard!

Emerald, if you're seeing prices doubled, have one less martini.

Now you're even seeing double the chooks.

Vodka Martini, Shaken not Stirred. 1.19 mins

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OUUq5mRCimo

In real estate terms that would be "location, location, location".

Yes, wonder if they have overcapitalised for that position.

I'm really wondering these days if that is possible.

"Please explain?"

Temporary thread

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Curb appeal dilemma

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your comments sooo fun to read !!

"Leave the Project Homes to the low end of the market they serve well." Sorry, Hack, but THERE, RIGHT THERE is the biggest problem with Australian (and New Zealand, come to that) homes - the lack of a way for the average punter buying a home to have any input into the design process. People take what they can get. I wouldn't buy a builder's project home. Hell, I wouldn't even take one free, unless it was (by some accident) on a decent block of land. But they almost never are.

Project homes don't serve the lower end of the market any better than they serve the higher end, and for just the same reasons. People buy them because they need somewhere to live, and good houses are unobtainable. Worse, people don't even know they could have it better. Insulation, double glazing and a design that maximizes the benefits and minimizes the deficits of the house's situation and climate are NOT luxuries but a minimum standard.

All above plus

1) greedy, unscrupulous councils and builder mates allowing "developments" on flood plains. There is a reason they are called that.

2) Here in Melbourne, towering termite nests for human termites. Tiny boxes shoddily built with uncontrolled/checked materials and then sold for ridiculous prices to unsophisticated/desperate buyers.

In Sydney the termite nests would be called "affordable housing" so people don't have to spend hours travelling to and from their place work when they can't afford to buy into the area. This is almost like creating a caste system in this wonderful land of equal opportunity and non discrimination.

Wicked. Greedy and wicked.

Annie Cass Landscapes, I do not think these homes a good by any means, but floor area expected over double glassed windows and general build quality they are they go to. I think there are many things that can be changed about these project homes that would not cost a thing to improve, like just getting the orientation right. Like I said originally though these serve the lower end of the market well, because they are built for a price that is not easily achievable by others. Short of building a rammed earth or mud brick home, for yourself, but this required time and lots of it, you are hard placed to get a home build for the price of these project homes, (the low end is which I am talking here under $350k here in Australia). Quality just costs more, it is this that is this that is given up for extra floor area in these homes.

I do not disagree that there needs a greater input into the process, but all this is time and more then like extra dollars that this punter does not have to spend on a home.

Yeah . . . nah. There's a lot of mark-up on project homes, and a lot of ways to improve quality without spending a lot more. Let's start by looking at ways to make low-rise apartment blocks acceptable. If you can do that, you get a lot more homes on a given footprint, and make massive savings in infrastructure for each of them too. Alleviate worries about "no back gardens" by giving each apartment a generous patio or two and the block as a whole a nice garden that lets children play, and sets aside areas for grown-up socialising and dedicated allotment-style growing areas. None of this need take more space than a back yard for each house would, and offers a lot of advantages. It goes without saying that each apartment needs to be correctly oriented, insulated, double glazed and roomy. If they're a mix of sizes and close to shops and other facilities you avoid the "nappy valley" effect - hell, you could even have grandma, tottery on her pins and not allowed to drive any more, living close to family and thus able to avoid the nursing home for another decade.

Most building developments of individual free-standing houses, each in their own (cramped!) "garden", manage a density of about twelve households to an acre, right? That leaves people feeling cheated for a start because their parents grew up on a quarter acre, three times as much room. Let's imagine for a moment you have a forty-acre site for development somewhere in the boondocks. Instead of about four hundred homes (or less, but I am allowing for road room here) with the model I'm proposing you could get an easy twenty homes per acre, with fewer roads and massive green spaces. Eight hundred households is enough to provide a market for shops and other businesses, possibly even a school. It's certainly a proposition for public transport. Now you have the nexus of an independent community instead of a lonely wasteland from which the only escape is the car.

Just a thought.

Annie Cass Landscapes, Yep sure. Shift the model and there are big advantages. There are also some cultural hurdles to be jumped in this shift. I think there is room for a mix of typology which is exactly what we are seeing in larger urban area with some rezoning through the old low destiny housing, just don't get why we can build this from the get go. A dense town/ urban centre with commercial, green open spaces and public spaces, along side low and medium density housing.

Fiona W I get that there is a point at which the land around a large single dwelling is useless and would be better served with a larger block of land or removing the additional land entirely to stack the housing together and create larger common open spaces. Thinking a modern and context appropriate version of Kings Circus in Bath, UK. These are large Georgian terraces houses around a common green in the centre. Did someone mentioned they didn't like the cookie cutter approach, well this example the beauty comes from the rhythm and repetition. Yep, flies in the face of much of what the current Australian suburban housing is.

The bathroom toilet is near to wash basin, the bathroom is small.

I loathe Vanity cupboards, A large pedestal basin is better & great for baby baths and no under cupboards to get damp and smelly.

You know, Alipetecampbell, I think a lot of good could be done by simply not allowing houses to be built unless they're designed by a qualified architect and signed off by a qualified engineer, and built to minimum standards that ensure proper passive climate control (insulation, glazing, orientation etc.) and social linkage issues - let's ban the food desert and the nappy valley. Developers have a vested interest in building cheap, and those rubbish houses sell because (a) there's not much else on the market and (b) superficially they look okay. You'd argue that what I'm proposing would raise housing costs, but let's stop making billionaires of developers, let's stop councils from charging silly money for planning fees (eminently doable if housing is professionally designed) and, as I have said above, use less land for more housing AND more greenspace too, and the cuts in cost these measures would create could go towards making all houses better.

alipetecampbell ...Is that why Tradies here are having trouble getting paid after doing a Job.?

I would love to have the same Electricity power as America,, then I myself could install electrical Smoke Alarms, apparently Australia will have to have them installed in nearly every room,, but who can afford that , with the prices that electricians charge.? And I can't find non-electric Smoke alarms at Bunnings any more.

Bring back the house on 3ft high stumps, where one can put Lawnmowers + extra storage area under the house and help keep the house cool at the same time,,,,, put in good insulation all around, you can add to the house easily and have the house lifted to 2 story. Less white ant problem. and no drainage or moisture problems, can also have an inviting few grand displayed steps leading to a beautiful noticeable front door entrance..

Easy access to Bathroom & Kitchen Pipes for future changes .

horrible cheap homogenised flat sprawling suburban development with no soul or personality, jam packed with poorly designed cookie cutter boxes that are in reality oppressive bland living spaces (no wonder we have a mental health crisis here), taking over and destroying the beautiful natural environments and open spaces that makes Australia special, but clearly not being sufficiently protected by the planning regulation....and this is apparently the "great Aussie dream"......Nup, an absolute disgrace for our so called "lucky" and "free" country and the epitomy of false economy, that our environment and future generations will be paying the huge price for on numerous levels...

Houses that have huge garage doors as the first thing you see when looking at them. Horrible. No character at all.