And when your child comes in from playing and sits on the $6000 chair and he's got an almost-melted chocolate bar in his cargo shorts (he's already been twitching all over the chair) and smeared hands slippery from trying to dig it out but already the chocolate's come through the shorts onto the chair, well, you do get the picture...@carolins. That's a neat website. Wish there was one for the US. Speaking of the your homeland, the Netherlands, my best friend relocated from there with his new bride twenty years ago. Every one in a while he misses the terrible weather. You know, cold, rainy, cloudy, foggy, and if and when we happen to get a day something like that (we're in N.E. Florida) he misses home! BTW he's one of the best physical therapists I've ever met and I used to go through them like toilet paper!. He got rid of a terribly bad spasm that I had in one form or another for three decades, and he did it in three sessions. It changed my life.

I'm amazed that this discussion has carried forward for nearly two years! In that time I have moved to another coastal area (cooler climate and better proximity to children) and this time found most of the discussion still rings true. Finding another home here was an incredibly frustrating journey made all the worse by a mad investor rush in the area just when we arrived to start our home search. That search took the best part of six months and in the end there would only be three or four houses to choose from in any week. Result? A rushed purchase, a desperately inadequate building inspection and failure on my part to notice poor bathroom tiling, shortage of closet and storage pace, just how small the lounge room really was, and etc. I disappointed myself because I had let the pressures beat me and now we are trying to resolve all of these issues in a home designed and built by one of this states most respected project home builders 25 years ago. Having now studied the floor plan with more care I realise it was put together (designed) in modular fashion - most bedrooms have similar dimensions and the living areas are all approximately the same size as if the designer simply juggled three boxes of one size and four of another size and then worked out traffic flow. Then he must have thrown them all in the air to see how they would land and that was design number two! And etc and so on. This house aside, we looked at a great many during the six months because we had to broaden our search above and below budget trying to find something. There were massive termite problems, leaky roofs, asbestos galore, gazzumping at every turn, almost all but the most expensive properties suffered at least one substantial fail for the most basic of needs and to top it off the best home in our price range just happened to be built on flood prone land - approved by council who put the flood signs up less than five years earlier. We live and learn. Then there were the real estate agents, but that would take another two years and I doubt the internet has enough free page space available!!! OK, I hear you, they're not ALL bad...

lyndalcrombie, you are most welcome, I was a bit worried when you felt you needed to be defensive about your likes and dislikes. As I said I got allot out of your post, as I too am building and have themes and colours racing through my head and if I had any doubts about picking a colour, this forum has helped me enormously especially the informative comments on other Houzz forums from both Midesign0401 and Ladyrob1. Together they have helped me choose colours that will work for "ME" as that's the only person that has to be happy ultimately, "ME", not wanting to leave hubby out of the mix but he couldn't care less about colours and themes, I mean, most men don't care, as long as they have their chair and the remote ha-ha.....thank goodness we still have to buy all our lounge furniture, or hubby would want to take the ugly old thing he's sitting on at present, thank goodness it's not particularly comfortable, or I'd have buckleys of keeping it out of the house ha-ha Enjoy your house!!

Going DA has its disadvantages. - Timing is way against you, unless you have time to kill, its quite a waiting process. - Want to speed it up, I recommend getting a town planner on board, yes they do make a difference, but it will never be as fast as CDC. - DA means opening your plan to neighbours objections. Have anyone ever have the nightmare of a neighbour calling you at 9pm to object to your plan? Just because he overheard someone says that we are going to cut some trees? I got objections to a submission about a family of bird that is going to be homeless when we trim some branches off. Or an acreage neighbour object to your 600sqm lot second storey addition because of privacy issue. They have backyard of 3000sqm with over 20m distance and have privacy issue? Give me a break, the backyard is enough to fit the whole street . Any objections from neighbour means a timestop from council, until they can investigate. - Some applications takes weeks until its 'allocated' to an officer. Meaning, its just sitting there gathering dust. Then its another 2 weeks of notifications. - Council front officers are the 'yes man' they say yes all the time, and all might be possible, with 'just submit it and we'll see' attitude. Once submitted, its 'not possible, and request for change or have it withdrawn'. Got clients slammed me because I refuse to do floorplan 20% over the allowed, they went to see front desk in council and told 'Just submit it and we'll see what we can do'. At the end its still rejected anyway, with cost of $$$ of DA application fee. And the advantages: - Council is the only one who can approve if there is no other way (heritage issue, flood / bushfire) - Council is negotiable to a degree, you just have to prove the merit, and talk in their language. - Council can fight for you against your neighbours objections. Took time, but yes they can be on your side. - Building a duplex with site a bit under the allowed? Three floors when its only allowed 2? Yes it can be done. Just play the game right. - Going with DA code sometimes means a bigger floor space allowed, higher roof, higher ceiling than the code for CDC, sometimes the fight and wait is well worthed. And finally there is the L&E Court. If things goes South, and everyone thinks they are correct, there is the L&E court to settle it. My point is : DA : go fully prepared, you are there to fight for it. CDC : get a good team, and the certifier is just there to certify. It will get done quicker. I am not anti councillors, I actually pity them, they are overworked, understaffed, and get abused in daily. If I can advice my clients to avoid DA and still come up with great result, I would go that path.