The funny thing about room and wall dimensions on working drawings is that what is drawn never matches what is built!

When a designer puts dimensions on a plan for a timber framed house then it is for the carpenter who is setting out the framing. So in your plan the framing for each bedroom wall is 3.5 metres apart. Once the carpenter has finished the plasterer then lines the internal walls with plaster which usually has a thickness of 12.5mm, so your 3.5 metre wide spacing between the wall framing room has now been reduced by 26mm by the addition of the plasterboard. This means that for internal timber framed walls the thickness should be 90mm+26mm=116mm, although on the working drawings these are dimensioned as 90mm.

For external walls it depends on the construction, whether it has lightweight cladding, brick veneer, full brick, blockwork, sandstone block, straw bale, etc. Brick veneer is commonly used which is 250mm, so for your house you need to allow an extra half a metre for the length and width to accommodate just the thickness of the external walls.

You need to make some decisions about the type of external cladding, the thickness of the external walls, the internal walls and the available space then head back to the drawing board. When working out the floor area of the house it is traditional to include the thickness of the internal and external walls, even though these areas are not usable floor areas.

Best of luck,

Dr Retro

of Dr Retro House Calls

Looking great. Maybe square off the bathroom to give more space for tub. The height in your garage will influence its placement and grade of driveway. This will then influence the bottom of windows on north face of living area.
How will you get from sunken garage into house?

I'd tweak the layout personally .

Basically , on that plan , I'd do a solid wall at the 'rear' of the kitchen , with an opening at the bedroom end ( no door , no step-in ) and have the laundry and back door and rear foyer and a WC ( with a door haha ) in that area -- maybe a wall to hide the laundry from any guests using the WC .

And then I'd do a bathroom and a seperate WC between the 2 bedrooms , as you seem to want a 2 bed and media room . Yes , a bit more plumbing , and you aren't thinking resale yet , but that's what I'd do .

In fact , that's a lie . Here's what I would do , on a slightly larger budget . I'd move the laundry ( more on that in a second ) . I'd do a small rear foyer and back door and also a WC there . Then I'd start Bed 1 , with the door 'down the hall' so all that is seen from the kitchen/family area is a wall . THEN I'd do the bathroom , with a second WC too . Then Bed 2 and the media room .

So you've probably spotted there is no laundry . I've done that on purpose . Why ? Because I'd do a 1 1/2 size or bigger garage on the end -- the same ( or complimentary ) roofline and walls . With water and drainage and power . Put the laundry in there . You know why ?

Because in time , you can turn the media room into bed 3 . You can 'punch thru' and build an ensuite . Or you could turn the garage into a new master , basically bed 4 ( or bed 3 and still have a media room ) with en-suite . A lot more potential , a lot more versatile , for not too much more now .

Just an idea or two .

Oops , amybe I should have read the words properly , and not just the layout and the 'basically flat area' description haha . Having said that , some of the ideas would still apply -- for example , a garage and laundry on the right hand end , and the bathroom between bed 1 and bed 2 , and the possibility of adding an e-suite onto the media room if you ( or the next owner ) want a 4th bedroom . . . . . . . .

based on your plans, allowing 10cms for all internal and external walls and including a basic garage the floor area is about 197sqm (plus about 8sqm for a standard 20cm thick external wall) but the stairs in that location won't allow for the door from outside as shown in your plan and the upstairs and downstairs need to be planned together to allow the best location for stairs...is the ocean view along the whole east boundary or more to the north or south and is there already or could there be a future two storey house next door and have you considered a garage to the front with the master suite upstairs as the media room would not need a view to the north for night time TV viewing and do you plan for a north east courtyard garden as visitors would have a long walk from the street to the front door and what do you plan for the rear garden...my copy of your plan is centred on the length of the block and still allows for generous setbacks north and south

BAL 40 and lower is not too bad cost wise.

The roof requirements are the same up to 40.

A standard BAL 40 window uses toughened glass, different seals and is manufactured to tighter tolerances, etc but overall not that much more, some of the BASIX requirements will be covered by the BAL 40 standard windows and glazed doors as well.

Therefore, add the windows if it improves the layout, views, ventilation, etc..... there are BAL 40 approved louvre windows too by the way.

Also put a door on the hall down to the bedroom wing. For privacy and sound control

Thankyou so much everyone.

DrRetrohousecalls that is a great help. Knowing how much space the internal walls will take from the overall square metre measure will make a big difference.

@Kate the sunken garage will be seperate as it will be lower than the house at the front of the property. I am banking on a short 4 stair and then 4m walk from the garage to the porch in front of the house so hopefully that won't be too traumatic. I know its not ideal but I want to make the most of the front yard for my kids and dog so putting the garage at the front and the house further back helps maximise that. I will put a door on the bedroom wing! Great idea as we have young children thankyou.

@K s the w/c is 1m x 1.8m which I am hoping will give us enough room as I currently have a w/c that is .85 x 1.8m with a small built in sink. The built in part pushes out to 1m so Im hoping the full length at 1m will be enough, not luxurious but enough! Just... ;)

@User thanks for all that feedback! I will keep it all in mind and wiggle things around in the next draw up to see how it all works with those sorts of changes. We are trying to keep our plumbing together and the house down in size so we can optimise on the quality of doors and internal fixtures so I intentionally left a guest w/c off the plan and pushed the bathroom closer to the living so it can be used by guests. I prefer your idea of having it between and having a seperate toilet near the laundry. We have that in our current house and I do like it a lot. The master bedroom will be upstairs with a study and ensuite etc so our plan is that in the future, a new owner may convert the media into a 4th bedroom if they wish. Unfortunately the garage will be seperate so we won't be able to use that for the laundry.

@oklouise thankyou for helping me to work out the sqm. That is very helpful as I can get an idea of what we have left to play with for the upstairs part. I have an idea of what the upstairs would look like, could you explain where I have gone wrong regarding the stair placement? I know the stairs will need to be roughly 4m long so going from the bottom to the landing I have drawn in the plan then turning to the left and going up another two metres would have them pop out about 1.5m from the end of the house above the pantry... would that not work? The ocean view is along the whole east boundary but only at a second storey level. The hope was to orient the main bedroom on the second level to face the view. The neighbours have a single storey house but they are downslope from our house which would place their second storey roof below our second storey master bedroom window (hopefully). The media room will only have long narrow windows to the north for the exact reason you stated. :) The garage will be seperate from the house at the front next to the street so a master above it isn't an option unfortunately. I actually love the idea of using the above garage space for a master as it is almost like out own mini wing. The house will hopefully be set back to approx 3m from the back of the block so we have a very large front yard and only a very narrow courtyard out the back for our dog to use when we have lots of guests in the yard who are unsure of dogs. I was hoping the walk for guests would be via a set of stairs from the front of the garage, along a short path to a patio that will hug the walls along the whole north side of the property. They would then have to walk along the patio to get to the entry. I considered placing the entry in front of the media room but I really like the idea of having doors from the media room. Do you think that would work?

@MB Design & Drafting such a relief to know the windows and doors won't be a huge expense on top of the stardard. I was concerned that would make a big difference. I love the idea of louvers, especially along the south wall to let in the southerly winds we get on a hot day and along the east walk way in front of the bedrooms! Thankyou!!

I really appreciate all your assistance everyone!

Beaky, are you looking at burying the garage fully or only partially.
Have You looked at the cross-section to see how the garage sits with your north facing front yard behind it. Is the garage roof going to be part of yard?
What is the setback from the street to the front of house and to the garage. And what state are you in as this may affect the driveway gradient allowed.

(i've rotated the drawing, not the plan, as it's easier to work with north at the top and east on the right) and here's one variation for upstairs with a simpler staircase that doesn't encroach on upstairs rooms and i've included a covered walkway verandah along the east for a shady afternoon sitting area rather than shading northeren windows and total size including upstairs and verandah is about 215sqm but again suggest that the backyard should be about 6m deep to allow space for a good sized clothesline and a dog run, veg patch, garden shed etc without using the whole yard and there's still very generous gardens at the east and north and having garage on the east allows space for potential future extension or granny flat and maybe a covered walkway from garage to verandah would be a long term addition

West facing bedrooms are generally a bad idea, as they can get extremely hot in summer evenings. So I hope there is a lot of shade to the west.

Otherwise I'd consider flipping the plan, so that bedrooms face east. But who knows what will be allowable with your BAL ratings.

https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/orientation

thanks ddaroch..accidentally posted wrong variation

Thankyou @ddarroch. I did think about the west facing windows in the bedrooms as I, like you, generally try to avoid west facing windows. There is a high chance the west side of the block will be retained about 90cm with a fence on top and there is also a two storey house on the west side that overlooks the block. This was actually one of the main reasons for the L shape of the house design. Do you think this would be enough to save the bedrooms from the worst of the summer sun? We are also lucky that our block is on the east side of a mountain range up against the side of the mountain so we lose sun quiet early in summer.

@oklouise you have been SO incredibly helpful. Thankyou so much. That really puts it all into perspective and I like the changes you have made to the original design. I'm struggling to understand the stair placement in the upstairs though with the east facing view to the master?

just realised that in my attempt to reverse the plan i have the stairs leading up into the ensuite instead of ending in the study and i'm now wondering if the upstairs would be better over the dining living areas so that the view from upstairs looks over the front garden rather than over the roof of the living area..so will try some more ideas..glad you noticed but what is the maximum sq m you planned for upstairs?

@oklouise Oh Im glad im not going crazy! hahah I was convinced I was not looking at it right. We really want to have that view to the ocean from the bedroom but I didn't think about the whole roof thing...hmmm.

We are trying to keep the house under 250 all up as that will hit the top of our budget if we factor it in as $2800 per square metre

Rough ideas at 2 in the morning

attempting to improve upstairs views and keep the size around the max 240 sqm (plus verandahs?) this suggestion has the stairs as one long section and a shorter section (total 4m of steps plus the 1m x 1.8m landing) and the ens above the family bathroom and included the deeper verandah for eastern shade and covered entry and northern verandah shallow to avoid blocking winter sun to family room and the verandahs are included under the main roofs to keep the roof shapes simpler with option for an upstairs balcony and low raked ceilings in the family dining kitchen..total floor area of the house is 200sqm plus garage 39sm and verandahs 35sqm but there could be some extra savings by reducing the kitchen, pantry and family room but again suggest that you keep the backyard at least 6m deep ..i did try rotating the stairs and having the master suite above the family room as per Kate's suggestion but this increased the overall size more than you wanted and also restricted views from the kitchen to the garden

Having west facing windows isn't as bad as people can be lead to believe. Is it even a straight west, many sites are not perfectly aligned.

It depends on the site and therefore views and/or shading. Shading as mentioned from a 900 mm high retaining wall plus a 1800 mm high fence would be ok. Plant some hedges so the occupants have some to look at as well.

We have south west facing windows and the only time of the year that is an issue is a stinking hot 35 degree+ day with late afternoon sun belting in for 20 minutes before setting. The other summer days and the rest of the year are fine, awesome sunsets and great place for a BBQ 90% of the days! Our views are to the west/south west and off for many kms across treetops to horizon. We get little northern light due to the trees and dwelling on our north west.

The site and its micro climate tells you how to orientate and work shading - keep the theories but don't set them in concrete.

good to know M&B, we built an extension with south, east and west facing windows to take advantage of garden views and winter afternoon sun...with careful shading the problems can be modified and on cold winter afternoons it's good to have bright spot to sit inside

Okl drawing is great. Only thing missin is door to master bed. Stayed in an apartment with upstairs master and no door. Was always worried about kids sneaking in unobserved at the wrong time.
West faced bedroom windows at my place. Don’t need to be big and foliage along fence provides adequate shade most of the time and pull blind on hot days between 1 and 4

always another option

Thanks again everyone. @oklouise I am in love with the layout option you have created. We just found out our block has a FSR restriction of 0.3 which means we need a house under 209sqm (excluding garage and verandahs) so that design is perfect. Thankyou so so so much.

keep in mind that my plan has single external walls and all the inside and outside walls are 10cm thick to make drawing easier and the depth of the verandahs includes the eaves, adding a brick veneer would use more space and given the choice it would be lovely to plan for a covered walkway and raked ceilings in the living areas and this is a very basic gable roof but there are lots of more exciting/expensive roof options to consider

Depending on your taste, you could go for less expensive cladding and structural elements, and invest in quality fittings and finishes.

A 3 metre square tent with a 2 metre diameter chandalier with 400 bulbs haha ?

Hi everyone, I just thought I would say another big thankyou for all your help with the initial concept for this design. It really helped us to present what sort of home we want to our designer. It has been reworked to accomodate a few restrictions.

Looking great well done, Small think consider linking the wir and en-suite. I would drive me nuts having to walk around the bed between the two.

Thanks Kate, that was my husband. He really hates the idea of walking through the WIR to the get the en-suite And is worried about mould. The designer had it like you suggested in the beginning.

plans are looking great and, if you place the bed against the western wall, there will be easier access between wiw and ens

Thanks @oklouise. I did toy with the idea of having a nib wall opposite the entry and wardrobes behind it like this with the entry to the bathroom on the left...

it would need to be a much bigger room to have that arrangement and your plan allows the flexibility to try the bed on both walls and see what feels most comfortable..your designer has done an excellent job and it is great that you've saved the trees to create such nice outlooks in every direction, all the planning has been time well spent.. well done to you and look forward to some photos of your progress

Thanks so much!