"Architect-designed houses are not accessible to all." This is a myth championed by the building industry. Alternatively, why not focus on the key benefits architects bring to a project. Here are a few for you: • Appoint an architect to your project and you’ll gain a home designed for the way you want to live.The alternative is a builder-designed home that suits what the builder is used to building. Quality builders will ask for plans and specifications to be thoroughly documented so that they can go ahead and do what they do best, which is build. Working out with the owner what you’re going to build and why is the architect’s role. • An architect manages planning approvals. This process is complex, often arbitrarily applied by many Councils, fraught with pitfalls for the novice and is ramped up every year with new hoops to jump. If you want a professional on your side who knows the territory, will go in to bat for you and will forge a way through this minefield, you need an architect. • If you’d prefer to put the works to tender to a number of builders rather than having to accept the quote of the builder you started the process with, you need an architect. • If you’d prefer to protect yourself with a proper, architect-managed ABIC contract that works equally for both parties and is legally enforceable, you need an architect. • An architect will minimise costly changes during construction as he or she will produce a proper level of drawings (expect 20 x A3 pages for a new home, rather than the 1-2 pages you’ll receive from a drafting service.). The reasons for this are that you have on paper exactly what you want to build. Without this, you are entering a contract with a builder with none of the details resolved. You wouldn’t do that if you were buying a house, so why do it when spending an equally significant amount of money? Unfortunately, some builders see this approach as an opportunity to happily accept constant changes from ‘project managing’ owners because it’s just another variation that he can charge for. The longer he is there, the better for his margins, particularly when there’s no contract to speak of. Finally, an architect is a specialist with a professional duty of care, irrespective of financial gain. In other words, they’re there to support and protect you, without benefit to themselves. No one else in the building industry can provide this.

Hi Susan, My husband and I have just completed a tiny house build, and I can definitely recommend it. The price works out much cheaper than a shipping container house according to my research ($60,000 as compared to close to $100,000 fully finished) and you can easily enough rent a parcel of land to live on rather than buying to build on, at least initially. Obviously you need to carefully research council restrictions for wherever you decide to live, but this could be a much easier and cheaper option for you. Depending on the size, setup and local zoning, tiny houses generally don't need DA approval. Instead you register it as a caravan and if you rent a parcel on someone else's land where there already is a permanent dwelling, you're generally fine to live there (though I'm certainly not an expert on the legalities). Then if, in the future, you're able to buy your own block, you can hitch it up to a ute or 4WD and move it with you. Something to consider anyway, and starting from scratch with a tiny house on wheels can actually work out a lot easier than retrofitting a shipping container with internal framing and walls, insulation, windows, doors, etc. But as everyone else has suggested, make sure you do your research properly and do what will work best for you in the long run.

Great to hear that you have had a good experience in an unpopular neighborhood. Our first home was an ex-army house in the extremely unpopular South Auckland of New Zealand. All we could afford then... and we lived there happily for seven of eight years. We loved our home and our initial neighbors, many of whom we are still friends with. But as folk moved on and a rougher element moved in, break-ins began happening, clothes stolen off the clothesline, plants, pots, ornaments, swing sets and even a trampoline! It was no longer safe to leave a door unlocked let alone open. The crunch came when youths began to harass our children walking to and from school simply because they believed it was their right to take what they wanted (uniform and shoes, food) and trying to force them to buy drugs, We moved on. I guess it comes down to; is it just an unpopular demographic area? or is it a rough area, gang related residents, drugs on the street etc? The question does not stipulate why an area may be deemed unpopular. I said above to choose the better area and this is what we did second time around, we live in a preferred area of a demographically unpopular rural town in Otago, NZ and love it here. We have renovated and will be mortgage free in our retirement. However we would never again live in an area unpopular because of the crime rate.

Beautiful work. Love the detail like the marble on the book shelves. I came across this in a search for how to put colour in a kitchen and this is a stunner. All the colours and textures are coordinated well - easy on the eye unlike some colourful kitchens. Love the wallpaper choice in laun and bathroom too. This kitchen seems to have come under fire for not being a cook's kitchen but it would work for me and I’ve been a pro cook in my life. That wide island is fabulous.