When we started this journey, my wife and I wanted four bedrooms, two bathrooms and a large open plan living area. Modest enough for a family of five I suppose, but still a substantial upgrade on our tiny ~90 year old three bedroom, one bathroom dwelling where the dining area was only large enough to comfortably accommodate four seats (I would often eat standing up while feeding the baby in his high chair).
Taking your time to make such a large decision can be a virtue. In our case, this has proven to have had its advantages – I think we are the wiser for it. But it’s also given us a lot of time to visit a lot of show homes and repeat over and over again “that would be so nice to have!”
And so here we are, some 12+ months after we started thinking about knocking down our home and after visiting dozens of show homes, we’ve decided to build one of the largest project homes on display!
The Eden Brae Waldorf 50 is their largest home and it has the four bedrooms we initially wanted but also includes:
– A study, which will definitely be used as both Annie and I often work from home;
– An open living plan area on steroids. (How much will this thing cost to heat in winter?!);
– More bathrooms than there are bedrooms *yikes!* We didn’t want en-suites for the minor bedrooms but it’s easier (and cheaper) to live with the standard floor plan than to alter it;
– An upstairs alfresco area for the boys to use as they get older;
– A garage deep enough to accommodate our 5.2m minivan. Most project homes have garages only 5.5m deep. We asked to extend the depth of the the garage with another builder and were quoted about $1k per square metre, and they needed to lengthen the entire width of the house (upstairs as well as downstairs) by a metre. You can do the math;
– And crucially for Annie, a void above the living area to add some beauty to what may otherwise be a utilitarian home.
This is the standard floor plan on Eden Brae’s website. We added a shower to the powder room downstairs, and added a walk-in linen upstairs by sacrificing bedroom 3’s walk in robe.
Having everything that I could have wished for in a floor plan is a privilege but it also means that we need to be mindful of our materials selections. Just a small increase in cost of (say) the tiles we choose will have a significant impact on the final build cost given how much floor space we need to cover.
My oh my how the problems of the first world are weighing on me.
Eden Brae Waldorf 50 