Coro House: April 2009

Looking up the side of the house where the pergola and dwarf connifers were

Side of the house where the driveway will be going

Looking up towards the top of the corner of the block

Grinding out tree stumps

The back yard with retaning wall gone, pavers removed and most of the bushes removed
We have only cut down one tree as the house was designed around all trees so when built it looks as if it has been there for a long time. Also the shade from the morning sun from the big trees at the back and the blockout from the neighbours from hell (you all know the flanders from the simpsons).

This has been done over a while but most since xmas 2008. Getting the side driveway was the most important as the builders need to have access to the house and my mum still needs somewhere to park. We didn't want them tramping mud and dirt up to her door.

A long time ago now my mother was thinking about selling her house due to the size of the garden and not being able to maintain all of it to a standard she was happy with. There were pockets of it that were done but as a whole it was a mess and she was unhappy. My brother had just finished his architecture degree and was looking to put some of his skills into a house that wasn’t just a 4 walls and a roof project house.

My partner and I had just sold our 1st home looking for something else. My mum commented one day that she loves her house and what if we looked into subdividing the land. The total land size was close to 2000 square meters with the top half being elevated enough to get nice views of the distant hills. It was a pity that the first owners of the house plonked it right in the middle of the block and didn’t take advantage of the views and sunlight.

We talked to my brother about lightweight houses and how I would like to do something low impact and environmental with materials like rammed earth, iron and wood. This would be great for my brothers folio and after many designs we came to a agreement on how it should orientate, look, feel and breathe. It was also to be affordable and on a budget .

As I am also into cars and boats there was some design things that we also set into our brief to To my brother. It was to have a large common lounge, dining and kitchen. There was to be a outdoor area for entertaining and relaxing and to take advantage of the views for all rooms. Not only that, I wanted to have car parking for 5 cars / boats. This meant that the house was split into 3 levels. One for carparking, one for living / entertaining and one private wing. We decided to split the house into 2 with a walkway to reduce noise from the bedrooms to the main living areas.

Also with the gully winds coming though we have made the whole interior indoor / outdoor section of the house open up to ‘suck’ the hot air out of the house and nauturally cool the house in summer. The clear roof in the area works in reverse in the winter and acts like a hot house and if we open the windows in the interior ( i know this sounds odd) it will vent the hot air into the house. We also made models to do light tests to check eave sizes to take advantage of the winter sun but block out the hot summer rays. The rammed earth gives enough thermal mass to hold the temperature stable and also look nice. There are no bricks in the whole structure and due to the simpleness of the design it should be quite fast to go up.

Then it was off to council.

With mum giving us the land there was a few other things that needed to happen. We had to move all of her services that we affected, move all of the plants from out the back to the front and pull up all of the pavers as she wanted to keep them for a later date. As my mum wouldn’t really have a back yard anymore we decided to help her revamp her front yard with ll of the plants, pavers etc. I admit I haven’t helped her as much as I proberly should have with the actual construction of this but I did the design and moved most of the pavers and plants which in clay soil is no easy task. As the block is behind her house and you wouldn’t even know the house is there, her front entry is almost our front entry. It is looking exceptionl compared to what it was and the roses have taken off in there new surroundings.
My mum is really happy how this is turning out and now it is all compressed into a smaller area it is a lot more managable. It is still a work in progress and lots more to be done but I can now picture the finished result. Well done mum!

It took over 3 years to get through council with the subdivision and planning and housing approvals with more dollars spent than I care to think about. Because the house was different and sustainability housing was such a new term they looked at everything under the microscope, even asking us what tension pounds per inch was the wire balustrading going to be tensioned at. WTF! Anyway alsmost at the end of the approval process the very lovely and helpful Michelle left the department and handed it to a young guy trying to make his mark and he wanted to go through it all again from scratch. I was at this time I lost my shit and almost gave up. On the eve of xmas 2007 it got signed off.

In this time we had a little girl, I had changed jobs a few times and Jaime had gone back to study. Also I was well deep into another project. I was finally building a car I wanted to always build, my 1954 VW Beetle. So we put it on hold for 12 months. Another problem had arised in this time. The surveyor had thought he would change the boundaries on his own accord and without telling us so when he came out to do the final peg up nothing fit. The cars would have to do a 4 point turn to get back out the drive and I could get a trailer into the yard. Also with fire restrictions where we ar they couldn’t a truck into the house incase something went wrong. After a year of fighting with them, they blam
ing us and us them we produced the original file they emailed us with how it was and should of been. This made them look stupid and it was a great a win for us! Now it is all fixed and the house can start.

We also selected our builder who has been great so far in the process and has almost become family with how much we see him. Luck was going our way now and we found a house to rent during the build only 4 doors down from where it is.

It is now April 2009 and finally happening, a long time coming!

I am going to try and update this day by day so you can all track progress. I have also turned off commenting so I will get them by email but they wont show. This is not me playing moderator I just want this to be a day by day guide of whats happening and that is all.

I will also be starting the pics off with what was there and what is was like so you can get a bit of a feel of where we have come from. I hope you all like it and enjoy the build as much as we have getting this far.
Enjoy ;)