cottage: bedroom and verandah

Here's the email conversation with Dad about the bedroom and verandah areas of the cottage plans.


Dad's commentary (Feb 26):

Go now to the left thru the doorway into the master bedroom and you see a door to the veranda and the second old Healesville window. Look towards the front of the house and through the magnificent old windows, with curtains either side.

The all around veranda was Alan's idea to balance the overall appearance. We can stop the veranda as you wished, and can also leave in the plan, but not do this portion yet. I like the all around veranda and it will be of some help with the 5-star rating. I think all else is clear enough. Had to tweek the bath 300 ml into the masterbedroom to accomodate walkway around the stairs.

The rest is pretty clear. The two windows obtained from the guy in Collingwood that got me the glass will be used as a pair in the study. The laundry will be enclosed and soundproofed as to begin with the generator will be there. Or I may make a soundproof room under this laundry and put it there. I haven't worked the details of this yet. There are probably building regulations that will place firewall and sprinkler restriction on me so I will simply put the generator in a small building detached and about 50 feet from the house. We will see. But the battery storage area could be here. Or you may just go on the grid and to hang these other inconveniences.



My reply (Feb 26):

We both really like the wrap around verandah extending and I especially think it adds to the charm of it, so let's do that as it's drawn. And now we have verandah there it is doubly nice to have the doorway.

In the bedroom, as already discussed, let's bring the closet forward a little so that it is in line with the bathroom wall. Then there can be extra space - not in the bedroom closet, but in the linen press adjoining it. That way I can stack things in it two deep in the linen press if I need. It's wasted space having it in the bedroom.

This will be a lovely bedroom I think. Not a lot of storage as only the one wardrobe, but we can get creative, eg: maybe built a platform for the bed that has big drawers built in underneath, etc. Not that that matters for the house design stage.

The generator would only ever be a temporary solution, until we go on the grid. We will be doing this for the new house (as well as supplementing it by solar/wind power etc)... but probably won't invest in putting electricity on until near tail end as no point paying monthly rental costs for line if no-one is living there. So, probably better to plan the house as if it has power (solar system 100% definite; 90% electricity as depends on how much they quote to connect...this price varies all the time)