When I first saw our site cut I was sure our house was going to be so deep in the ground, I was quite disappointed about it. I thought that our neighbours had filled their site to build their house up. Turns out none of this was the case. Not only is our house not deep in the ground, I think we're actually going to have the opposite problem to what I had originally thought (at the rear of the house).
Took a drive to visit our block on Saturday and we were delighted to see that not only was our slab down, but our frame was up too. We got to walk through our house for the fist time. It was such a great feeling.
Now the front of the house is set down a little, but nothing like I thought it was going to be. The issue I think we're facing now, is that the back of the house is suffering from the opposite problem in that it is set up so high (in relation to the back fence), that our backyard (tiny as it may be) will be on an extreme slope and the base of our slab is nearly level with the support beam mid way up the back fence. Sitting on our alfresco or looking out the back bedroom windows you can see directly over our back fence. Likewise for people driving along the road, they can see directly in to our house. If we wanted to level the back yard, then fill would have to be brought in and this would go halfway up the fence which is obviously not an option.
We met our neighbours who happened to be moving in whilst we were visiting (nice people too, bonus!). They said they're currently trying to get the developer to raise the back fence by putting it up on a retaining wall, which probably should have been done in the first place. We agreed that we would also get on their backs about it and hopefully they'll do something about it. I doubt very much that they will, but it won't hurt to try.
It's not the end of the world if we're going to have a very high set house (at the back), we'll just have to get creative with retaining walls and screens.
Anyway, after wandering through our house for the first time (did I mention how great it felt?), we only picked up on one issue and that's that the builders have put a doorway in the wrong spot. Not a huge deal, I'm sure they'll have it moved once I bring it up with them.
 |
| Front Portico |
 |
| Study |
 |
| Theatre - Lovely big window with a nice few of the neighbours overgrown block |
 |
| Looking down hall towards front door |
 |
| And looking back the other way |
 |
| Nice big window in our master bedroom |
 |
| Family (left), Dining (ahead), Kitchen (right) - looking out towards alfresco. Notice where the floor of the slab comes to on the back fence? - That's a bedroom in the back corner (behind the dining) |
 |
| Kitchen - I'm surprised at how small it looks when there is nothing there |
