Met up with some existing clients at the start of the week. They are a couple of architects and looking to buy a section and build on it as well. It’s always good to speak to people in a similar scenario, especially if they are within the industry. They are looking at doing a similar sized house to us, around 160sqm. They were estimating build costs around $2500-$3000 a sqm, which is similar to the quotes we are getting from builders.
Small and well designed was their thoughts on building a house moving away from the ‘bigger is better’ that seemed to dominate the houses of the 1990s and 2000s.
We also spoke about cladding and potential using nicer parts in key areas while having cheaper cladding elsewhere. This is an option my wife and I have been discussing. At the moment we are looking at cladding the house in cedar but both a neighbor and a builder has mentioned cladding the rear of the house in something more durable and cheaper especially as this will be an area exposed to poor weather and a part of the house that we will not really look at.
Had another meeting with the architect in the weekend. We had come up with a different layout for the upstairs which meant moving the stairs so we wanted to see if that could be accommodated. Before discussing this with the architect we were looking at compact stair designs, numerous New York apartments utilized these and we were wondering if we could do something similar. Short answer was no, council regulations specify minimum sizes.
So we have hit a bit of a wall as there is not enough room for the stairs to fit and allow the changes we are after. Jeremy, the architect, then said he was going to look at a couple of different design options and come back in 2 or so weeks.
So it feels like we have lost a little momentum as we were close to cementing the design. On balance though it will be good to look at another option and everything Jeremy has shown us so far has impressed. And considering this could potentially be a very long term home, spending a bit more time now to get a better design is a bit of a no brainer.
Mike Columbus is a founder of sortmymortgage.co.nz and director of New Zealand Home Loans Christchurch Central. Mike can be contacted on 03 335 3527 or 021 369908. This advice is of a general nature only and before acting on it please read my disclaimer which can be obtained by emailing me at mike.columbus@nzhomeloans.co.nz