The Eventual Floorplan.

The house as it now exists - nearly three years later. The final room was moved about two years after we first looked at the house. The side deck (and ramp) was the last living area to be constructed. It was built over the last two days of 2008, and was finished just 40 minutes before the time we were expecting guests to arrive for our New Years Eve open house. (Well, the railings weren't up, but the deck itself was up in time. What more can you want?!)

As can be seen, the Kitchen has changed sides of the house, and the bathroom also. The verandah has been enclosed and, along with the area where the bathroom used to be, has become the dining room. The old entryway became the ensuite-to-be, while the new entryway now comes into the other side of the lounge area. The hall has been carved out of the original living space, creating privacy for the two bedrooms and bathroom, while also delineating a passage for traffic to flow around the outside of the lounge room. The side entrance has switched sides with the kitchen. More on each change as we come to it...


The upstairs area. This is used as a bedroom by me and one of my sisters. (My profile picture, on this blog, is of me in the process of building the bookshelves at the far end of this loft.) The narrow section of diagonal lines on the right side of the image image below is bookshelves. The diagonal lines along the bottom represent our cupboard space, set back into the roof space over the lounge room ceiling. The large storage space to the left of the stairs is the main storage space for the family (all nine of us), and is set into the roof space over the bedroom below.

This upstairs area was initially developed as a children's play area or storage room. Located in the very peak of a shallow pitched roof, I can only just stand up straight under the ridge pole. I'm approximately 5'4". At each end of the floor space the ceiling is about 3 to 3 1/2' off the floor. It was expected that this rather uncomfortable lack of standing room would put us off sleeping up there, but as we mainly spend our time up there either sitting or lying down, it hasn't affected us much. I personally love it. The romance of the low, pitched ceilings, the winding staircase, the diamond pane windows and the amazing view all combine to make it a much treasured bedroom. Besides, after all the effort I put into making it what it is, I could hardly help but love it, even if it were a disaster! But more on this once I get up to it...

Perhaps some people know that we're not far off finishing this house renovation, and have been working very hard over Christmas to finish by Jan 1st 2009. We didn't quite make our self-imposed deadline, but it is amazing just how much we managed to get done. Especially considering all the other stuff we managed to squeeze into November/December.

Now we're into the new year I hope to be able to speed up this record of our journey. I hope you'll bear with me a little longer.