Finding a house design

Things seem to be slowly moving at the land - tenders should be back for the heavy earthworks on the estate and the developer promises work will start in June.

To celebrate, on the way home from golf we took a trip to New Homeworld in Kellyville. All I can say is that it's a very scary place! Over 100 display homes. Not that we went in to every home.

We're looking for something fairly specific

• garage must be set back 1m from house
• top floor must have some set back from ground floor
• laundry and powder room must be on the same side of garage
• the other side of the house (non-garage side) must have an interesting layout - that is, not just a straight line down the side of the house

It's the side of the house that's important as it will be facing the golf course - don't want people looking at just a plain brick wall with a few small windows! (as seems to be the case in most project homes these days)

Most houses were monstrous large boxes - we walked right past those and only went into a few homes. You would think that a builder's display home should be perfect in terms of quality and workmanship. However, we saw many a home with poor carpeting and shoddy paintwork. If their display home is such poor quality, then would your home be any better?

We found a few interesting designs - the Entertainer 37 (Eden Brae Homes - which I think are owned by the same parent company as Porter Davis down in Victoria) and the Highbury (Huxley Homes).

We quite like the Entertainer 37 from Eden Brae (strangely - the house plans on their website are not the same as the display home). But there are some strange design elements - such as an oddly shaped media room - that knock it down a few notches.

The plan that best suits our needs however, is the Impression 38 Mk II from Wisdom Homes (not on their website yet). It's very similar to the Entertainer 37 from Eden Brae - that's most likely because the guy who started Wisdom Homes used to design for Eden Brae! It looks like he's taken the bits that didn't work in the Entertainer and fixed them up in the Impression 38 Mk II.

Our only issue with the Impression is that the side is fairly boring - yes - some different wall lines - but nothing outstanding. It will be something that the designer will have to work on.

We haven't seen the Highbury in person - just looked at the plan - but going out to the display home at Nelsons Ridge is on our "to do" list for the coming weekends.

Now that we've started thinking about designs - let's hope that there are no more delays with the land!