Structural Variations

We didn't want to knock down any walls or extend any rooms. All we wanted to do was add a few doors and change the staircase.

The Theatre Room wasn't closed off, so we asked for a cavity sliding door (CSD) to be put in. The ground floor of the house has high ceilings and doors, but unfortunately they weren't able to give us the higher CSD for the Theatre Room because the bulkhead above the doors wasn't big enough. We didn't mind this too much because the doors will be left open most of the time.

We also added a door to the Master Bedroom to close off the Ensuite.

And we changed one of our Meals windows to a glass CSD to improve the indoor/outdoor flow from the Alfresco.

The staircase upgrade was one of the biggest changes, but also is one of those things that changes the whole look of the house and opens it up a bit more. We changed from the standard carpeted stairs to a timber staircase with open treads. We've gone for a dark stain - Walnut - to contrast against the white floor tiles downstairs and the browny-grey carpet upstairs. We can't wait to see this part of the house when it's completed.

We also got our fridge space extended a little bit to allow a bit of a buffer for a double-door fridge.

We would have liked to extend the Garage width and add a roller door to the rear, but our lot width didn't allow this.

We added evaporative cooling throughout, and also asked for a fireplace provision to be put in so that we could put a fireplace in later. This involved an extension to the brickwork and foundation, plus a plaster projection on the inside wall.

As we said at the beginning, we chose this house because we already liked the floor plan the way it was. Aside from adding a few doors and upgrading the staircase, we didn't make any other significant structural changes.