# Forum More Stuff Go to Whoa!  1950's Weatherboard extension & reno

## stevekicks

Hi all, 
Firstly - this is my first post. I've scoured through these forums since i was made aware of them by a mate. It seems to be a great community and i'm looking forward to spending a lot of time on here. 
My wife and I bought a 1950s weatherboard house in Ringwood early 2008. It's on a big piece of land (869sq m) and we always thought that it had potential. We've lived in it for the last two years without touching it, trying to get as much of the mortgage out of the way as we could. We're in our mid 20s and haven't had any experience in building, but the father in law built his extension himself (20 years ago  :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic): ) and is very keen on helping. I know we're not going to be able to do it all ourselves, but with help from everyone we know and from the people on here we'd sure love to give it our best where we can. 
Just recently we decided to get the floor plans out that were on the real estate agent's pamphlets and have a play. 
Heres the original: (click here for enlarged)   
I've outlined what we believe is an extension of the original house. It's the only part of the house with wooden stumps, rest of the house has concrete. It's also down a step. After playing with the plans - we've come up with the following: 
(click here for enlarged)   
Obviously its a very roughly drawn sketch. The idea is that we have a nice big living area out the back which extends on to a deck. 
Other than that - we'd just love to get some ideas. We're all new to this and I'm more than happy to post some pictures of what we have. 
Cheers! 
Steve.

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## Smergen

Nice work Steve and all the best with the grand plans. 
I was wondering about your floor plan, and was thinking if it was practical having the main bathroom away from the bedrooms? Basically anyone going to and from bedrooms is going to have to traipse through the kitchen and lounge. 
Good for the nudie run! :Biggrin:

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## Armers

Steve,  
Welcome buddy! Good to see you're getting in to gear, don't stress too much man, the initial phase took Kat and i a good half a ream of paper with drawings. Lol  
Quick question, the rear of your property is eastish from memory right? 
Now after thinking a little bit about it here is a rough from a different point of view, now i don't know what you want so i've kinda guessed  :Biggrin:  I can tell you this now you've got a carp load more space to play with then i have.  :Annoyed:  
Anyway my thoughts to add to the hugh mess in your head!  
Make me bigger! 
Cheers,
Armers

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## stevekicks

> Nice work Steve and all the best with the grand plans. 
> I was wondering about your floor plan, and was thinking if it was practical having the main bathroom away from the bedrooms? Basically anyone going to and from bedrooms is going to have to traipse through the kitchen and lounge. 
> Good for the nudie run!

  thanks mate. i thought the same - but then after thinking about it, both of us grew up with the same thing. a fair hike to the loo. i asked the missus if she'd want kids running through the living area while we had visitors over and she just said that we'd ask them to use the on-suite when we needed them to. 
unless theres another way to integrate it into the plan?   

> Steve,  
> Welcome buddy! Good to see you're getting in to gear, don't stress too much man, the initial phase took Kat and i a good half a ream of paper with drawings. Lol  
> Quick question, the rear of your property is eastish from memory right? 
> Cheers,
> Armers

  Hey champ, 
haha we started on paper but it ended up being so messy we couldn't see what we'd done. 
as for the house - front faces north. imagine that this was on the plans above: 
N
|
V 
edit: nice plan! i'll make a quick edit to my powerpoint and show amy. here's a googlemap view of the house. just note that it's the opposite orientation to the plans above.

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## Armers

> as for the house - front faces north. imagine that this was on the plans above: 
> N
> |
> V

  Hmm, in that case i would swap the ldr study onto the driveway side and join the rear deck with the side deck, basicly flip the rear half of the house over. So at least you can get some winter sun into the open plan at the back... If you cover some of the deck  you can kill most of the summer sun... there is exact science on how much cover to kill the summer sun.. You kinda get where i am going. 
That would work awesome. Heh As i said previous, more ideas to add to the pot .  
Cheerz

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