Choosing a Floor Plan

Originally we fell in love with the Elmhurst 262 by Dennis Family Homes. We both loved the open plan kitchen, meals and  family area with the entertainer sliding doors to the meals and family. We also loved the master bedroom and en-suite layout but were not 100% happy with the location of the master bedroom. We were concerned it was located in a noisy area, very close to the second bathroom, toilet and laundry and being at the back of the house it was also in the "dog zone" (i.e in the backyard close to all the neighbours barking dogs).

We then went to the Melton display village to see the Hastings 282 by Dennis Family Homes. It had the open plan kitchen, meals and family area and the master bedroom was at the front (out of the family and dog zone) but it had 4 big bedrooms plus a study and a home theatre. How much room do 2, (possibly 4) people need? Still, this was the best floor plan I had seen and I was quite keen until Luke said "we can buy two vacuum cleaners, I'll start at one end of the house and you can start at the other". A decision was very quickly made that we did not require such a big home!

After that we spoke with a couple of independent builders thinking maybe we would custom build so we can get exactly what we want. We found it very difficult to get pricing from the independent builders as they need to draft up a house before they could price it and draftsman do not work for free. We did however get some rough estimates and found they were quite competitive with project builders.

Around the same time the current Dennis Family Homes promotion was about to end. We decided to go to Ballarat to look at the Macedon 262. On paper this house seemed to have the perfect floor plan for us, but when we arrived we found the house was nothing like we had imagined! This helped us with our decision that a custom build was not for us.

Fortunately, the Hastings 242 had just been built in Ballarat and it was opening day!! As soon as we walked in we found that it had everything we loved about the Elmhurst plus all the things we didn't love had been changed. The master bedroom was at the front, it had the open plan kitchen, meals and family area with entertainer slider doors to the meals and family and the second living area was a study which was hidden from view (which we could use as our messy computer area). It was also a square shape which means it would take us less of our back yard (we have quite a wide block so could accommodate a square shaped house).

We were so excited to finally find a floor plan that will be perfect for our lifestyle.

How the house will sit on our block. We also have enough space left over to extend the house if we need or want to in the future.