the story so far

We moved to Melbourne 7 years ago into a lovely home with our 2 children + 2 dogs - 3 children and a lizard later we realized the poor house was not going to make the long term.
Prompting us to make a grand change we bought land further out and decided to build (neither of which I had ever wanted to do!) but 5 kids and running a business from home meant we had very specific needs we just couldn't find in any houses in our area in our budget :/

Our land is 16mx35m which makes it only a little bigger than what we had before but we are able to build a big double story on it - which means the kids should have roughly the same sized yard we had before...the area is nice enough a new school is opening 2015 in time for our 4th to start prep which is great and its maybe 200m away - typical new estate flaws but hopefully we luck out with great neighbours who will be house proud like we are :)

Now for the fun part - the big house!
We are building the Marina 41 through Porter Davis - we looked at quite a few but were turned of some things (like a lot of new designs have the laundry through the WIP - who wants to carry spewed on bedding past their food, and we all know that happens from time to time)
We wanted a master bedroom on the ground floor away from the kids room and though the baby wont even be 2 when we move in and may still mean midnight trips upstairs in the long run this will lessen and I will very much appreciate having a downstairs sanctuary.

http://www.porterdavis.com.au/~/media/Homes/Marina/Marina%2041/PDF/Marina_Floorplan_41.pdf

Above is a link to a pdf version of the basic house we are building - we have opted for the rear alfresco - have changed a door and the sink location in the laundry - have also moved the sink in the kitchen but the rest of the house layout was pretty much spot on what we were looking for.

The downstairs rumpus will be my home PT studio for clients and the upstairs games room for the kids is huge!!!
Feeling very lucky but know full well we will both be working very hard for the rest of our lives to pay off such a house... and the marina is part of their lifestyle range (not top of the line or anything!)

Will try learn more about making the blog look pretty with pictures etc but site start is not till July so  I have some time up my sleeve to learn.