Current situation:

We are currently in a single storey weatherboard house in Thornbury consisting of 2 bedroom 1

bathroom
The house sits on a 600sqm block which is sloped (slopes up from the street front), however the
backyard has been levelled. There is a further raised level at the back of the property which backs
into a retirement village.
There is also a double brick 2 car tandem garage which is not utilised with a studio on top (we don’t
utilise it other than for storage)

The house itself is fairly small and we have a 2 year old daughter and will be trying for a second child
next year so we’d like to move now to build something that will accommodate our growing family.

I’ve attached some photos of the house which is a few years old (the tree in the backyard is no
longer there). I will try to find the house plans and send it through also.

What we’d like to do

We feel the house has loads of potential to capitalises on the block size and on the slope  
Here is a quick brief on what we’d like:
              
Main Structural requirements
        3 bedroom plus a large study
        2 bathrooms (one in the master ensuite)
        We want to go up to get city views and would be great to have a rooftop terrace. Upstairs
does not have to have a large footprint and we don’t want to separate bedrooms (ie. Some
upstairs and some downstairs)
        We also want to go down (up front) to capitalise on the slope. We think we could put some
functional rooms (car garage/laundry/cellar/workshop) if we go down and we would not
need to do too much digging because the house sits fairly high on posts. It would require us
to remove the posts and replace with large I-beams to hold the house.
        We like the idea of an L or U shaped home facing the decking/backyard and the main
motivation here is privacy. We could achieve this by utilising the garage as a new living area
        The kitchen should be a feature with large bench space and a walk in pantry.
        The bedrooms need to be secluded from the main living areas. i.e. we don’t want bedrooms
opening into main living areas.
        We’d like a low maintenance backyard but functional for the kids and for entertaining
guests. We would consider a small pool (up on the top level of the backyard)
        We would like the kitchen and living areas to be close to the backyard and to create an
indoor-outdoor feel when the weather permits

Features we like
        Big Windows – we love floor to ceiling windows (see photos below)
        High ceilings
        Polished concrete floors (perhaps in the garage if we make it a new living area)
        Exposed concrete walls and steel beams
        Wall gardens

These are a must

        Privacy, Safety and Security
        Good energy rating – we want to look at making the house as sustainable as possible
         Hydronic heating (no ducted)

Things to note:
        We have a big pine tree at the front of the house. It provides good shield from the street
noise and provides good privacy. We are open to removing it provided we can address the
noise and privacy (i.e. if we want to shift the car garage to under the house, we would
probably need to remove the tree)

Budget
Approx $1M

Below are some photos we really like and you might also check out some more here: