Introduce yourself to the community

[Jason]

Welcome to your Workshop. It is great to have you as a member of the community. We encourage you to say hello and introduce yourself.

Please reply to this post and tell us a bit about yourself. Whatever information you feel comfortable sharing is fine.

You might like to tell us about your current D.I.Y. and garden projects, your work, your passions, your hobbies, your dreams, what you struggle with, what you hope to learn from this community, and/or your favourite ice cream flavour.

And for something truly revealing about yourself - tell us what you call a barbecued sausage served on a single piece of bread.

We look forward to your post and getting to know you. Thanks for joining the discussion.

Jason

Community Manager

[Elly]

Hi Barbara,

Most of our windows DON'T face north, so we covered in the bottom half. 

It seems there is little insulation in the roof and we know there is none in the walls, so we decided to limit the window exposure which also has the benefit of allowing better placement of furniture in each room. 

The nnorth-facing windows are a boon right now, and they have sufficient eave for summer protection. Wish the house had been placed the other way round on the block! Oh well, we have to make the most of what we have, and we love being up in the hills out Healesville way. 

If your full-length Windows face north and have eaves, you will benefit heaps from summer shade and winter sun. Don't design long or big windows that face west, unless you have adequate shade trees close by. The western sun can be very harsh. If you have included clerestory windows, make sure they face south to give you light but not heat in summer. 

We have several skylights, which are mostly a boon, but in summer we get up on the roof and cover them with blockout material to reduce the heat into the house. 

I wonder if anyone can design the perfect house!

Regards and thanks for replying to my intro,

Elly 

[Baretta11]

Hi Elly,

We have only one westerly window and it's in our indoor pool, so this window will be slightly benificial for winter heat into the room but as I said, ever so lightly as it's not huge at about 1500mm wide.

As for the north facing windows, the rooms benifiting from them will be again the pool, as there is a window on that side too, then our main hub, the kitchen table sits infront of a 3mtr wide viewing window as I call it, that overlooks the garden, so I think it will be heaven having breakfast there during winter when we finish building the home and finally move in and the last room on the north side is the master bedroom, so when we open the curtain in the morning, we should be greeted by a beautiful glow.

As for insulation, we have chosen to put it into every internal wall in the home and obviously the perimeter and in the roof, we are putting in a factor 7 or 2 x 3.5 batts as the main escape for heat is UP, apart from the windows that you already know about.

It was a pleasure to say welcome and although it's been a very long time since I've been anywhere near Healesville, I do know exactly where it is. Meanwhile, I live in a little town called Birregurra, about 45 km west of Geelong.

Best of luck with your reno's

Cheers,

Barbara

[Gwandalan_Tales]

Hi everyone,

My name is Andie and I own a Victorian cottage called "Gwandalan" which I share with my handy hubby (trades in turf, passionate about DIY), baby and our two dogs.

We bought our home 2 years ago with plans to change the layout (add a bedroom, laundry, remove walls, decking, new kitchen), modernise and renergise the interior and exterior retaining the period features while opening up the living spaces and toning down a sea of timber (ceilings, kitchen, floors, windows, fireplace), maroon (carpet!) and blush (walls).

We have a 1-3 year timeline for our DIY projects and are looking forward to sharing our progress with the community and getting tips and suggestions as we go.

[Baretta11]

Hi Andie,

Welcome to the community!!

Sounds like an amazing project that you and hubby intend to undertake.

I'm always in awe of people who do reno's, as they are infinitely harder to work on than simply building a new home.

Best of luck and hope you will provide progress reports, as well as before and after photo's.

Hubby and I are building our dream home with our own savings and we've been at it now for 9 years and have finally made it to lockup with some brickwork still to complete but we're further along than the photo I've provided. Sometimes when I'm a bit down about how long it's taking to get it done, I look at the first photo taken when hubby dug the founds and then look at the progress to date and I'm darn proud!!

Enjoy the journey.

Cheers,

Barbara

[Jason]

Welcome to Workshop Andie (@Gwandalan_Tales). It's wonderful to have you as a member of the community. Many thanks for introducing yourself. I'm sure that community members will appreciate you sharing your projects as you transform your home. I'm confident you will also get plenty of great advice along the way.

Jason

[Natasha]

Hello everyone!

My name is Natasha and I'm one of the Moderators on the Workshop.

I'm not a DIY genius but I love giving things a go and trying out new little projects around my home and garden.

@Jason Its most definitely a sausage sizzle

Cheers,
Natasha

[Isobel]

You should be proud of what you have achieved @Baretta11. Perhaps you could start a new discussion and share some of your photos so they don't get lost here. I'd love to see more of your house.

[Baretta11]

Hi Isobel,

Thank you for the kind words.

I'm just a newbie here so still learning to navigating but perhaps I can start a discussion if there are others interested in my journey.

Cheers,

Barbara.

[Jason]

Please do Barbara (@Baretta11). I'm sure many members of the Workshop community would love to see more. 

I'd suggest posting in the Interiors board. Just click on the Start a discussion button, add a descriptive post title and pick a label like Building and Construction.

Looking forward to seeing it.

Jason 

[Andy_Mann]

@Baretta11

What @Isobel & @Jason say, please start a new thread devoted to your  build, as I applaud what you & hubby are doing.

I also tip my hat that you're including an indoor pool. As a long time outdoor pool owner (ours built in '81), I know full well the seasonal useage limitations, evaporation issues, the effects of UV exposure depleting the usefullness of Chlorine, weather blown in garden foliage contamination, & stabiliser saturation. All of our pool complications/frustrations would've been eliminated if we'd included an indoor pool in our '75 build, which wasn't to be, as having a pool at all wasn't something that we'd envisaged back then, & totally outside of our budget in anycase.