Guest Blog

Oak & Orange Space Saving House Floor Plans & Designs

July 30, 2021

Written by Demi

Marketing Coordinator

Oak & Orange Space Saving House Floor Plans & Designs With Better Built Homes

When starting any Dream Home, our first port of call is always the exact same place: the house floor plans. That’s because it can make or break your new home. It’s your birds eye view that’ll quickly help you visualise if a space will work for its purpose. But before we look at the Dream Home 6 floor plan design: The Belrose, let’s take a trip down memory lane.

10 years or so ago, two guys (and their wives) had a dream…to start a quality project home construction business. I know this may come as a shock but the desire to design and build new homes wasn’t just for the boys. From floor planning to selections and construction through to seeing the home come to life, we get a kick out of the whole process. It is an exciting journey, and we’re utterly in love with every bit of it. That’s why we find it so easy to hand these homes over to their new owners. Because we know the next project is just around the corner.

Fast forward 10 years and Better Built Homes is going bigger and better than we ever imagined, and we’re proud as punch.

After raising our babies and sending them off to big school, we started Oak & Orange in 2017. What started as a hobby sharing our build journeys on social media grew into a full-blown online video series. Our goal was really simple: share our own journey to help others get it right for themselves.

Of course, we’ve been around the block a few times, alright, maybe more than a few times. Maybe 20, or more, the truth is we’ve lost count. We told you, it was just as much our passion as it was theirs. Lucky, otherwise, we never would have lasted this long. The only difference between us and our better halves is that we get the fun part. We get to design the homes and watch the team at BBH do the rest.

The Dream Home 6 Series with Oak & Orange

Our latest project Dream Home 6 set us in search of the perfect floorplan for a 450sqm block of land. The challenge was choosing a Better Built Homes floorplan that would not only sit perfectly on the block but that didn’t have any wasted space. #challengeaccepted Our Dream Home 6 Series shared all our top tips and tricks for squeezing in extra storage into the Better Built Homes floor plan design.

Our perfect match, The Belrose 27

At 27squares the Belrose 27 floor plan design was unknowingly our perfect match! And no, we aren’t talking about the boys anymore. Typically, though, when it comes to taste, we’re the sort of girls that go for a floorplan that has the kitchen, living, dining all facing the rear of the block. That’s what gets our heart fluttering.

Although the Belrose isn’t our typical choice, we loved that the kitchen, living and dining sat on the northwest corner of the block. Why?! Because it means there will always be natural sunlight streaming into the main living areas and that’s where you want it most. #sold #selfietime

House Floor Plans For Your Dream Home

That’s the thing about choosing house floor plans. They’re entirely dependent on your block and you want to find your perfect match. You can add as many renovations to your home, but your block of land isn’t likely to change anytime soon. With that in mind, we consider several factors when creating dream home floor plans, from the orientation, setback, easements, and the developers and council regulations.

We sat down with the lovely Merrillie from Better Built Homes, who suggested the Belrose would be an excellent fit for our block. We knew with a bit of tweaking or, as we like to say, the O&O touch, we could turn this into a dream home design.

Making Changes to House Floor Plans

Having have lived in loads of different homes we are always trying to up our game with each build we do. Every build we do, we take a “how would we live in this home approach?” The Cosy Country Cottage was no different. As busy mums our top priority is storage. We like to keep the drafting team busy! Our top priorities for the Belrose house floor plans were storage, natural light and street appeal, which meant a few changes need to be made.

To start with, we scored some ultimate space-saving goals by removing the external laundry door to extend the bench space, enabling us to squeeze in overhead cupboards and a built-in hamper!

The original Belrose design had a secondary linen cupboard adjoining the pantry. We decided to move it closer to the entryway to be used as a Mudroom Cupboard with access straight from the garage. This has been an absolute crowd pleaser.

Moving that cupboard meant we could transform the original pantry space into a walk-in pantry. Plus, we added more kitchen bench space for toasters, kettles and the messy things we prefer hidden. Out of sight, out of mind right?

Space saving floor plan design

All those changes, we didn’t need to move a single external wall, which just goes to show how clever the Belrose house floor plans are – well proportioned, with no wasted space. Though we did add a fixed window to the living room for some added natural light.

Although we knew from the start this floorplan was well proportioned and there wasn’t any wasted space, we felt it even more walking through at the very end!

Don’t believe us? See for yourselves with the 3D walkthrough.