The Design

As soon as we bought the section my wife & I were going through so many different designs... We didn't want to go big. Good design doesn't have to be big. So many of the ideas that we like are actually based on being economical with space: built-in furniture, versatile rooms, and using volume rather than just floor area. Also, our budget is pretty small, so we had to figure out the best way fit our four kids in and make the most of the sun and views.

Check out this video I did last year as a presentation to everyone in my office. It's changed a little now, but you get the idea.

It's really a bit of an experiment as I am incorporating some non-standard materials.
The floor will be cross laminated timber. Essentially this is big slabs of timber glued together in layers like plywood. This gets rid of the need for joists and flooring as it sits right on the bearers and is the finished flooring. It also saves a whole bunch of labour on site.
The walls will be standard timber framed with redwood board & batten cladding.
And the roof is structurally insulated panels. These are mostly used for cool store rooms, and in industrial situations, but I want to cut the time on site right down. The panels are the roofing, structure, insulation, and ceiling all in one. This means the whole interior will have sloping ceilings. Also, I'm not really a fan of Gib board, and I don't want to have to gib stop and paint. So the whole interior will be lined with plywood, and there will be no skirtings, architraves or cornices anywhere.