Garage now, bedroom later

Garage now, bedroom later
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Dear Jonno

At long last, we are now preparing to build a house on our game farm near Modimolle. Thank you for the drawings, they are almost perfect. However there are a couple of points I would like to highlight.

We have decided to go ahead with a full thatched roof for the whole construction and then have steel tiles placed on top of it.  We would like to position the garages on the left-hand side of the house, with the entrance at the back and windows in front so that they do not look like garages.

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The idea is that if we need more bedrooms in the future, we could change the garages into bedrooms with en suite bathrooms without affecting the appearance of the structure. New garages could then be erected in a different area.
This means that the house and the present garages would share the same roof. For the covered porch, we would like to have wrap-around aluminium stack doors so that it can be utilised on cold, wet days.

I really hope my ideas don’t give you too much trouble.

Regards
Sheelagh

Dear Sheelagh

Thanks for the revision of the ‘thatch but not thatch’ design featured in the Farmer’s Weekly of 6 March 2009. Your suggestions got me thinking about the functionality of the home, and I’ve improvised in that respect.

The suggestion of a garage to be added to the main bedroom side of the house is good, but if the garage is to be converted to two bedrooms in the future, a passageway would have to be built through the main bedroom. I’ve therefore placed the double garage on the opposite side of the house.

The garage area and the future conversion are indicated by a dotted line. Alternatively, by locating the staircase in the entrance hall, the two bedrooms can be placed over the garage area. This upper level can then be built in phases, but to start with, the garage could have a concrete roof.

I would suggest building the upper level now, but leaving all finishes for when they are required. This would save building another double garage at a later date, and the extended roofed area over the garage is a minor cost. If the garages are best located on the right-hand side, the entire house can be flipped from left to right.

The porch can be enclosed with a low wall, with blinds or fold-back Perspex screens. The 135° angle corners of the building are suitable for both a normal thatched roof and a Harvey metal tile covering over the thatch.

Regards
Jonno