Building a new home for retirement is a unique opportunity to create a home that supports relaxation and lifestyle.

Michael and his partner had clear goals for the kind of home and lifestyle they wanted to create as they embarked on building a new home for retirement.

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Hello! This is Episode 323, and I’m looking forward to introducing you to Michael, a member of HOME Method who is building a new home in Western Australia.

When Michael and his partner joined HOME Method in April 2021, they were looking to create a home that would enable them to live comfortably in a beautiful location on an acreage site. 

Intended as their retirement home, you’ll hear more from Michael about how they approached this project so it could support their overall lifestyle goals, as they transition away from running a working property, to enjoying and relaxing more regularly, and spending time with family and friends.

LISTEN TO THE EPISODE NOW.

Building a home that you plan to retire to can be quite a different experience and require a different brief to other types of family and home situations. Michael shares some of the specific things they incorporated in their design to make their home suit this stage of their life.

You’ll also hear how Michael has collaborated with his team, and sought other input and advice along the way, as well as upskilled himself in the knowledge he’s needed, so he and his partner can create a sustainable, livable home in this location. 

Research and information collection is something Michael has done really well, and he’s never been afraid to have a conversation with someone, reach out to someone or get a second opinion to ensure he’s on the right track for his project. 

We talk more about that in this episode.

Before we jump in, here’s some timing for context on my conversation with Michael.

As I mentioned upfront, Michael joined HOME Method in April 2021. We recorded this conversation in March 2024. Site works began on Michael’s project in January 2024, and it’s due for completion in 2025. 

One of the reasons I mention these timelines is because I know TIME is something that many, when beginning their projects, have unrealistic expectations about. 

And so I think it’s helpful to hear, as we meet these amazing HOME Method members who are sharing their stories, what their timelines and preparation involved.

Let’s jump into my conversation with Michael now.

Now, let’s dive in!

This is the transcript of my conversation with Michael discussing how the design of his new home was developed to suit their intended retirement and lifestyle.

Amelia Lee
Well, Michael, I am so glad to have you here sharing your story on the podcast. You’ve been an incredible HOME Method member, you’ve been one of our most avid researchers, you’ve really dived into the details of navigating your project journey. You’ve really committed yourself to the learning and the exploration of applying HOME Method to your project and had some own learnings along the way. And you’ve always been an incredible member in terms of contributing to the community and providing your feedback and knowledge through what you’ve been progressing with on your project journey. And of course, you and I have had a couple of design review consults together as well. So I’ve been able to see your project progressing along the time since you joined in 2021. So I’m really looking forward to being able to share your story on the podcast. Can you just start by sharing with us a little bit of information about yourself and your family and who this project is for and why you decided to build a new home?

Michael
My wife and myself farm near Bremer Bay. So I’ve been there most of my life. And yeah, we’ve got two boys at home now. They’re 25 and 28. And then we’ve got two daughters. And I’ll be approaching 62. So thinking of retirement and transitioning and succession planning and keeping in mind the girls and boys both want to farm. So yeah, we’ve got a lot of planning to do around that. So, Albany is our nearest regional centre. So we’re near Bremer Bay, and that’s a beautiful town. And we’re lucky that we’re only 20 minutes from there. So we get the opportunity to enjoy the coast. And then when you head into Albany, about 10 minutes out of Albany is a region, Kalgan. And it’s a great spot, because things changed, there’s a river along there, and it’s sort of on the way to a major regional centre. 

And we’ve been thinking that, possibly, that’d be a great place to buy a small property or a house or whatever. And then in the spring of 2020, we’d looked at this particular block. We’d driven in there, and it came on the market, and we put an offer in and ended up with it. It’s a residential, rural block, and it’s on the end of a cul de sac. And, yeah, two and a half acres or one hectare. And yeah, we just thought, “Yeah, that would fit our plans.. And then it was, “Okay, how do we find a design?” We didn’t have a design or anything, and we just couldn’t see anything that got value out of the blocks. So that’s basically where it started.

Amelia Lee
I mean, it’s a great block. And it obviously falls away from the street and looks out to that north north easterly orientation, and I remember looking at the photographs of the outlook and the general location of it, and it was really lovely in terms of its position. You mentioned you couldn’t find anything, that custom approach started to seem like the obvious choice for you. So how did you go in terms of thinking about what you were going to design and how you’re going to go about designing it? And where did Undercover Architect and HOME Method come into that process as well?

Michael
Well, my wife and I both wanted something that made the best of the solar access. I remember when we renovated the house on the farm and the light coming in from the north. And then we put the veranda on and we were going to put some polycarbonate on, but we didn’t do that. But just the light disappearing and the value of that. So that was really important. We wanted something that gave the best value for that. And there’s also 100 metre offset from the river. So we had a bit of a triangular area in the corner on the entrance to build on. So it was: “How do we utilise that area? And how do we get the best out of that?” 

The neighbouring block was being built on at the time. And there was a builder who was building there that we knew and used to live just down the road from us. So we approached him, he had a bit of a small volume build setup where he had his office, and he had a couple of guys, had a draftsperson. And we went and had a meeting and both my wife and I thought, “Well, we don’t really have a design.” So then from there we decided, “Okay, let’s look for a designer.” Someone that friends had used and that was based in Albany. We had a meeting and yeah, we just ended up going down that design track. And yeah, he designed well for orientation and solid design and that sort of thing. So we had a meeting, and that started there. 

And as far as Undercover Architect, well, I suppose I remember my wife saying, “Well, come on, Michael, you’ve got to get onto Pinterest and stuff.” I sort of left that to her. And then this is probably 2021, probably February, something like that. And then I just started looking around. And I just remember, just clicking on Colorbond. Yeah, Colorbond link and up came Undercover Architect. And so then I got engaged and just started to follow up a bit. And then I just thought, “Well, what’s the value in this?” And then over time, I thought, “Well, yes, there’s definitely plenty of value”, after listening to podcasts and that sort of thing that you’d built. The first 10 podcasts are amazing, just on how to get started, the value of orientation and where to put your rooms and different things like that. So that made me think, “Well, maybe I’ll look further into that.” So yeah, that’s where it started.

Amelia Lee
Fantastic. And yeah, you joined in 2021. And I think it’s been really interesting. Because I see this for HOME Method members is that kind of jumping in at the beginning, and then taking the opportunity to slow down a bit and actually learn and then start to apply that learning to what you’re doing in terms of the design approach. And then thinking about how you’re going to build as well. When you started out, you mentioned meeting with that designer, and you started out thinking about the design, what was your vision for what you wanted to create in terms of the type of home that you wanted to build and how it was going to create the kind of lifestyle that you wanted to lead there? Because you’ve got the farming property, and then this being a two and a half acre lot that you’re thinking about for your own retirement, how were you envisaging that house needed to support you in your lifestyle?

Michael
We wanted to be able to have family to stay. And so just to fit the lifestyle, something that was simple to manage. We had the conversation, I’d looked at some split level type homes that might have had the bedroom wings on one level and the living areas on another, and just to have less impact on the fall on our side, and that sort of thing. 

My wife said, “We want to get level ground, easy access, so we can age in home.” So that became something that we built into it early on. Having 920 doors and access has been built in from the start. And then yeah, we had some ideas, but I think the designer helped us evolve. We’ve ended up with a pavilion style house, we probably weren’t thinking of that at the start, but it evolved that way. And that’s the value, I suppose, of getting a designer in to bring their knowledge and professionalism into that side of it that you can only see within the box, and they look outside the box and analyse your brief and that sort of thing. So yeah, that’s pretty much where that started. And yeah, I think we thought, “We’ll take that to a certain point and then we’ll get a draftsperson and then we’ll get it all drawn up.” But that design phase ended up going for a long time, but I think 12 months basically we had pretty much the basic, what we’ve ended up, just tweaks since then really.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, and it’s a great plan in terms of having that entry through the middle. You’ve got the living, kitchen, dining, the services areas, the garage on one side, and then you’ve got the sleeping zone on the other side with your own main bedroom making the most of the view, with then those secondary bedrooms behind. And what I love about the floor plan is you have thought obviously about where you and your wife are going to be using the space the most, and really invested in that being a fantastic opportunity for you to have a great lifestyle without oversizing the spaces, but there’s still the capacity for them to expand to support when you do have family come to stay. And I can see that it’s going to work incredibly well for you both when it’s just the two of you, and then when you’ve got family staying with you. So it’s ended up being a really great design. I know that you and I had a chat through the process a couple of times in terms of those reviews. Why did you, I suppose, seek that out in terms of getting that second opinion and how you were seeing that design coming together through that process to get that input as you went along the way with your designer?

Michael
Yeah, it’s interesting, because you bring a designer along… We had a lot of different designs that I think we challenged the designer on: “That’s not going to fit our brief and how we’re going to live on the site.” So we worked through that. And then we got to a certain point, and it’s interesting, we always get conversation from outside, people who want to help with ideas. And my brother in law, he had managed a housing business in Western Australia and a windows business, and it got to a point that we thought, “Okay, let’s challenge this.” So he had imported some designers from outside for their business from Singapore. And we actually got engaged, he got on to them, and we said, “Okay, this is our brief, can you come up with something on this site?” And it kept going back to a bit more like a volume build type, where there’s boxes here, there and everywhere, and it didn’t have the flow that we had in our design. And so this showed the value that the designer was on the right track with the design to see our brief because we want to have a nice, open plan living area, and we wanted separation between the living zones. And then we also wanted to be able to have separation if we had guests, that they could have a little bit of privacy and that sort of thing. So I think that all got built in well. 

The limiting factor, I suppose, was around having a nice outdoor entertaining space without blocking the solar access. So losing the value of that into the home. So we had a few different ideas around that, because we’ve got a central courtyard that faces north. And so yeah, those are just a few little things around that that challenged us for a while. And I know we talked about that on our one on one too, just ideas about that. So just built from that. 

My wife said, “Oh, come and have a look at this house,” a friend of mine’s, I like their home. And you just had to walk in the door, and it felt like a quality home. And just well built, and yeah, a home that didn’t need a lot of heating and cooling. And so we had a meeting with the builder on site. And he pointed out a few mistakes that had been made next door and said, “Well, we won’t do this.” So we haven’t done the PAC Process, but I had a number of conversations with the builder. I just say, “Well, here’s the designs, what do you think?” And it’s quite interesting with your design review, you’re suggesting, “Okay, we’ve got to set a great pitch. We could bring that down to 25 degrees, and we could cut the walls from 2.7 down to 2.55. And it might save a bit of cash and we’re losing a little bit of glazing.” And it’s pretty much the same suggestions that the builder was making. But now we’ve got the trusses up, and walked around with my wife, and I’ve been open to a few of those changes. But the designer, definitely not, he wanted to hang on to his design ideas. But sort of glad that we’ve stayed with that. And yeah, so there’s just little things like that. I mean, yeah, that are happening. So that design phase that progressed through time anyway.

Amelia Lee
And that’s the thing that I found really fantastic about how you have approached this process, Michael, because lots of people do get very nervous and scared about seeking alternative input from other professionals throughout their process. And I know that you’ve been navigating your budget and the demands of your budget, and making decisions about whether to extend it with that value proposition of what are you going to get for it at the other end of it. And then at the same time, you’ve been bringing that team input together and investigating that professional help at various points along the way. In a way, that’s actually been really great to watch. And as I said, I think a lot of people get very nervous about doing that. They feel like they’re going to be disloyal or disrespectful or something like that to the professionals that they’re working with, I suppose, they tend to then miss out on the opportunities that might come from some of that extra kind of collaborative input. And so, I know that team’s been a really big part of your journey generally. And you’ve done some really great work in terms of thinking about who to bring in and when. 

And I think the two areas I’d really love to dive into with you are, you obviously wanted to be creating an energy efficient thermally comfortable home, that was always a really key priority of yours in terms of how this design was going to work and create the kind of home that you wanted. And then you were also weighing up the volume builder versus the custom builder approach, and seeing what was going to deliver the best outcome from a budget and a, I suppose, a building methodology, and a result for you. And you didn’t just do it at a surface level, you really did dive into the details of it to investigate and weigh up the benefits and the pros and cons of both options. So I’m wondering if we can first chat about the energy efficiency process and how you went about that? Inside HOME Method, we talk about bringing that energy efficiency assessment in early and using it as a design tool to be able to get real data on the design decisions that you’re making… You’re navigating your design process, you’re getting that additional input, how did you start thinking about getting those assessments done and what they were telling you about your project and what you needed to change or correct or improve on in terms of how you were going about the design?

Michael
Yeah, well certainly, as far as bringing in consultants and that sort of thing, so we just went with the designer, so made a site survey done. So we got that done first, we got the power rating done. And trying to think what else… I think we went with the soil tests, we just got all those things out of the way early. And then that helped the designer with how to deal with the site. And as we worked further on, it was not long after you and Sid did your podcast that I thought, “Well, there’s value here. I’ll just reach out to Sid.” And yep, no worries, might be a little bit of a wait, but that was fine. We had time. So yeah, well, we’ve had a lot of toing and froing of ideas, windows, areas, whether there’s fans. It’s been NWA, we haven’t met NCC 2022 yet, I think it’s May 25. So there’s not the requirement to go to the seven stars. But at that time, I think we’re just under six stars. And we had a few issues with our workshops, so that there’s a different requirement for height limit for the roof on your workshop, so that then became an activity space, and then it would get through the DNA requirements. But that meant having also to come into the energy rating. 

So Sid was great, just dealing with that, how much do we have to do, because it had to meet minimal requirements. And then yeah, there’s volume and there’s a lot of things that go into it. But yeah, just working it through and looking at options and level of glazing you require, I mean, we were always going to go with double glazing, but low E glass and insulation. I think the designer pretty much knew that pretty much from the start, and then slab edge, you would want to have a timber floor, so we didn’t have benefits of thermal mass. So we’ve got slab on ground, but timber on top. So it’s just dealing with all of those, because we’ve got a nice site, then we’ve got our designer, all these homes have a lot of glazing but that’s what we wanted. And so we had to work with that, less glazing, I think there’s a ratio, whatever it is, 20 something to one or something that once you go over that, it gets hard once you get under that. So we just worked through that and just the value of Sid just running that through his rating system and just doing those changes was extremely valuable.

Amelia Lee
Yeah. And in terms of the glazing, do you remember as you were working through decisions that you had to make about perhaps upgrading the insulation or, like you say, that edge insulation, how were you balancing that out? And then also, how are you balancing that out mentally, from a budget point of view? Because, as you said, WA doesn’t have the increased requirement, but you had a priority that you wanted to have an energy efficient outcome. So what was the internal dialogue going on at the same time of those decisions that you’re making?

Michael
I think glazing was something that I guess we would have dealt with. And we have actually, couple of bedrooms just before the framing was going out, everything was marked out on the pad. We just said, “Oh no, we don’t need that quite as big of windows there.” So there’s different ways of changing that, we’ve put some doors out, we’ve done some minor things, but we haven’t really played around with the main north facing glazing. So it’s really just tweaking around little things like fans, and one thing that was important was getting ventilation right and that sort of thing so you can open the building up when it’s warm, or just to ventilate. But as far as that iteration, we just really went with Sid’s advice. Look, these are as you get this value. And we just worked through that. And things like “a darker floor will give you this.” 

Basically, we’re a climate zone six, it’s fairly temperate climate, you don’t get frost, and don’t really get too many, but you get the odd 45 degrees in Albany about three weeks ago. But that’s pretty rare. So it’s a mild climate. So you don’t have to deal with the really high extremes. I think slab edge gave us point two, I think, on our energy rating, so that slab edge came in, and we don’t have under slab insulation. So yeah, there’s just those few little minor tweaks. And I think the big thing that dropped the energy rating was when we brought the workshop in, and I think as time went on, that was able to be rated. The house was still able to be rated on its own, because we dropped point five of a unit on energy rating, just through volumes. So yeah, I mean, our house has grown from where we started. I mean, we started thinking, two and a half thousand dollars a square metre. But it’s grown to allow certain things that we wanted in our design and our floor plan. So that’s an area that we’ve got a reasonable sized garage. Because we have been farmers, we’ve got larger vehicles. So we accommodate for that, and also accommodating for storage. But that’s about it. I can’t remember any specific things, it’s just little tweaks around the rating.

Amelia Lee
And can you explain why the workshop was having a detrimental impact on your energy efficiency rating in terms of how that was playing out?

Michael
Well, it’s really just the volume, I think. Because it added, I think it’s about 120 square metres, and yeah it’s just that extra volume. And then we were only going to insulate, we had to put a minimum amount of glazing in, so we’ve got some north faced glazing, and yeah, so we’d use minimal insulation, that sort of thing in it. So probably detracted, because it wasn’t meeting the same standards, it might have been sitting at five stars, and, the houses would have been sitting at six and a half stars. So one proof from the other. I think interpretation of the regulations around that has helped us keep the house where it should be. And we basically redesigned our whole workshop. So the designer had designed so everything was on a seven and a half metre width. So two pavilions, seven and a half metres wide, with 30 degree pitch gable roof, and then the workshop was the same, and then it was going to be clad similar to the house. So then we basically put a flat, skillion roof on it to get underneath the, I think, four and a half metres might have been the height we’re allowed to build a workshop, and it’s about six and a half metres for the home. 

So I think our roof pitches about five and a half metres on the house. And yeah, we just went with that, with a workshop design, but my wife and I, we didn’t like the skillion roof design and we eventually said to the designer, “Look, just put it back in and we’ll just deal with it.” Because I think it added 40 grand to the bill, basically, trying to make…

Amelia Lee
Make it a gable instead of a skillion.

Michael
Yes, so it became an activity space. So that got it through the DA rather than a workshop. But we see advantages down the track. We’ve put some plumbing in the workshop floor and that sort of thing, so we can put a self contained unit out there down the track. So there’s advantages of having extra glazing and building the walls so that you line them, we’ll just put a custom old lining inside and just do that as minimal, and then we can change that down the track if it’s required.

Amelia Lee
Yeah, it’s a tricky balance, isn’t it, when you’re trying to create an aesthetic outcome and also a functional outcome, and then that triggers particular requirements in terms of how it’s considered from a building code point of view. And then that has a consequential impact then on things like that energy efficiency assessment, and you having to make decisions every step of the way of is this worth the spend to us to determine the value proposition of it. So I think you did a really great job in terms of navigating that for yourself and thinking about what was going to be then the best decision to make in terms of the decision that you’ve made to put plumbing in the floor and think about the future functionality of it, and how it could be converted down the track. So yeah, I think you’ve created a really good outcome in that regard. 

The thing for me that has been really interesting to watch is that weighing up of the choices, and before we jumped on, you talked about the glazing and using thermally broken frames and making calls about the brand that you were using and how that was going to work in terms of the energy efficiency and what you could get supply of in terms of the star rating. Can you talk through, because making the decision to have double glazing that’s thermally broken comes with a cost impost. So can you talk through that decision making in terms of thinking about your supplier, what was locally available, what was going to work from a star rating point of view, and how you went about specifying that and thinking about it?

Michael
Yeah, so we always had presidential range windows and north facing. So we’ve got a six metre opening that had glass sliding doors, full panel. So there’s two fixed panels, and then we had another section that had panels there. And our bedroom also had a double opening, so a single panel, I think it was three and a half metres. So we talked to the glazier early on when we got a quantity surveyor to value, what cost to build. And then, I think this happens a lot, you go back and think, “Oh, where can we find some savings?” So we made a few tweaks, we talked to the glazier and he said, “Well 2.2 metre doors, if you bring them back to either two metre panels, or just getting back to more standard and custom sizes.” So we did a bit of that. And the sliding doors were the higher range, so good quality range, but none of them were thermally broken. 

Australian window systems, I think, coming up with the NCC 2022 to meet higher energy ratings brought out a in-between range, they call them comfort edge that basically used the timber in the sill instead of having the aluminium exposed. Aluminium was protected by timber and there are ways to get that, I’m not sure what you call it – registered or whatever, anyway, to get that specified so you can build and get that energy rating on it. And our designer put those comfort edge in, least 18 months ago, but those windows weren’t even available in NWA at the time. I just started talking to the glazier, and I think about that time, we’ve done the quantity surveying and the costing was way above our expectations. So 

I remember Sid and our designer just saying, “Well, this is way above where we’ve been at”, because we were just in the middle of that COVID escalation where there’s supply issues and that sort of thing. So we thought, “Right, we’ll go and get a couple of custom builders to quote on it.” And they were nearly half. And so a lot of the glazing and that sort of thing. So the conversation, one of the custom builders was local, I think he built about 50 houses a year. So we went, had the conversation with them and then talked to the glazier who was the window edge supplier in Alberni, and yeah, we just worked through that and he said, “Well, I don’t even have the tooling for it. The material’s not worth.” So we just said to the designer, “Look, can we just go back to what we had?” And talked to the volume builder, and they would have had to get their head around, it would have cost us a lot more because of change of methods of installing and that sort of thing.  

So yeah, we went through that period. And then the custom builder that we ended up going with, he uses a different window supplier than the designer puts in. And once we got through, we just kept working with the custom builder, or we sort of left at life, I suppose, we’ve made some design changes. So I guess it was, trying to think back, early 2022 when we would have got the quantity surveyors. It would have been January, February 2022. And we went back and reassessed and looked at our design and made some changes. And that was pretty much getting towards the end of 2022 when we really made a few changes with a bit of design and just basic, small stuff, updated it with the designer.  

Went back, so we just basically followed up with one of the volume builders, it was a local volume builder and used a lot of local trades and that sort of thing. And yeah, it was a matter of just working through, saying, “This is our selection.” Just to try and get them to quote to the way we wanted it built, which was an interesting process because we went backwards and forwards a number of times. And always sitting down there with the quote in front and say, “Well, they go back to their own insulation, they go back to the wall wraps, what are those sorts of things?” So yeah, it was an interesting time just going through that process.

Join me for Part 2, where Michael goes into more detail about how he weighed up volume builders and custom builders, and what was going to be the best solution for constructing their new home.

Michael didn’t use the PAC Process, but was still super proactive in seeking costing information through the design phase. 

And in investigating different types of builders, he also did a really good job of drilling into the detail of his project so he could compare apples with apples when reviewing their costing information as well. He shares more about all of that with us in Part 2. 

If you’ve been assuming a volume builder will be a cheaper way to build, you’ll definitely want to hear about how that research has gone for Michael.

RESOURCES:

3 Top Challenges When Building with a Volume Builder >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-building-with-a-volume-builder-3-challenges

Tips for Building with a Volume Builder >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-tips-building-with-volume-builder

Designing, Building and Renovating on an Acreage Block of Land >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-acreage-block-of-land

Sid Thoo, that Michael references, is an architect and energy efficiency assessor, located in Western Australia. Sid and I created a specific training session inside HOME Method called “NatHERS: Under the Hood”. I also interviewed Sid on the podcast about dark roofs vs light roofs >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/podcast-roof-colour-dark-vs-light-energy-efficiency-sid-thoo/

Access the support and guidance you need (like Clare did) to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my flagship online program, HOME METHOD >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/the-home-method/

Learn more about how to interview and select the right builder with the Choose Your Builder mini-course >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/courses/choose-your-builder 

Access my free online workshop “Your Project Plan” >>> https://undercoverarchitect.com/projectplan