Our current home is now for sale...

We finally got our collective, dithering selves together, and our house is now listed on the market. It was actually a very sad thing, talking to the agent about what made us move there originally (nearly 9 years ago now),

But after a few epic cleaning sessions (did we mention that the walk-in wardrobe of our current home is 3 x 3 metres square?), and some professional photographs, it is listed for sale. Because the listing won't be around forever, here is a ridiculous amount of photos for posterity - as clean and tidy as it will ever be!

View from the street

Bottom deck, off the dining room

Bottom deck, from outdoor dining to outdoor living

From piano through to dining room

From piano through to living room

From living room back to piano

Kitchen

Top deck off master bedroom

Master bedroom

Another shot showing how large the master bedroom is

Upstairs bathroom with genuine Talavera tiles

Actual BATH in upstairs bathroom

2nd of three other bedrooms

Crazy wallpapered downstairs bathroom

View from the bottom deck - Morning fog in the valley with ocean

Some friendly locals

Sigh.
We will enjoy it while we are still living there.
It is a beautiful place to live.
And we will miss it.
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No more stair-book-case....No more mezzanine

As intimated in a previous post, we have lost the mezzanine and, as a consequence, AD's beautiful stair-book-case.

Beautiful stairbookcase and mezzanine will never be built

And here is why:
Firstly, the Building Surveyor determined that the mezzanine area, due to its restricted height from the raked ceiling, could not be defined as a 'habitable room'. Instead, it woul have to be known as an infrequently used 'service platform'. Well, that was ok, because it meant that the stairs which went inside AD's bookcase only needed to meet the reduced requirements for staircase design under Australian Standard 1657-1992. The Standard is less stringent than the Building Code in terms of height of step riser and width of step.

Sprial stairs inside the stairbookcase

This seemed like all very good news, because we wanted to keep the width of the stairs to the minimum because a) the mezzanine was only 1.8 metres wide; b) the living room itself is only 5 metres wide and c) anything too wide would destroy the pod design of the bookcase.
The Housing Industry of Australia (HIA) has this to say on staircase construction:

"If the proposed design has a stairway to a non-habitable room, then you may choose to design the stairs in accordance with this Part, or alternatively with AS 1657. The use of AS 1657 is ideal if there is limited space and/or the room will not be regularly used. This Standard allows a steeper stair to be built and is usually used to design access stairs for maintenance areas on buildings. In many ways the stair built to AS 1657 could be considered to be a step ladder with handrails."

A step ladder with handrails! Perfect!!
But because we had to provide the measurements of risers, goings and tread width as proof that the spiral stair design complied with AS 1657, we read the Standard.
And here was the second step in the demise of our stairbookcase.

• s4.1 WIDTH AND ANGLE OF SLOPE Stairways shall not be less than 600mm wide measured between the inside edges of the handrails.
• s4.2.3 CURVED STAIRWAYS The radius to the centreline of the stairway shall not be less than 600mm. Where the radius to the centreline of the stairway is less than 3000mm, the maximum width of the curved stairway shall be 750mm

Diagram showing minimum dimentions for curved stairways

AS 1657 makes absolutely no bloody sense. We are reasonably intelligent people, but interpreting the text with reference to the diagram ... well, how can there be a minimum 1200mm wide stair (radius) if the maximum permitted is 750mm? The maximum & minimum figures are mutually exclusive.
Further the MINIMUM distance form the centre pole to the 'imaginary centre line' of the step has to be 600mm, that would mean that the shortest radius you would be allowed to have would be 1200mm (or a spiral with a total diameter of 2400mm)!
2400mm is more than half the width of our living room, and seemed a little extravagant for something that is meant for access to an uninhabitable platform.
So we sought clarification from the Building Surveyor. He stated that he also interpreted the Standard as meaning a minimum of 1200 wide step treads.
He then capitulated and said that he "would be happy with the stair being 800mm radius internally" and that "although the BCA recognises this standard as a suitable design standard for non-habitable areas such as attics and storerooms and other such infrequently accessed areas – in this instance we must consider the likelihood of this stair being used by young children and the elderly".
We asked Nigel (Building Surveyor) whether, as his 'preferred' tread width of 800mm was also longer than the Standard stipulated maxiumum 750mm, would he be happy with a radius of 600mm? Noting that it says earlier at section 4.1 that “stairways shall be not less than 600mm wide”?
And here we enter phase three of the death of the mezzanine and the stairbookcase.
Essentially, irrespective of what it states in the BCA or the AS, unless the Building Surveyor is 'comfortable' with what you are doing, it's just not going to happen.
Nigel's response:
"600mm is very narrow and will affect the ability to achieve a good rise and go dimension and turn the stair so as the upper portion does not become a head clearance issue. It would also make it very difficult to carry any furniture, equipment or fittings safely up the stair. I think 750mm would be the bare minimum as this also reflects the minimum clear width of doorways in the Commercial BCA; maybe 720 at a push, which was previously an accepted width for toilet / pantry doors. I am not permitted to sign off a design that suits the current user, but must also consider future users of the house; ie. if you sell, unexpected arrivals, looking after elderly or disabled relatives, etc. – the BCA designs for a minimum 100 year durability of the overall building."
ADs design was based on the 600mm minimum stipulated in the standard (ie a 1200mm diameter).
Nigel would only approved a spiral stair with a 1500mm diameter.
1500mm would simply not be workable because a) the mezzanine was only 1.8 metres wide; b) the living room itself is only 5 metres wide and c) anything too wide would destroy the pod design of the bookcase.
Reluctantly, we had to advise the architects to focus their energy on something else, and we would have to lose the mezzanine (sorry the "service platform requiring access of epic proportions"), and its troublesome staircase.
Viktoria is particularly unhappy, as she has already lost the revolving bookcase from the original design, and has now lost the spiral staircase too.
If there is a silver lining, its that we are still going to have AD design us a bookcase based on the pod design, but this time it will be movable furniture and therefore not subject to the comfort level of the Building Surveyor.
And if he ever asks how we intend to get our books down from the top of the case, we'll tell him this:

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Random Thoughts for the New Year

It has been more than 20 years since 1,700 senior scientists (including 104 Nobel Prize winners) signed a document called 1992 World Scientist's Warning to Humanity.

 

It opens with the words:

"Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about""
 

Where will 2014 lead us?
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