I'd go for the higher privacy screens within your own boundary. Get a car junk yard to store some old crushed car bodies on piled high on top of each other for 3-6 months to create the screen. They will be au fait with safely securing them. They may even pay for the temporary space leaving you with enough money to later build a truly aesthetically pleasing barrier, something like that big reflective glass barrier to her if she doesn't move! Hopefully she will decide to move when that is all she can see. My dad actually used this strategy successfully with a problem neighbour in the past! Meanwhile have a chat to a lawyer. We have one of those problem neighbours who complains about (non) barking dogs and gets her kicks by watching us put out washing. She now looks onto my chicken coop and thought it was a dog kennel. It makes me feel like going naked when I tend the chickens to give her something to really scare her and having a heavy metal rock band rehearse regularly in my garage. It is horrible to be overlooked by a neighbour who is so problematic and likes to use your family as her reality television set! Do check with a lawyer about her possible trespass onto your property. My guess is she used Round Up on a windy day!

Hi Penelope, Congratulation in your new home project, alway a great and existing time even if sometimes it can strain communications and not to mention the budget. In the end, it will all be worthwhile especially if you can get good advice and make good decisions.There may be a few things that you might like to consider in the proposed design; Show the north point, I know you stated that north is at the back but it would be and advantage to know where east and west are (Morning sun and setting sun). You gave a good description of your family but not som much of the area where you are located. Small town, provincial, City, traffic at front and neighbors location and noise sources would help. Required planning setbacks - if any - are unknown they may be of use and also the neighbors, house line setback. Ground Floor: It appears you are building Boundary to Boundary at the front, and space for the entry may be limited, however, this is where you come to and leave every time you interact with your house. I would allow more design opportunity to the front entry, at least a bit more width - rearranging of the bedroom might help. The Master bedroom seems to be of good size but the relationship to the bathroom and robes means that you may get mold in your robes - warm long showers on cold winter days even if you have a good exhaust fan you will still get mold in your shoe, suits and linen over the long term. The laundry space seems to large, and badly arranged especially with a flow through from the garage. It might be an advantage to redesign the laundry to take advantage of the space under the stairs and provide an airlock from the garage to the main house. The garage at the moment has a door into the main house - this is great for convenience but a potential health hazard fro small children and pets as car exhausts fumes will come directly into the main living areas (Car exhaust fumes are heavier than air and tend to linger close to the floor). These fumes are toxic and will build up over time on any absorbing surface like walls, curtains, small children and pets The garage door seems rather small, considering that you may buy other vehicle types in the long run like bikes, bicycle, and lawn mower. The pantry is a good size, but as a walk through pantry, you loose a lot of space and functionality, also human trafic in pantryes seem not to aid in good food management. There seem to be no space for a freezer, either in the pantry or the kitchen, you mighty resolve this with a large fridge but a separate freezer can be an advantage. The arrangement of the kitchen in relation to the lounge and the dining area might be improved to have the dining area where the lounge is - seems odd having to walk across the travel zone with the plates to get to the dining area, you may have to rethink this area. There seems to be a lot of glass (windows and doors) in the living area - energy costs will be high in the long run and you may have difficulty in achieving the correct star energy rating for the house. I like the fact that you have a good, children and adult separation by having the main bedroom downstairs, but if you have a lot of use for a downstairs office you may need to rearrange this idea or redesign to squeeze some space downstairs. This would depend greatly on the priority the office was given in the brief and your lifestyle. First Floor area All your bedrooms upstairs are double bedrooms, this might be your specific requirement but, on a small site where space is at a premium it seems overly generous. From the top of the stair to the entry of the two front bedrooms the circulation space is excessive - waste of space, you should redesign this to get back some of the space for other areas - at the least a closed off office. Also, an office in the current location is to exposed to do any meaningful work, there is the potential for too much visual and noise exposure and human interaction. Your upstairs toilet has a door opening inwards, this is illegal unless you provide panic hinges, inward opening doors in toilets are not very comfortable to use especially if you are young. old, disabled or pregnant. The upstairs bathroom has really to much waste of space for two appliances, some redesign would help greatly in getting back some space. Your retreat area upstairs certainly is of good size, but it might help you to show all the furniture layout, so as to see which is functional space and which is circulation space. There may be other areas that may require rethinking, it might help to have some 3D's of the spaces showing the furniture layouts so as to gain a better understanding of the functionality of the whole area. I hope this is of some help, it would be interesting to see the elevations and how the house develops its character, considering what may be your intention. I think to get a better understanding you would need a few 3D views so as to fully understand how the house may look from the outside, after all this is where you come home to when you are happy, sad, tired and all the other emotions one life experiences on your way home, and you would like the entry to be welcoming to you and your loved ones. I would be happy to further comment on your proposal. Michael Manias - mm407p@gmail.com

Follow the path of the sun over a day, & throughout the year. When the sun is to the E & the W it is low in the sky. This means eaves become less effective, & other shading techniques must also be used, such as vertical awnings, external shutters, low-e glazing or trees. Also the sunlight at this time is nearly perpendicular to the window area. This means the sunlight is more intense & also that more of it passes through the window, & less is reflected. You're right in saying that generally W glazing is the worst, & should be minimized or eliminated. This is because the sun strikes W windows in the afternoon, at the hottest time of the day. Making it difficult to cool a home in the evening. E windows face the exact same problems, with regards to the sun being low in the sky, & perpendicular to the window surface. But this occurs in the morning, when it is generally cooler, & still gives the occupants some time to try to cool the house by cross ventilation. However, it's obviously better to minimize this heat build up through E windows in the first place. Conversely, N glazing will be shaded by eaves in summer, when the sun is high in the sky, while admitting winter sunlight, when the sun is lower in the sky. Northern eave length can be adjusted to suit a particular climate. In Brisbane the eave length should be somewhat larger, so north windows are also shaded in the shoulder seasons of spring & autumn, admitting winter sunlight. Even without eaves, in summer N sunlight is from very high in the sky, striking windows far from perpendicular to the window surface. So much more of that sunlight is reflected off the window surface, with less being transmitted through the window into the home. Though of course, I wouldn't recommend having no eaves. But as you say, limiting E glazing may come at the expense of limiting cross ventilation. So it's a balancing act, with different glazing solutions for different climate zones, local conditions, individual homes. But generally, the highest proportion of glazing should face N, as it can warm the house in winter, but not in summer. E glazing (which warms the house in summer) & S glazing (which cools the house in winter) should be incorporated for cross ventilation & daylighting purposes, but at a lower proportion than N glazing. W glazing should be minimized or eliminated, as it is very detrimental in summer. These optimum glazing proportions will differ, depending on your local conditions, & the building design. Generally living areas should be positioned to the north. As this side of the house will be lighter (from northern sunlight) & warmer in winter. Yes, some E or even W aspect is OK. But you don't want to use E aspect for living areas if it pushes the bedrooms to the W, as this is the absolute worst location for bedrooms. You do have a northern frontage, but it's quite wide, & the block is quite large. So luckily you should be able to design a house where northern light isn't too influenced by the garage out front. With that block size, as OKLouise had suggested, you may be able to come up with an interesting design that incorporates courtyards or even pavilions, to help with cross ventilation. Getting northern light inside your home, while also maintaining privacy. Good luck with the design process, & the build.

authenticlightingandhardware.com are the manufacturers of the grooved bakelite GPO shown in Big Reader's posts. They are based in Queensland. Schots in Melbourne are just a stockist, so if you are not based in Melbourne, have a look at their suitably old fashioned website and buy direct! We have their white bakelite switches and points in our house. Be warned, they are expensive though - the DGPOs are over $100 each and are quite large. the switches have a reassuringly vintage "thunk" sound :) they also manufacture those classic black bakelite toilet seats too!