Hi Sarah, hope you enjoyed your travels last night, that's something we have spent our lives doing plus living in different countries. Do look into the attic room/s they are lovely and the Velux skylights very unobtrusive, look great and if positioned correctly take care of venting any hot air, as I mentioned ours were pivoting ones and could be locked open in several positions. I much prefer these to dormer windows, you don't really notice them. The stairs were built off site and lifted into position and installed, built in. At the time we did ours a very good friend a builder did the same but just completely opened the whole ceiling space right out towards the gutters into a large bedroom play study area for his daughters, also using Velux windows. Glass ceilings, like Velux windows have been around for years, believe me I know, we're both getting older. Velux windows can be used as glass ceilings in opening and non opening configurations. I would love to see you keep the outdoor loo as well and updating the old shed into a new connecting space to the house, perhaps a glass breezeway. I will have another look at your plan again over the weekend. I love your front iron gate as well, auto sliding driveway gates work really well and would really fit with your carport. My brother in law put in a tall timber sliding gate at his last home, lovely cheers

Perhaps you could have a small gate in front of the front door with a path leading through the lawn to the door like this? The deck would then become a potential seating area if it is big enough rather than the ain through was for pedestrians. Also I think the side fence would look smarter painted a dark colour . I think contemporary pickets with flat tops would look good perhaps in charcoal or black to give contrast with the house. I would also pick up a bit of the darker colour somewhere in the house to tie the two together.

If you want to make the house hotter, then painting the roof charcoal will certainly achieve that. Repointing the brickwork is the most sensible from a maintenance perspective. Once you render and paint, then you have to keep painting (and it's likely to be out of fashion sooner or later). Try to keep passive cooling in mind (i.e. light colours & permeable landscaping) with any of your renovations, and I think it always pays to try and embrace and compliment the original architecture and be unique, rather than trying to look like the latest project home. In my opinion the arch window is actually quite cool, and the excellent mock-ups provided by Geo Toria are along the right track.

ddaroch i would be very pleased to draw up your suggestions but every site has individual restrictions and local microclimates and, reading back throughl Trent's comments, it clearly states that the estate doesn't allow the garage on the right/west of the block ... my last offering on 15/8 has more northern light, uses as much of the original design as possible and we have to work with what's available ...a recent addition to my own home deliberately has south west facing corner windows that provide garden views and winter sunshine (with suitable management for summer overheating)...without those windows we would have lost the best aspect of the available space and the room would be unusable ...we need to be less rigid with interpretation of Solar passive Design and be more creative with our compromises...and that's what professional designers should be able to provide