Hi annalisa 86 -- I see the lounge as your living room with sofa's, TV and in general, the place where you relax. The rectangular openings in the wall between the two rooms are beautiful, and are a unique feature in a home! Can you please provide more photos of each room to help us see the bigger picture and properly recommend where to place the furniture? Georgina has provided great options for the rumpus room: 1) cinema room, 2) home office, and 3) formal dining room. This is a large room with a sliding door to the balcony, which makes it a room that should be used for a purpose that makes a special statement. Do you love to cook and entertain family and friends? Do you have a barbecue grill out on the balcony? If so, a large, formal dining room would be perfect for this space, particularly during the summer when guests can go outside and enjoy being on the balcony too. Another idea is a game room with pool table, poker table, bar and small pub tables, which again, would be good if you like to entertain. You could give it a sports theme and have another TV here for friends to hang out and watch the game. This idea also goes well with having a barbecue grill and outdoor patio furniture on the balcony, so guests can move between the two areas. Or, you could make the living room a formal room and use it only on special occasions and use the rumpus room as the family room where everyone hangs out, watches TV and relaxes. You could even turn it into a multi-purpose room, where you have the family room, a sewing area (for example) and a home office. Can you tell us if your lifestyle fits any of these suggestions or if any of these ideas interest you? Christi, on behalf of Thos. Baker

We have so many ideas for this home! Your first step needs to be to establish your budget. Then list the items you want to fix in priority order. Note that some renovations will be a LOT easier to do before you move in, and others will be easy to do afterwards. Externally - I would remove the front retaining wall and replace with limestone. I would consider replacing windows and making them larger too and redesigning the front to create a more inviting and obvious entrance. Internally - the big ticket items are always kitchens and bathrooms and these are much easier to do before you move in. Retiling the main living area would make a big difference as would a repaint and new window furnishings. We could go on....but I am guessing that as it is a new home your budget will be limited. Best of luck, it is an exciting time in your life!

Changes cost an absolute bomb so consider your modifications carefully Joy. Looking at both plans you've not altered the design much rather you've moved rooms around whilst trying to retain the original content. Some rooms appear less usable as a result. The #2/bed/study is one, seems too small, even the guest bed seems smaller and it didn't appear large to begin with. Without room dimensions it's a bit tougher to make comments however. I wonder why you made the guest bathroom a powder room given the location is such that it won't be used as frequently as the bathroom off the main living area? Sure put the doorway into the guest room so the bathroom can service the bed/study too but don't lose the shower up there. Nothing worse for guests than having to pad through the main living area in their pj's to the shower or worse with a towel wrapped around their middles on the return trip to get dressed. It's enough to put some off their cornflakes! I'd seriously rethink some of those changes Joy they will cost you a lot with little gain methinks. I'm sorry to sour the mood I know it's an exciting time but I'd hate to see you make expensive and possibly unnecessary decisions.

Thanks for all your responses. The garage as marked on the plan is incorrect - this is actually a carport and is allowable under Council setbacks. Standard side boundary setbacks requirement is 1.5m, but a relaxation can be sought on this. Thanks for your comments re going up Siriuskey - whether or not to go up is something we have grappled with. I agree that this would probably take best advantage of the block, but it is not how we want to live in this home. Thanks for your thoughts oklouise - there are several elements of your plan that are very appealing - the laundry and powder work really well and the adjustment to the kitchen to have a servery to the kitchen is great. Paul's thoughts about moving the entry to the side of the house with more direct access to the open plan living is are a bit of an eye opener. One of the advantages of this and more of a pavilion style extensions is that an external window could be retained to the proposed music room, allowing it to stay as a bedroom. If it was possible to keep 4 bedrooms in the existing house, the size of the extension could be reduced.