Your house won't fit on your section! Your front rooms plus garage add up to 23m wide, and that's not allowing for the thicknesses of the walls and cladding, plus any eaves. Before you start designing, you will need to find out about setbacks and recession planes so you know how much of your section you can actually build on. You also need to consider things like the path of the sun, prevailing winds, climate, views, proximity to neighbours, privacy, flow (both through the house and outside), placement of utility areas etc. You also need a clear idea of the style of house you would like and you need to design to suit the way you live now, plus think really hard about how you are likely to live in the future (to give just one example, I can almost guarantee that kids won't use that toy room, as they like being close to Mum and Dad when they are little). Beyond that, you need to give thought to sustainable building, and how far down that path you will choose to go. There are many things such as passive solar design that are effectively free to do at the design stage, which will make your house cheaper to run and more comfortable to live in, and these should absolutely be part of your brief. There may be minor extra costs for things like better insulation, low- or no-VOC products and finishes, energy efficient appliances and fittings etc, which could pay for themselves in a short space of time and/or make your home more pleasant to inhabit. Other features such as solar power and grey water recycling may fall outside your budget now, but it may be wise to allow for these to be easily retrofitted in the future. This is a HUGE house - why do you want it to be so big? I'm not sure what average building costs are where you live but that would be a million dollar house in NZ, with only average features and finishings (e.g. acrylic, rather than tiled showers, laminate kitchen etc). As the global trend seems to be moving towards smaller but better quality houses, it might be worth considering resale potential in the future. It is not easy to design a home, and it is such a massive investment that you want to be really sure you've got it just right. You'd probably be better to employ an architect if you want a unique home, unless you are prepared to spend months or even years educating yourself to a point that you can confidently design a house that takes into consideration all the issues I've raised above (and that's only just scratching the surface of the many decisions you will need to make). Good luck!

as usual price depends on quality and labour but basic flatpac white laminate kitchen cabinets and counters cost about $5000-$15000 plus installation, splashbacks, tiles, taps, handles, lighting, sinks, appliances etc and all the trades: plumber, gas fitter, electrician, tiler etc... a custom made kitchen will dramatically increase the price at least double or triple for the fitted cabinets and counters but other costs are similar subject to quality and careful selections of fixtures but sometimes it more cost effective to save elsewhere than scrimp on the most important expensive room in the house but our last tiny holiday house kitchen was built out of a 40 year old kitchen we recycled from another property and, including the old sink and flatpac counter and new handles cost about $200 and our most recent custom made modest mid sized kitchen was $25,000 for laminate cabinetry and counters (stone counters would have added another $9000) but putting together flatpacs can be tedious and difficult to get a quality finish

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice. I assumed my layout would be similar to that of other Californian Bungalows of the same period. It is helpful to learn my layout is reasonably uncommon and I am probably looking for inspiration in the wrong places. It sounds like Dr Retro House Calls and JRED are correct in steering me towards an interior designer. I hadn’t considered that option as I thought I would need a large budget for furniture and décor if going down that path. I’ll give Bigreader’s suggestion a go first and use scaled cut-outs of furniture to play around with furniture placement. If I still need guidance after that, I will look into interior design services. I initially shared your thoughts – Melt in ACT - and was thinking about turning the laundry space into a large bathroom and then moving the laundry to the small bathroom. Ultimately it was going to be too expensive… and seeing as I have young boys who get every item of clothing they wear dirty within 5 minutes of putting it on, it will be a bit of a luxury to have a big laundry. It's an idea I might revisit in the future though. Oklouise, I love all your ideas and suggestions and am really grateful for the time you’ve taken to respond. The floorplan you’ve put together is super helpful. I was bummed about the lack of space for an entry set down area and would have never thought about moving the bedroom door. I will definitely look into that. Good memory siriuskey- I did previously post about this house and I received a couple of good suggestions (including advice from you) around maximising kitchen bench space with a kitchen island and adding a storage wall near the small living spaces. I felt the advice sought in this post is sufficiently different to justify asking a new question about whether there are resources I may not be aware of and if people have ideas about the floor plan as a whole, including spaces I had not previously asked about. I’ve got lots of new ideas and really appreciate everyone taking the time to share their advice. This is a great forum/ community!

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