Personally, I'd be very surprised if your builder allowed you to complete swap the placement of your living rooms, bedrooms and bathrooms between upstairs and downstairs at no additional cost. IF your builder is willing to do so, then I'd seriously consider making the swap. But, it would also depend upon your personal circumstances. If you have or are planning on having children, then you may prefer to be able to see them playing in the backyard while you're in the kitchen or living areas. If you're planning on installing a pool, then it may be easier when entertaining to have the kitchen and living areas on the ground floor. It appears that your upstairs kitchen and living areas would overlook a public tennis court. Are you happy for people on the court to be able to see into your living space? Are you happy to be in the kitchen or watching TV and hearing the repeated "thwack" of a tennis court hitting a ball and the excited shouts, grunts, etc of the players? Is it possible to reach a compromise by turning an existing bedroom on the upper floor into a second living room and potentially also including a deck or balcony onto that room? You could have a small wine/bar fridge upstairs and other than carrying a few snacks upstairs, you would be pretty sorted when entertaining.

Hi I would check that your deck can take extra weight like tiles and additional cement sheet products as well. It looks to me like a light timber frame structure but it does have steel beams holding the cantilevered weight. I would get a designer or draughtsperson to look at it and give you some ideas. If you use a hardwood it will grey off naturally but you will have no maintenance. If you stain the timber the maintenance is every 2yrs really...

after studying the whole house plans i can't see a better option for the extra bedroom than my original suggestion...sacrificing some wiw and rearranging the ens (with bigger shower) creates a bedroom and extra storage could be regained with generous bedside drawers for master and guest room, ceiling height biw and out of season storage in a blanket box at the end of the master bed.. a small sofa bed works better in the study than the built in bed and makes the space more usable as a parent retreat with desk, wall cabinets and shelving and hinged doors should all have towel rails and clothes racks ..a few coat hangers hung on the back of a door make a good overnight "wardrobe"...the downstairs floor plan looks excellent...only other suggestion is to have an open railing at the top of the stairs to brighten the small landing

Here is an internal view of the area I’m brainstorming ideas for. Ideas I’ve considered are: 1. Gutting and using the exisiting rooms for storage - cheapest option but seems a waste (we have heaps of storage). 2. Removing the rooms and creating an open study area with built in desks. But as it’s open to below (kitchen, dining, living) it’s noisy. 3. Doing a row of bookshelves all the full wall with a couple of indented window bench seats and some secret storage behind the bookshelves. This could be the most aesthetically appealing but also the most $$$$ 4