Thank you so much for your kind words, everyone. Houzz never ceases to delight, I am so glad I began this renovation even though it was an incredibly stressful journey at the time!! Here are a few more pics taken over the last 2 years.

I think both plans make the stairs too dominant and take away from look of house original stairs actually look better and suit house Will you use decking? Maybe modernise railing and look at door and window treatments

You have a home of character. Currently the whole external picture is unbalanced. Everything on the right is dominant, and falls away almost entirely on the left. From way off left field I would 1. Make the entry to your driveway from the letterbox point. The existing entry point would become garden. 2. This driveway would then curve around to the left and then join the existing driveway up to the garage. 3. I believe that there is too much brick and if finances allowed, would remove the brick driveway and replace with a base and grey gravel aggregate. The grey would have a remarkable softening effect, and would enable all rain that falls on the site to be utilised on site. 4. The area now reclaimed from the start of the existing driveway I would make a garden. This garden, with a tree within, would then balance the whole front picture. 5. I would remove the boxed area and dumpy plant keeping the colours and gravels all the same. 6. Don't use coloured bark - it could have toxins in it, and it looks awful. 7. The row of rocks in front of the house should also go. 8. The garage needs a colour change - the same colour as the brick of the house. This will make the whole front presence appear wider. Your home, as mentioned by others, and repeatedly by me in other posts, should retain the original facade in keeping with the style of home. There is nothing at all wrong with this facade, and it looks like a solid brick home. Cheers Alison

Hi everyone, thank you for your feedback. So we took some measurements and it appears that they really have only just left enough space to fit in the original design with no margin for error. Without being millimetre perfect, which I know is impossible to achieve, if I ask them to rip out the current stairs, I suspect I'll be left with a worse situation and a stair in the hallway. Really very upset with this, I expected a custom designed house to be as designed, otherwise we probably should have just gone with a project home which would have cost a lot less! I was very clear with them about the stairs, absolutely no winders, a flat platform and no where in any plans was there a step in the landing! This whole house was designed around the stairs, which is why I'm so annoyed that it's not correct! With respect to the weird wall in the middle, that will be plastered up and capped to rake up with the stairs. The photo's don't show the large window in the stairwell, and once painted white, it should still be very light and bright. I considered glass, very briefly, I'm not keen on cleaning that and thought I would end up with toy's being posted through a balustrade. The tread will remain oak and the riser will be painted white. Going for a modern Australian coastal, hamptons look, classic but not too traditional. I am going to ask them to address the stair frame and step it down in parallel with the step, as opposed to the angle that is currently there on the mid landing, it just looks really bad when looking up the stairs and the handrail as the kids will need something to hold on to now there is a step in the mid landing. I'll also be asking that the stair frame sit's flush with the nib wall as it rounds the corner in the junction of the two flights. It sticks out a bit too far for my liking at the moment. I really hope they don't get too many other things wrong!