Oooooh lovely to see such great work in my neck of the woods. Pity City of Bayswater doesn't do heritage awards you guys deserve one.

The good kind of mad! (Most) old houses ooze character, warmth and heart as much as new ones do chemicals and cheap fittings. I am a housebody, and love being in my house - I spend my money on it, instead of out clubbing and yes, there are always unexpected costs (new hot water service, leaking toilet...), but if you were renting you would have nothing of your own at the end anyway. Three years ago I bought my first house, a fairly original sandstone 98 year old lady in need of some TLC. No builder's reports in this little town, but then she cost me less than a landcruiser... Things I planned to do, but took forever because of rusting nails, old sizing, old quality workmanship include painting the whole thing, top to bottom, pulling up axminster carpet and getting the floors polished, putting fans and air conditioning in. Things I was hoping to avoid for a few more years but can't, include replacing the original roof, swapping the three-cupboard sleepout kitchen with a bedroom, redoing the bathroom, complete with new plumbing and actual drainage to the septic pit (which I had to have fixed a bit), and then I think the best option for the back room and laundry is just to rebuild them....But I don't regret this house, or the journey it's taken me on. Even if it has turned out to be a much more expensive journey than I thought! With time and google, you can do a lot yourself. Before I moved back three years ago I had always been n provided accommodation, so had never used a drill and only changed a couple of light globes, but now... I took a chimney and fireplace down on my own, then re-pointed the stone and put in a ceiling panel to close it up. I have painted, put up shelves, taken down cupboards that were built into walls, patched cracks, filled gaps, pried off skirting boards, and generally turned it into a home. For the more major stuff, like putting a doorway through a foot thick stone wall and rewiring an original bedroom to house a modern kitchen, I am getting the professionals in. good luck!

Hi Andreanne, A great opportunity and substantial project here for you! Our advice in these situations is to consider the whole residence, rather than just focus on the extension. Rather than look at it as "an extension to add 2 bedroom etc...." you need to be looking at it firstly as a project that you have (a) a budget of $X (b) existing conditions & context (ie the current house and available site and (c) the overall and specific "brief" requirements of the home/end outcome, for example 4 bed, 3 bath 2 living areas, garage etc....... What this does is then bring into consideration of how best to manage an expansion/extension/renovation scenario to maximise the opportunity available for the complete residence. Such critical design decisions ultimately always come down to money and budget limits and you need to understand this in various ways before starting to make decisions on where you put things and whether you can configure, renovate or extend one way of the other. You mentioned the kitchen and "waiting", however considering your brief and scale, of the home it may make more sense to convert the kitchen into a bedroom or a play area and create and updated living/kitchen dining in an extended space.......always various options and it comes down to balancing various aspects with understanding practicalities, priorities, value and costs. I'd encourage you to seek professional design assistance with this at this point in the process, as from experience, we are best equipped to assist with resolving these design dilemmas. Hope this is considered helpful Cheers PD :)

my suggestions includes cleaning all the brick walls and paving and repair any damaged pointing and grout, extending the roof sideways over a new garage without the Dutch gable, clean and paint the roof tiles in a mid colour or consider replacing tiles with Colorbond Steel for a more long lasting fix and opportunity to upgrade roof insulation, replace gutters in a dark colour and downpipes to match the brick colour, replace the steel fence with simple horizontal rails (and/or raise a solid brick fence to maximum height and render in the darkest fence colour) add Plantation shutters or venetians to allow light inside while retaining privacy and use Kate's idea of the pergola across the rear, add generous outdoor furniture to make an outdoor entertaining area, paint the garden retaining walls and fences in a darker version of the new gutter colour and fill the garden beds with shrubs to block out fences and neighbouring houses, keep the big palms and add some big shrubs and more palms to the front yard and paint the front door in the darkest version of the new gutter colour and what are the flat panels on the outside rear wall??