My parents' old house had a wonderful oak front staircase that my six siblings and I used to race up and down, taking them two or three at a time, with only a casual hold on the railing. I don't know how we managed to never slip or fall. Now, the timber backstairs were steep, and had narrow treads and were poorly lit. We NEVER ran up or down them, but held tightly to the railing and hoped to heck we managed to stay upright. As an adult, my previous home had carpeted stairs, which I slipped on (wearing socks) and fell down twice, though thankfully I was closer to the bottom than the top. My current home has timber stairs with three narrow stainless steel runners stood on edge and inset horizontally across the front of each tread (this is supposed to help reduce risk of slips). I doubt I will get over the anxiety of taking another tumble, so I never go down them wearing socks, and if barefoot, I hold onto the railing for dear life and take it nice and slow. So far so good.

Havingfun maybe you could use this... put the hammock on a pulley system as a fun way to raise you up to new heights and down again...could be fun ;))) Here's another view of those stairs...lot's of storage too! But this one is so light weight looking if you find some gossamer wings to float you up there it would be surreal! And heres one for the lovers of all things weird and wonderful! I do love the curves on this one too!

I would not suggest you start cutting and laying the flooring around your appliances, as these do change from time to time and will in most instances not match the footprint of your old items. What do you do then? Rip up all your floating floor and re-do, do a patch job that will look just plain bad or pull up the floor in those areas, maybe lay tiles and keep floating floor to living rooms - too many variables - none of them good ones to have to deal with. Sorry I can't help you with any Canberra trades as I'm in Melbourne. Good luck with the project. Cheers, Michelle

Hi Erin, Some very good points made by everyone. First, I'll start by recommending that your have a read of the government's Your Home website. Tonnes & tonnes of information about designing a comfortable, energy efficient home. I'll link to the orientation section, as that's what I'll discuss, but recommend that you read more. http://yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/orientation A western frontage with no northern neighbour is a great block. This has allowed you to locate the garage on the SW corner, blocking the very hot afternoon summer sun, which is brilliant. But the western facing master bedroom is a major concern. Western sunshine (& eastern to some degree) is very difficult to shade, as eaves are ineffective when the sun is low in the sky. So usually it's a good idea to minimise western windows & place rarely used rooms, like bathrooms, laundries (along with the garage) facing west. But this becomes difficult for west facing houses, as you don't want to negatively effect street appeal. So I'll start by asking, do you envisage using all of your bedrooms, all the time? Or will one or the bedrooms be a guest bedroom, that will be rarely used? If one of the bedrooms is a spare bedroom, is recommend moving it to the front of the house, so that it bares the brunt of the hot afternoon sun. I'd then move the master to the SE corner, so it has an outlook to the backyard. If this can't be done is recommend following the above designs, moving either the ensuite or WIR to the W frontage, while still trying to maintain an attractive western facade. Pity you don't have access from the north. A northern entrance could have limited the length of the hallway, & brightened it up. One option I like a lot for this type of block orientation is designing a split skillion roof, with north facing clerestory (highlight) windows running down the spine of the build. These windows will greatly brighten the hallway, & also the kitchen which will be quite dark otherwise. These high level windows can also be great in summer, purging the house of heat in the evenings & throughout the night. Just make sure they have appropriate eaves, so they receive no sunshine in the warmer months. Next question. You explained a little of what's to your north. But how is the outlook. Generally it is a good idea to face your living areas, & a large portion of your windows north. If you will have a nice outlook to the north you may consider more north facing glazing. Though, do your research, as I'm not too sure of your actual climate, & you wouldn't want to overglaze. Also, orientating your glazing for cooling summer breezes is important, particularly in hot QLD. Which direction do your breezes come from, throughout the year, & throughout the day. I'd recommend finding this out by looking for the local "wind roses" on the BOM, Bureau of Meteorology. That's it for now, phone battery's about to die. Good luck