We have a similar home in a sydney beach suburb. We are in a different position where we have bought ours as a downsized but are just about to restore the old 50s beauty to its former self. We have quotes of around $400000 to gut and change the floor plan which includes 2 bathrooms and a new kitchen and also add internal stairs to the garage and a large deck off the back, lift some ceilings and replace gutters, eaves ect ect ect. Attached are my inspiration boards and what the house looks like now, hopefully in about 4 months I can update you.

Louise, sorry but u are messing with a good design - have a read of the design notes at yourhome.gov.au. The design is a 7star design including reverse brick veneer (fancy term for bricks on the inside..thermal storage), the roof line is changed - have a look at the high up windows which provide light and warmth, the bedrooms are now at the back of the building (cold and darker). the whole design is now changed, airflow is affected as is the wonderful views that the building would have from each room (except the media room - and who cares with that anyway?) Also I am proposing a double garage/carport with a nice breezeway to connect the house. Also the study is now gone! As I suggested above, the trees on the east may have to make way for the home, but in the long run they can be restablished, and the garden modified to suit the contours of the land, and the look of the new building.

Hi Ellen We had exactly the same problem with our renovation. An old kitchen was behind a wall. The wall was not structural so it could either be removed entirely for an island bench or as we did, cut down to 1.2m high which provided both a servery shelf plus a visual block to the messy kitchen from the dining area. The existing wall allowed us to include electrics for existing light switches, powerpoint and ceiling fans on the end. We left the sink where it was to save on plumbing but got rid of the cooktop bench at the end which always results in unusable corners. The whole kitchen cabinetry and appliances are from IKEA. To keep the look completely open we put the fridge against the wall opposite and included a new IKEA shelf unit with drawers and baskets for our pantry - miles of extra storage.

i thought about a laundry chute but it's much too big and with the enlargement of the garage the laundry chute now doesn't line up as before and your washing would fall into the garage.....and, if you plan to use the guest bathroom from the pool, i think you need a wider distance between the pool and the fence as i understand that you can have only one gate into the pool area and i expect that will need to be on the alfresco side and you'll need an extra pool fence parallel to the boundary??...but how do you feel about mu suggestions for changes to the pantry and kitchen (nb enlarging the garage makes it too narrow for the previous laundry and pantry arrangement and you either lose the extra counter from the pantry or the wall of storage in the laundry but can't keep both without taking more space off the kitchen, dining or living areas... can you add dimensions for all the rooms and distances from house to the boundaries