Your house is going to be amazing. Such wide spaces, including in the master bedroom. Can i ask where north is?

cyjxo then I'd reorientate the house..your alfresco area is to the South which means your living areas ..kitchen will be dark..

also personally I'd combine the store and laundry..get rid of that WIR that's jutting out to give clean lines to the living area rather than a rabbit warren..

Living areas should ideally have north orientation ..you can get away with it by having alfresco area just behind the garage etc..

your kitchen and windows to your living area = West which will give you the afternoon sun..glares

orientate the alfresco area behind the garage..then doors of living area/kitchen opening to the alfresco area..

that way you'd get light into your living area..

then anything that doesn't need light to the south/store/pantry/laundry/bedroom etc

I would run the laundry the other way so it goes over the current storage area and runs straight into the walk in pantry and have direct access from your garage into your laundry. Makes it easier when dragging groceries and stuff from the car into the house. Then where you have the current entry from the garage into the laundry, make that into the storage cupboard. I'd also take the jut out of the right side of the house if you are able to.

Great design and it flows really well. My only suggestion is substituting the smaller walk-in robe for a study. Do you really need all that wardrobe space? If you get the WIR professionally designed you can really utilise the space better. All the best with the build.

How exciting! The only thing I would add is possibly considering the placement of bedrooms in the home for the future in mind (children). Two things to keep in mind - having bedrooms off living/lounge rooms can present noice issues so a hallway or something that can block noice for sleeping children would be ideal and also to have at least one bedroom (a nursery) in close proximity to your bedroom so that you are not having to hike back and forth up the house to tend to young children (and so you don't have 3 baby monitors in your room because there rooms are so far away you can't hear them!)

I also think the WIR that is cutting into the hallway is a bit excessive and could go for a more open space and better flow. Good luck.

I cannot suggest strongly enough that you engage an architect or competent building designer; not a drafty as they only draw what you tell them to. Without a site and/or context plan, it is difficult to provide any proper feedback on the layout; but I feel that each space is being treated individually rather than being part of an overall cohesive design.

Is the site flat? Do you have an opportunity for views? Are there overshadowing or privacy concerns to or from your neighbors?

Creating good spaces with access to natural light is vital to creating a enjoyable home. Having your front boundary facing north is a challenge, but there are creative ways of achieving great results.

Your location should also play a part in the construction methods of your home. Where are you located?

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your suggestions, we will take them into consideration and make some changes to the floor plan.

This floor plan was drawn by an architect.

We are located in SA, the site is on a suburban street and doesn't have much in terms of views. Surrounding houses are all single storey houses so there aren't any overshadowing issues or privacy issues.

Once again, thanks for the advice!

Good luck with your new house. I would strongly recommend researching solar passiveness as it appears this has not been taken into design. This website might be a good start : http://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design

In the family bathroom swap the bath and vanity over - the bath should go under the window because you need a mirror above the vanity, which you currently cant have, as there is a window there.

Also agree with shifting the laundry so that it runs vertically not horizontally and you have access straight from the garage through the laundry to a butlers pantry and kitchen rather than having to walk around the hallways with shopping bags etc. Shift the store room to where the garage entry/cupboard is now.

Make sure your fridge is accessible from the kitchen not the pantry as its the most used appliance in the kitchen, you dont really want it in another room. I'd change the swing door to the pantry to a sliding pocket door, it will give you more room when in the pantry.

I think there's an underlying issue here that isn't being confronted. Unless you've got megabucks or you live out in the country with a few acres, you're going to end up with a block/house which doesn't have ideal orientation. A lot of people, ourselves included, bought a slice of land where the garage gets the best aspect. We trade that off for proximity to services, shops, and the rest of it.

It's all very well to talk about how a house should be designed for views, cross breezes, orientation to sun, etc, but a lot of that has to go by the wayside if you need a place close into town, and you're looking at a brownfield site being redeveloped. You buy for the location, not the orientation. The house might be facing north, and the garage has to do so because that's where the road is, and there's no other option. So, what then?

The question is to make a liveable house out of a less than desirable orientation, with areas that don't get enough light and others that get too much. I'd love to see a long article on Houzz about this, because it's a reality for a lot of us.

What I do know, from our last 9 months living in a house with the wrong orientation but the right location, is that there are things that work around some of the problems. Skylights are one, shade sails another. Good insulation is of course imperative as well. Our house isn't perfect, but ultimately, we'll put up with a bit too much of the western sun at certain times of year because we want to/need to live in this location ( walking distance to shops, cafes, medical clinics, dentists, vets, and three private hospitals).

I'm off topic, but it's an issue I feel strongly about: making good design work in less than optimal circumstances. The house the OP is planning is just such an example. I don't think it's quite right and I do think more thought has to go into where the smaller bedrooms and kitchen are located, but if the OPs block is as small as ours, there aren't too many alternatives. And that's reality, so how do we best deal with it? I'd like to see a bit more of that on Houzz.

Good evening, just thought a blog post we wrote a while ago may be worth your while to read too - it's about home renovations but the questions it raises will be equally applicable to someone building from scratch. Good luck with your new home!

Planning-a-home-renovation

I can't agree more strongly with MB and Brendan. While the actual layout of the floor plan may appeal to you now there are some flaws in its relationship to free solar heating and daylight that you will live with for years. Ask your architect to provide some advice on daylight to the living spaces and the predicted internal temperatures at various times of the year along with approximate heating and cooling costs.

This is the cheapest and easiest time to make changes.

Good luck

Couldn't help myself, had to put my 5c worth in.

Now that we know the alfresco/bedrooms are facing south, I'd swap the family bathroom and loo with the bedrooms 9so they get morning sun). I'd put in a cavity slider between bedroom hall and living. I'd take out the 2nd WIR and flip the kitchen/pantry onto the hallway wall, leaving that great west wall (afternoon sun) for dining, living etc.

You're probably over all the comments, but would love to know what you ended up with.