Hi Sarah, I completely sympathise with your situation and very sorry to hear about it for you. You're in a complete mess with this. As a Pro it's super frustrating to look on and hear of these stories because 100% this is so easily avoided with the right approach and astute investment in using a competent design professional. I've lost count of the number of times I've had people eventually come to find us, but in a bit of state/heads done in/in a shemozzle of a situation, after spending time/(sometimes years) and money getting nowhere, being disappointed with higher than expected quotes etc yet still pretty much back exactly where they begun with no logical plan forward.........sound familiar? The common thread is lack of alignment or management of expectations of Project budget to Project brief relationship. And that's why we have a job as professional designers - we develop solutions for specific needs, balanced within context and balanced within constraints, the biggest one always being budget. You just can't bypass this process and expect to get good results. And you won't achieve it effectively on a Houzz forum. Hopefully though a few of our Pro responses will help steer you in the right direction. Unfortunately people think it's a good way to save money on their projects to not pay for design - it's actually quite the opposite. There's no easy answer here of say "move the kitchen there, flip that over, change this or that" etc unfortunately you're back to the drawing board....and you're best to accept the time and money put in so far is actually part of the process and your particular journey. This reminds me of a project years back where clients came in asking me to tweak and draw up a design that someone else had done - they already spent $40K and had a planning permit for it but there were big budget problems - it was clearly/unfortunately a poor & inefficiently resolved design beyond budget (similar to yours) & I could visualise a much better alternative solution. So I convinced them to move on, toss it all away and we go back to the drawing board - I'd redesign it from scratch much better and better value/cost effective overall - they reluctantly agreed and that's exactly what I did. Fortunately they did themselves a favour knowing deep down that they had to go backwards to go forwards. I designed and delivered a far better, less expensive and more impressive home. that they are eternally grateful for, and for my honesty and advice at the time that was ultimately in their best interests. Like always, with all projects, it ALWAYS comes down to money.........so their success relies predominantly in the design solution..... I'll try and keep it simple: 1. Design is a process of balancing requirements within context within constraint/limits 2. Good design decisions involve having understanding of cost/budget consequences 3. the above points are primarily what distinguishes design professionals from amateurs 4. It's therefore false economy trying to DIY design and/or pursue projects of this scale as Owner Builder unless you (a) have a passive income (b) significant construction experience (c) a flexible budget and are just in it for a hit & a giggle So our Advice: Seek Professional Design assistance How we manage these types of projects is by starting with clarifying the project brief in writing - forget about the floor plan - define and specify your brief requirements and goals and define the budget. The next step is to look at broad form options that we develop in a "Feasibility' stage of service in which we analyse the context, identify some logical options/variations of format for a nominated project scope relative to context and apply accurate construction cost projects to each to compare. So in your case we'd be looking at answering the critical questions of in what particular format can we best meet the requirements? Is it with an extension, or hybrid alterations&additions, do we go up, down or out, what are the cost differences and pro's and cons to the different configuration options, how much should we renovate, how does the investment one way or the other stack up in regards to property value? Is it actually better value to do more than less (more often yes!) Is staging/breaking up a project into parts beneficial or proven to be less cost effective? So many questions that need professional assistance and experience to answer to get the best outcome for you and your family. It's not easy business........Labour cost these days is the killer on renos - if you don't know what you're doing (ie understanding how certain design decisions translate to X cost) then you've got no hope in balancing the numbers to success................ Apologies for the long winded response! Hope this helps Sarah. Trust us, we know what we're talking about. Happy to provide further advice/assistance if you'd like to contact us directly Kind regards, Paul Di Stefano Paul Di Stefano Design www.pauldistefanodesign.com

Thanks for the feedback everyone. The idea behind having the study and TV room next to the bedrooms was that so the parents could have our own space to work and our daughter will have her own play space, ideally that's where she'll be spending time with her friends etc and eventually can be used for a study (she's only 5 now) Agree that having the bathroom off the living room isn't ideal, one idea we've had suggested is to indent the room more so at least it's not as obvious. We've relocated the plumbing as we'll just be knocking down the back half of the house from where the dining room ends. Moving this to the other side allows us to open up the space more so we can look straight out to the deck and backyard from our living/dining space. The picture below covers current layout with rough dimensions. The front of the house faces north west.

OK, a few issue here. General comment : It could be heaps better - there's nothing much exciting here. What do you see when you walk in the front door? The back of the garage door beyond the window. There is a disconnect of flow from the kitchen and the living/dining zone. To start with The plan is missing furniture (big designer fail). You'll see once that is put in whether it's working appropriately for what you want or not. I'd guess if you got a lounge onto the plan immediately you'd see that you'd be squeezed walking into the end of it trying to access the dining table and depending on the dining table proportion's likely that area is squeezed. The relationship between the dining and kitchen area could be improved. I'd suggest there is an alternative that avoids such an exaggerated doglegged end to the space that renders some precious unusable outdoor space and is a clunky resolution. You'd be better off building hard up to the end and enlarging the main outdoor areas so it's a single space, or potentially getting some external storage into it. The living/kitchen dining could be a lot cleaner and more spacious feeling. Would be good to understand where north is. On something like this you're better to exploit the site length rather than try and compromise the width. If north is up the page my instinct would be to flip the whole thing entirely having the kitchen running along the south. Also for a house this smallish scale arguably it would be more efficient to combine pantry and laundry for a more spacious outcome. Also I'd suggest that the outdoor kitchen is oversized and out of proportion for the site. It's always about balancing and prioritising elements, and in tight sites you have to work harder and make robust decisions about where you give & take. You can't afford to waste a square inch here, and if you want it to be awesome the design needs to be super efficient and to achieve a reasonable amenity that doesn't feel squeezed in the main spaces. It takes experience and skill to get this stuff right. Sorry if am seeming overly critical, but when engaged in resolving spaces for people I consider it a responsibility as a professional to ensure a client gets the absolute most out of the opportunity. There is so much underwhelming "vanilla" design work that people pay good money for, thinking that it's "good" when they are no idea how much better it can be. It doesn't have to necessarily be more expensive, but it does have to be throughly considered and properly managed, and opportunities identified and harnessed. Typically this involves considering a number of various broad options and then fine-tuning towards an outcome that is properly aligned to budget and project brief. Budget of course is the biggest factor to get a proper handle of, think here at least $500K+. If that's pushing it, then you'll have some hard decisions to make and need to be consolidating the extent of the expensive fit-out areas in conjunction with a more efficient design that achieves something in a smaller extension......if that's so then possibly one of the front rooms may have to be repurposed for bathroom.......again this comes back to starting the process by considering various options in broad form together with properly applied costings to each option so you can be making informed decisions on what's possible, rather than nitpicking detail on options that are likely beyond budget. Hope this provides some food for thought from a professional perspective Good luck with it PD :) www.pauldistefanodesign.com

i'm not convinced that the arrangement of the new stairs will fit properly and, assuming that the original ceilings are higher than 2400, a straight flight should fit better, be more comfortable to use and include a generous storage area for the laundry and more comfortable guest bathroom... swapping the upstairs bathroom allows for more economical plumbing, more space for a small lounge overlooking the rear garden and there's a northern window for bed 3 and a more private entry for beds 2 and 3 allows more wall space for the lounge and bigger linen storage and there's more space for the ens and wiw with extra windows for better ventilation and maybe consider a French balcony for the master.. there should be plenty of space for a separate kitchen island about 3m x 750-900 depending on how big a dining table and sideboard you prefer and suggest the western windows in the family dining area to be splashback sized ie about 90 cms off the floor and only 60cms high to allow for views of the garden wall without restricting furniture placement and i would be tempted to save one or more of the windows and expose the bricks in the old rear wall to light under the stairs and new laundry, create display alcoves backed with frosted glass? and/or retain more of the history of the house but it would probably be easier to just cover the whole wall with plasterboard and also check out Solar Skylights for excellent economical extra day lighting for downstairs windowless rooms (eg Arcol and/or Illume brands) and a closeable door between new and old parts of the house can improve zoning for heating and/or air conditioning