Michelle, I'm not a builder but am building with hubby, a single storey limestone home. Our daughter built a two storey limestone home just down the road, that hubby also built for her and the extra foundations she had to install would be at least twice more than we have for our single storey, not to mention that there were allot of short walled founds leading off the perimeter of her home to assist in less likelihood of wall roll out and the inspector called it. Cost for you, will depend on whether you have adequate foundations to carry a second storey and usually that is never the case. All the lower walls will need double the support and it usually has to carry on down to the foundations, depending on whether you have a solid concrete slab or concrete stumps that are accessible. This would mean most of the plaster being removed and hoping that you find no nasty surprises as far as the condition of the existing frame in the home, the builder would as I mentioned, have to add structural supports to carry the second storey. Most often, second stories are built with a hardiplank type exterior and certainly not brickwork as you would then difinitely have to have extra foundations in for such a reno and you would have to start asking yourself if it isn't better to demolish as this type of reno can be extremely costly. You might be lucky but probably highly unlikely, to have adequate structional integrity to be able to add a second storey, without everything I have mentioned to be skipped in any way. I hazzard a guess that such a reno would cost you $250,000+ and maybe more. Would love to know what you finally decide to do and your builders estimate. Good luck. Cheers, Barbara

I've just been looking at your colours, I think the Dulux Dieskau would work the best with the other colours you have to work with, choosing colours is such a personal thing and I know it can be really hard to choose and hope you make the correct choice. Oskuee is right, a paint job can look terrible half way through so you need to make sure you finish to get the proper look of colour. But the biggest thing to remember is it's only paint and it's the cheapest thing to change so if your not happy with the colour you choose you can always try something else. Happy redecorating :)

If there is a storage cupboard underneath the stairs, then I think its best to let go of the open risers. At the end of the day when it comes to stairs, I think you need to make simple decisions, don't complicate it. Sometimes spaces fuss over stairs and they can look great, but they are very impractical, expensive and dangerous. I think if you live in a house with no kids and no elderly, then you can lash out and go for something with more design risk. I think the timber stair profile shown in your picture looks great, and would work well with your vertical timber beam balustrade. However timber stairs can be noisy and quite slippery. If you are using carpet upstairs then you could consider running carpet all the way down the stairs. Don't do the half half thing. In order to finish the edge of the stairs neatly, I would edge the stairs with the plaster finish continuing from the cupboard wall, all the way up to the edge of the stairs and making an edge profile for the carpet to be neatly tucked into. By doing this you could still get the stepping silhouette which would look very cool. Then the beams could run off the plaster surface and not the edge of the carpet. Ultimately carpet may be annoying to have to vacuum, but it is a lot quieter, considerably cheaper and safer than timber stairs. Hope that helps. Good luck with it.

Keep it simple if you are keeping the carpet in the dining and sunken lounge, you would just have to shampoo the carpet under the dining when it gets grubby. If your carpet is in good condition you could Keep the carpet in the sunken lounge, tile the rest. Take up the carpet in both areas and tile. Then have two large carpet rugs made from the old carpet for under the dining and in the lounge. cheers