Interesting house. You appear to have good western shade with trees in the front garden - do you plan to keep that? And your kitchen should get decent light/warmth in winter, because it faces north. Can you capitalise on that with bigger windows on that side, without compromising privacy for you and your neighbour? The back area won't get much sun in winter but will be a lovely retreat from the afternoon heat in summer. Can you open up access to the lounge room and kitchen to enjoy that more? Ditching the separate laundry and building it into the kitchen area would improve outlook and year round air flow. It would also give you more room in the kitchen/dining area to include a study nook. I realise you might have difficulty with a high number of windows and doors in the lounge, but that high window on the back wall of the lounge room seems to rob you of a lot of good things and offer very little. Removing the wall between the lounge and kitchen and putting in a U shaped kitchen would offer an interesting, open space. Harder to heat in winter (because you can't close off separate rooms) but more able to take advantage of the cooler air from the rear in summer and the northern sun and heat in winter. The study seems the obvious space for a main bedroom with a small ensuite and WIR, but it's not great to have it coming off the dining room. Without an addition I don't know what else you could do. I suggest you reduce your front entries to one very inviting one - at present you have one into the kitchen and one into the lounge. Unless you want to do something like put in bifolds or stacking doors to allow you to open up the house to the courtyard, I'd stick with one lovely (timber or a bright colour) door into the lounge and replace other doors with big windows (or glass doors that obviously aren't your front door). If you open up the kitchen and lounge by removing that joining wall, it will particularly need you to have one entry focus. Also allows you to have a lovely pathway through the courtyard to the door. Given the age of the house it is unlikely to have decent insulation - and hard to install in a flat roofed house. Might be worth replacing ceilings and inserting insulation as you do. Windows will almost certainly be only 3mm glass - consider putting in thicker glass in new windows as this can really improve temperature control (or very good floor to ceiling curtains). Good luck with this. Great project.

Thank you for these colours Lesley! I MUST put a verandah though - the front garden is heavenly - 9 metres to the front with roses and fruit trees (though it looks rough here) and is high up opposite a park for a view. I plan to play guitar here of an evening and add more white, blue & purple flowers to the middle and a pergola with climbing roses for a Moon Garden.

Our house is similar, but we are empty nesters and down sized about 4 years ago, our needs would be a bit different to a growing family, we are currently in the throes of having two smaller rooms made into one area to further open up a previous renovation to give us a bigger open space..we also have an ensuite and a combined laundry / second laundry space. The good thing is that being a brick veneer house the reconfiguring is relatively easy with modern technology and big beams. As above try and have a big open space, we have been out of our home for a month now and still a way to go, add living away from home to your budget or stay with family. I will try and post the plan but here are a couple of journey pics ..the last photo was before trying to show how the two rooms decided the space making the living room very small and a bit dark...the aim of this project is to have space for a bigger gathering than about 4 people before overcrowded. Light is really important, nice big windows essential, the darkness of the living I thought I could live with, but it did get me down, I a, looking forward to having a much lighter space

I had 3 female joeys and two bedrooms which led to constant 2 -v- 1 situations so nights were generally a game of musical beds. There was always one child who needed time out or was given time out. When we added the extra bedroom, the serenity was bliss. They could still share when they wanted but it was all up to them, it was not forced on them so relationships definitely improved after that. I think the age of the children and the age difference is a very important aspect. Younger children are more than happy to share for the security and comfort when the lights go out. Older children need their space and privacy especially for study. Children after puberty can get extremely sensitive about their bodies and need privacy more than ever in this adjustment period. You cannot expect to put say an 8 year old with a 3 year old - by 8 kids are usually developing attachments to "special" keepsakes, something 3 year olds don't understand and this can cause a lot of resentment when things get broken or trashed. Pre children I always felt them sharing bedrooms would lead to wonderful relationships, the children would learn to share, care and appreciate each other. Now I'm older and wiser, separate bedrooms is sanity for everyone.