Mark, to answer your original question. We are now in our fourth home. We purchased our first home and had a vision. We gutted the kitchens and bathrooms ourselves and got the professionals in to do electrical, plumbing, and tiling. We received three quotes from builders and employed one to knock down walls internally and external walls. We then arranged for ceiling company plasterers to make it nice again, kitchen company to install kitchen. This was before our children were born so had more time and didn’t matter how we lived with in the home with tradesman coming and going. Our second home was more cosmetic, our third home was again gutting and modernising home. Our children were old enough to help, and was a great family experience of knocking brick walls down and painting their own rooms and helping their father lift floor tiles. Our fourth home was a home designed by ourselves and built by a reputable builder. It was nice to move into a brand new home and relax. In summary, depending on what changes you are making, that will dictate the type of professional needed to employ. Builder and structural engineer advice, high on the priority to get things right first. You know your own limitations, so this will also become part of the decision in our much you do yourself and how much you leave to the professionals. Your home looks like there is maybe asbestos amongst the build, so this is important to get a remediation company employed to check out the home. If you go down the route of employing a builder to do the work, they should take care of organising those inspections. A builder can organise everything for you and you just pay the bills. Have fun and enjoy the process, which ever way you choose to get to the final wonderful vision.

i would be reluctant to make any major changes until you're ready to consider an extension to take best advantage of the great northern views towards your proposed new back gardens so my first suggestion is to check true dimensions of every room including bath, toilet and laundry and then make an accurate site plan with specific location of house, existing driveways, shed and any trees you want to keep and then check with council to find out if its possible to build a new garage in the front yard (or on the boundary as the old garage appear to be located)...an accurate site plan will allow you to begin planning future renovations and gardens and unless the old garage is beyond repair, subject to council approval, why not consider adding a new garage in the front yard and renovating the old garage to use as a shade house and garden workshop ...short term my suggestions include a new entry foyer, home office and pantry.. stage 2 has a new kitchen family and master suite and repurpose existing rooms (with the old kitchen post relocated into the new doorway between entry foyer and lounge) and stage 3 would include a new garage at the south west corner of the block and best location of alfresco will depend on your choice of location of garage and extensions but a covered space between old garage (new garden room?) and new kitchen could be worthwhile...

We wanted to future proof our house too and these are some of the tools we used. Hope they help. We made it very clear when speaking / contacting those listed below that we were just trying to plan, and didn’t require anything. We found that generally everyone was very supportive and we didn’t, nor were we pressured to, buy anything at this stage. It was all just a bit of prep work and, primarily, for design ideas There are both commercial and government funded suppliers of disability aids. Visit their showrooms and make an appt with one of their consultants. In addition to aids, they’ll have brochures galore and will know some of the “tricks and pitfalls” when designing your room. Choose a service that specialises in this area as they tend to have a more umbrella approach, than a retail only outlet The myagedcare.gov.au website is also helpful, particularly the links to providers, many of whom are willing to advise those considering future needs. Your local council may also have an advisor. We also spoke to someone from the local builders association at a home building expo. His advice was invaluable (type in disability on the HIA website to start). They can also recommend a builder who does a lot of work in this area Visit a Hafele showroom. While you might not need any of there products, it’ll open your mind to what’s available. And their business model encourages researching not just buying. Take note of where studs are, and if walls are taken back, consider adding additional struts for future handrails and grab rails. Pay particular attention to entrance corners, too sharp a turn can be an issue even if the widths are compliant. Also ask flooring suppliers about slipperiness and check vanities and fixtures for sharp edges, ease of access and fiddliness of handles etc. Fiddliness isn’t a word, I know, but it should be 😉 Google is your friend. There is a lot of useful advice, some more and some less relevant, but much which will help you hone your thinking.

Which way does it face? Is it comfortable, too hot, too much glare, too windy, not enough privacy from neighbours? What do you want to use it for? How much do you want to spend, complete remodel or just adding some bits and pieces to make it look more inviting? What condition is the existing flooring in, does it need repling or do you just not like the colour? Can you add some pictures from other angles, and a sketch plan? Oh, you already have ideas of what you like. So maybe the question is 'how can I make my patio look more in the style of these?' https://www.houzz.com.au/ideabooks/166473033/list/ujjwala-s-ideas