Changing flooring in open plan is always a difficult challenge and the light carpet is the bigger problem because of the contrast cutting up the pure Scandi vibe. Pure white kitchens are always cool looking I think you have 3 kids and your kitchen will warm up when you get the coffee machine, kettle, chopping boards wooden looking accessories in there and on the bench topwith a couple of green plants, fake or not. Take a trip to Ikea or browse their catalogue and website - their stylists are a great inspiration. You don't have to get your stuff from there but they are very clever at layering. When we go we always take a camera for those little touches which makes scandi look so clean and fresh. Invariably when I get home I have something similar I can repurpose. Dump the office vertical blinds I agree! they have to be the ugliest thing ever invented. If privacy is not an issue leave the window bare. And what's with the 1980s old fashioned security screen across the kitchen window? No Scandi ever had wiggly diamond flyscreens! Loose that too. Whoops that sounds a bit harsh :-) Funny thing about living somewhere is - after a few weeks you won't even notice, I have lived with the same damask wallpaper in the hallway for the last 30 years - its back in fashion again. I spend all of 10 seconds walking down that hallway, I think everything gets a bit precious when it comes to picking things all at once, better to let the space evolve as you live in it.

Hi Kel. Whilst I agree with the above, a few of your items in the list would not require a builder and you would be paying extra simply because someone else is insuring and supervising the installation for you eg flooring can be done direct with a flooring company at the end. Re build vs demolish, if you buy in Mullaloo there is a retained value in the existing house that you would be throwing away by demolishing ie to replace the existing house back to existing size (although your own configuration) using up part of your budget vs applying that to just modifying the existing home. The major costs in renovations in Perth (being double brick/concrete slab) are the relocation of services such as plumbing / wastes etc that typically are required when eg a bathroom is reconfigured or kitchen relocated and the finishes of those rooms eg cabinetry, benchtops, tiles etc. They will be a large amount but again are also part of the cost of a new build. For mine, renovating is giving new life to a tired home and is nearly always enthusiastically accepted by Councils and neighbours when planning. Changing a facade to a house in Mullaloo is generally quite straight forward but keep in mind existing houses there usually have quite low eaves/roof lines. It depends on the house as to the options eg additional roof structure to raise visual height / modifications / garage location etc. Re the costs, it will completely depend on the house, what style and level of finish you want it to be when finished (we've had people spend $2,400 on a shower mixer), the extent of the changes and how much time you have to arrange things eg flooring. Good luck!

@Dee painted fly screen door up now. Still haven't painted concrete stairs and verandah.

Secondly is daughters bedroom, we have a now tween that was most unimpressed that we bought a disgusting house 4 years ago, that we said we'd fix, which we did and promptly left it. Her main brief for us when house hunting was that we wouldn't renovate...however unfortunately it hasn't quite turned out that way. One of our promises to her is that her room is first. This is what we're working with. We're going to keep the built in study nook concept, she's asking for tropical wallpaper behind it, trying to decide if I think we should paint the rest of the room all white, or do a green feature wall to match in with the tropical wall paper in the study nook and the remainder walls white. Window treatments...I don't like curtains that finish at the sill height, so in this room I'm thinking maybe roller blinds, or roman blinds...but would appreciate any input. Problem is once I decide on something I get a bit funny about what goes everywhere else. So if this room gets roller blinds, I feel like that means all the bedrooms should have them for consistency. This is the other view of her room. The whole house has the timber veneer 70s/80s doors in every built in cupboard as well as on the doorways. Hubby wants to keep them...I'm less enthused, and thinking now to keep one or the other, ie replace all the entry doors to update them and leave the timber veneer on the wardrobes, or flip that and go for updated wardrobe doors and leave the veneers on all the entrances. Those hardwoods you can see in the hallway will run throughout the top floor, eventually we'll remove all the carpet and sand and finish the floors, but for now the carpet that is there isn't that old and can stay put.