Id have Raised planter boxes put in around the outside of our yard so my mother in-law doesn't have to spend hours on the ground with a bad back to do the gardening!..

@midesign0401, Hi Megan, yes it is heaven, I take a look at it all and sigh in happiness!!! As for the house, there's a bit of money to go ahead but this is now our busy time of the year, as we are hay contractors spending many many hours in tractors. However, I intend to get onto the next job ASAP which is laying the sill tiles around the veranda. It's a bit of an old fashioned look but these tiles will protect our limestone bricks from water stain when it's raining constantly in winter. The water will run off the sill tile and drop just a little shy of the bricks. Limestone is not only rough in our case but very porous and we also plan to have these tiles on all the window sills too, like the old tan brick houses from the 50's and the chocolate brown sill they had on their windows,only ours are cream not chocolate. It will be easy to wipe the sills from time to time and keep the house neat and clean. Once these tiles ar in place, 80mtrs of tiles, then we can concrete the veranda and then the roof iron can go on hopefully before Christmas. We have all the bricks for the home but need to find another $16,000 for all the rest of the windows. We are only using our own income, not borrowing at all so we have to do a budget and see if we can allow the money for the windows as the income we earn from Sept to Dec, is about 90% of our income for the entire year. It's taken 7 years now to get to this point having spent more that $80,000 already as I'm keeping a diary of spending. Goodness knows how much a 30+ square home with pool would cost if we had to pay a builder!!! We are owner builders and we've done everything ourselves including digging all the foundation and laying over 5000 standard bricks and digging the hole for the pool and fitting the pool including all the plumbing. We put in all the concrete stumps, layed the floor and fitted all the underfloor plumbing with a plumber friend guiding us along. We also put up all the framing and roof trusses, so we are absolutely chuffed with our abilities and progress.

Oh C'mon V Richards...every epoch has its treasures. B4 you make a mad run for it stop a while and consider the period and the reasons for the style...it can be extremely enlightening....unless its not the period you want to escape from but from some of the opinions. I spent many years of my youth outside of Australia living surrounded by old ruins in Europe. I forgot what it was like here. When finally I returned to Australia and found myself living in some of the 60s and 70s places..I found much to admire and wonder about. I may not have fallen in love with much of it but there was a certain mistique and a feel that I can still conjure when talking about certain places. Not saying that it was all romantic and pleasant but it conveyed something of the era and the kind of Aussie from those days.

Like others here, at first glance I assumed the view of the water was to the east, but then realised from the sun diagram that north is up the page, so I'm guessing this might be in Bundeena? I agree with most of the other suggestions and have a few of my own as well, will summarise here: - the pitched roof dominates too much, I would suggest the new master bedroom suite has a flat room, similar to the new entry; - the garage is too small and can easily be larger, especially wider and the stair could go down the side instead of at the end; - the foyer/entry is too small for a luxury property, really just a stair landing. I suggest widening it to the line of the new bedroom, and also pulling the entry doors out further to give more space there; - car turning space is questionable. Maybe the external stair could flip over to the other side of the entry to give better reversing room, if it is needed at all (3 stairs???); - give more space to the ensuite, less to the walk-in-robe; - give more space to study, taken from bed room; - angled wall (in line with deck edge) in bedroom instead of re-entrant corner would make it more spacious and allow the bed to move forward with better access; - door to laundry from pantry instead of bath room.