I'm amazed that this discussion has carried forward for nearly two years! In that time I have moved to another coastal area (cooler climate and better proximity to children) and this time found most of the discussion still rings true. Finding another home here was an incredibly frustrating journey made all the worse by a mad investor rush in the area just when we arrived to start our home search. That search took the best part of six months and in the end there would only be three or four houses to choose from in any week. Result? A rushed purchase, a desperately inadequate building inspection and failure on my part to notice poor bathroom tiling, shortage of closet and storage pace, just how small the lounge room really was, and etc. I disappointed myself because I had let the pressures beat me and now we are trying to resolve all of these issues in a home designed and built by one of this states most respected project home builders 25 years ago. Having now studied the floor plan with more care I realise it was put together (designed) in modular fashion - most bedrooms have similar dimensions and the living areas are all approximately the same size as if the designer simply juggled three boxes of one size and four of another size and then worked out traffic flow. Then he must have thrown them all in the air to see how they would land and that was design number two! And etc and so on. This house aside, we looked at a great many during the six months because we had to broaden our search above and below budget trying to find something. There were massive termite problems, leaky roofs, asbestos galore, gazzumping at every turn, almost all but the most expensive properties suffered at least one substantial fail for the most basic of needs and to top it off the best home in our price range just happened to be built on flood prone land - approved by council who put the flood signs up less than five years earlier. We live and learn. Then there were the real estate agents, but that would take another two years and I doubt the internet has enough free page space available!!! OK, I hear you, they're not ALL bad...

@urj123, Cricky!!! I knew you were going to ask that, after I looked at the sample I had that was full strength ha-ha.....AND I re-read you post and you wrote quite clearly 1/4 strength!!! I will return to the store, AGAIN, ha-ha and ask for 1/4 strength. All jokes aside, I think 1/4 will probably be real nice, as I didn't dislike the full strength but too creamy for the ceiling. My daughter actually painted all her ceilings the same colour as her walls with Hog Bristle but all the experts seem to say that a ceiling should be white or at least traditionally its always been white and I like the look of that too. I won't be back in town until next week but I'll keep in touch when I have the sample in my hand. Hubby and I are hay contractors and are at our most busy time being in tractors for many long hours but we are nearing the end and then I can take a breath and turn my focus back onto the home. Actually have 80mtrs of edging or capping tiles around the veranda to do and then the same amount of concreting to do on the 1.8m wide veranda and then we can get the colourbond roof on the house and during the cooler months, we can start to lay the limestone bricks, so there's plenty to do on the home!!! I have photo's attached in an earlier post. Best get to bed, more hay baling to do tomorrow. Cheers, Barbara

If you need to achieve a home generally along these lines, seriously, don't bother trying to customise some form of layout with a drafty or any form of designer. Practically you have little choice but to try and find something suitable with an off the shelf plans, (or version of) available with one of the volume building companies, some of which can be quite helpful with working through this process, but you have to accept a certain "formula". It's the only way to achieve something of this scale for that type of money. For what it's worth, generally you'll find most draftspeople have no idea about designing to budget - it's not what they do. They are a technical drawing service, nothing more nothing less and unfortunately over the years we've been doing what we do, we've had countless of examples of projects come into the office that have resulted from people trying to get a draftsperson to design something to budget thinking it's a cheaper road, only to be bitterly disappointed once the builder has come in and delivered the bad news, and then they're back to square one & we have to pick up the pieces somehow. This is why it's so important to have a robust discussion about budget limits as the first part of any conversation around a building project, to minimise wasting time and money going down path that will prove to be somewhere down the line unrealistic. Good luck! PD

A round table would look great, oval or oblong would fit nicely also, measure your space carefully as you need room to navigate around the spy.