Wuff, that's how it should be...unfortuntely things are hardly ever as they should be and mny people these days haven't a clue about ettiquette....that applies to some adults in particular. I agree that fine dining restaurants are not suitable for children...unless of course, as you describe, the children hav been schooled in proper behaviour. One restaurants I've been taken to on specil occasions actually has a policy of "no children"..but in order not to breach discrimination ettiquette they have a special chidren's dining room with waiters dressed in colorful uniforms. There's also a fine dining children's menu. The children are called 'maam' and 'sir' and have their chairs pulled out for them....they have their non alcoholic drinks served in lovly glases as if it were champagne or wine....it really delightful. They also have themed evenings. There's a dining etiquette that the children are expected to observe..and how to hold and use the cutlery. Parents are given a little booklet about it.. I thought it a good way to instruct the adults under the guise of instructing the children. It works well and the restaurant owners are to be commended for such a novel approach to...well, it "manners" isn't it? And not many know the mening ot the word these days. The children come away from such an experience feeling important..and I think some parents learn a few things too. There's nothing worse that not being able to go out for a dignified meal because other people don't realise that some places are just not for children..especilly their chidren. Its one thing being well-to-do and completely another having manners. My dear old Mum was the eldest of 12 children...their Dad was an Engine Driver, but he insisted that each and every one of the children learn manners.. As disadvantaged as they were, they "dressed" for dinner in their best always clean, pressed, starched clothes,,, darns, mends and all, and he'd inspect them all before they were allowed to be seated. Mum's Aunt Laura taught her to..."be a lady" and educated her about the arts, taught her how to dance, how to set a table for a three course meal, how to dress, how to be polite, and..how to cook and manage a home...so she would be able to "mix it with the best" and not be thought out of place. How things have changed...its all more relaxed. Manners and respect for others seem to have..."Gone With The Wind"..regarded as outmoded and old fashioned. Pity! Wonder how we can get a gracious, respecful society back?

Kerrie, I live in Victoria and my pool in completely internal, that is to say it is part of the house and not an addition to the house. I planned to have an external door with the required regulation lock height and seld closing mechanism. Hubby was dead against this door and so I agreed to have a window instead, not long after, we found out that the laws had changed and you are no longer permitted to access to an indoor pool from the outside, so it was just sheer luck that we changed the door to a window. Further, when we purchased the awning windows (2) with regulation restricted 10cm windouts, our building inspector tried to tell us that the windows weren't allowed and that they would have to remain shut and we were also going to have to concrete "bars" into the brickwork on the outside. I argued that regulation pool fences had the same 10cm restriction and after contacting the Victorian Building Commission, I have confirmation in writing, that the windows are deemed to be adequately safe and the inspector has accepted the finding. My access to our pool now, is only from the inside of the home obviously and if that becomes illegal, then we'll just have to sit and look at the pool longingly through the window, as there won't be any access at all ha-ha I'm not advocating that people argue with regulations but if I hadn't investigated my options further, who knows where I would be, having spent $1,500 on these two windows with laminated glass and how beautiful would my brickwork have looked with prisson bars attached. Cheers, Barbara

Found it: http://www.ecc.com.au/p/2773/lora

@oklouise - that's ok, I've managed to redraw and tweak it a little as well! I think for us, we will actually not use the formal living as a formal living, but as an Office/Library. We work from home quite a lot, so we would need to look out at something, preferably a nice garden or the backyard. At the moment it will be looking out onto the side with 2-3m's of gardens, so that will be very nice :) We can create a nice courtyard area for where the formal living/study windows will look out to. The area that is marked as a study in your plan, maybe is not needed or used to create a larger ensuite and WIR. I quite like the rectangular kids zone, I can't see it fitting two sets of seating, but I can see one half of it having a drop zone where bags/jackets etc can be dumped as they enter the house. At the moment in our current house (which will be knocked down to build this), we don't have a dining space, but we have a huge deck which we entertain on a lot in summer, but in winter, we cannot entertain at all :( That is our biggest gripe! I am wondering if this problem can be solved with having a deck that can be closed off with stacker/bi-fold doors, because to be honest, if we can entertain outside in winter, we would much rather sit outside looking at the gardens then be inside! :) That also means we can shrink the footprint of the house, and thus have a larger backyard. @Paul - We actually did want a side entrance, but I couldn't think of how to work that in .... Wrap around porch would be amazing! @Ruth - The rooms will not be looking out onto a 20cm blank wall :) They will be looking out to 1m gap, thus will have a side garden. Ideally everyone is sitting together in the living zones together and not in their rooms :) Porch hardly counts as a living space! The formal living will double as an office/study, so I don't think that will count as a "living" space. Three living spaces does seem excessive, but there will be three generations of family in the household! I think as the family grows, we need to allow space for kids play areas to evolve to craft areas to evolve into studying areas then to relaxing areas as they start working. Also want some of these living areas to double up as guest sleeping areas for sleep overs and friends coming over :) Would love an internal courtyard for the master! Originally we were trying to get the master to have a view into the backyard with doors that go out to the backyard! I think taking into account what I've said earlier, I will try and do that by removing the formal dining area which we don't really need! I also wanted to have a rooftop garage, but I think that's probably too ambitious taking into account our budget. Everyone's comments have been great! Has given me lots of ideas of what can be changed/updated to improve the floor plan :) :)