I envy your wall space, I wish we had more! What has worked really well for us is using empty walls as our "brag" board. Do you have particular interests you love talking about? Putting something up about your family, a favourite subject, pet or holiday could be a great talking point. Our visitors get drawn to our fishing photos, where we caught the fish (Botswana/Amazon) and the type (Tiger fish/Peacock Bass). Although the photo print (size A0) could be printed really cheaply (~$50) at somewhere like Officeworks, I discovered that the frames (~$440 each) were the biggest expense. However, as we know we only needed to print a new A0 sized photo in the future, spending money on good, customised frames is worthwhile. We have also now tried printing our favourite shots on stretched canvas (~$100). The product gets delivered, usually in a week, ready for hanging much quicker than ordering a custom made frame ;) Smaller canvases range from twenty dollars to about a hundred. I found this company very reliable in terms of quality of print and speed of service: http://canvasfactory.refr.cc/HDLHZPH We have displaced our canvas photos from the wall and occasionally display them underneath the kitchen bench as you can see here (desperately covering up white space)!

I'd be combining the kitchen and laundry by knocking out the wall between them and concealing the laundry appliances in the new kitchen. Ikea kitchen, nearly new appliances (someone is always selling a new appliance that doesn't fit) and flooring (the new linos look really good or perhaps a laminate floor?) If you had the budget, I'd also turn the bedroom next to the laundry into the dining room so your living area connects to the back deck with a lovely sliding door. Maybe also remove wall between laundry and bedroom to create open plan living? Not sure if this is possible if walls are load bearing, but steel beams can fix that maybe? Dining room then becomes bedroom. I like connecting living rooms to outdoor areas, but that's the Aussie in me. Good luck! P.s. Find a good carpenter who charges by the hour maybe? (I married mine!)

I've used the Feast Watson Liming White. I wanted a finish on pine that wasn't going to look yellow, like the majority of polyurethanes do, but not a heavy whitewash finish. I did 2 coats to get the desired effect, retained the non yellow pine colour and grain showing through. The more coats you apply, the more whitewashed the effect is. Probably a quicker way to achieve your desired affect would be to use a white paint, water based, as a base coat, apply with brush or roller then wipe it off evenly with a rag, then apply a topcoat of water based non yellowing polyurethane to seal. Otherwise numerous coats, 3+, of any of the liming & poly product will be required.

Hi all, I can't seem to reply individually to your comments so here's a general one :) Thanks all for the suggestions and experience-I'm really intrigued by these suggestions of pavilion extensions, those links you attached Kate are super striking! Unfortunately for us we are on a fairly small block of land and one side of the house is a narrow driveway-we looked into building a garage/study on the ground but as we have to be 900mm from the neighbouring fence it was going to be very skinny and just not worth it. I appreciate the thoughts shared on keeping our feet on the ground but as we've two young kids and two dogs (and would love to have chickens again) I'm less and less inclined to give up more of the garden which is what we'd have to do if we extend out. Our verandah roof was done back in the 60's and slopes down and leaks in the rain so hence it needs to be lifted up if we were to build out. Kate, I LOVE your idea of the shed! We actually converted a massive steel shed into a gorgeous shed home when we lived in QLD on a massive rural block of land, loved how easy it was to 'knock' down a wall! :) Sadly we have learned the hard way that trying to save money by hiring a draftsperson that didn't ask us what our budget was has cost us time and money, but I guess in a way I'm grateful as this extra time has given me time to consider building up now instead of out. I'm getting a sense that it will be a lot more expensive to do so so might have to wait another 2-3 years to get re-finance happening. In the meantime we are making some changes to the current set up, slowly adding value and making it more enjoyable to live in :)