House: I clean pretty much use bicarb, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, lemons, essential oils and washing up liquid to clean everything. We recycle the usual glass bottles, plastic containers etc in our recycle binand all our lighting is energy efficient bulbs. We use cross ventilation and use an outdoor umbrella to keep the sun off the western windows in summer and a gas heater in winter (closing off areas we dont need to heat) for winter. I'm also a huge fan of wheat bags for keeping warm. Outdoor Areas: Our front balcony is totally food oriented and our back is partially food - mainly herbs. We use a couple of (awful) plastic owls to stop the possums and rats from visiting and feasting on our plants. I recycle our coffee grounds and egg shells (ground up) onto our garden as well (the citrus love them). I also use vinegar on slugs (they all come out with the rain so I go out with a spray bottle of white vinegar and spray them - it keeps them under control - making sure that I dont spray the plants). I use vinegar on weeds too - it kills them off. Rubbish: we put our fruit/veg scraps and egg cartons/empty toilet rolls into our worm compost as well as our garden waste. The compost from the worms goes onto our gardens. All our paper, glass and plastic gets recycled fortnightly.

I have honestly lost count of the number of projects I have worked on with exactly this brief - 3bed+1bath upgrading to 4bedrooms +2 bath (usually due to growing families ;)............ultimately the solution/advice will come down to the budget available. When you say the builder came back with a quote too high, I"m guessing it was in fact most likely realistic for what you have proposed, and hence rather, the design solution sought is mismatched to your particular budget. It's not necessarily the quoting builder's fault.... Generally, unless the existing house is generous in scale, extended building is required to achieve this sort of overall project Brief requirement....and this in combination with the usual accompanying renovation to existing scope, compounds to a significant project.....I have found they generally end up being in reality something ballpark starting at min $300K+........If $120K is your budget you need to be super disciplined and clear about your priorities and work with someone who can provide you with experienced answers as to what particular ideas/changes will cost and are realistic to consider for your context......my advice, clarify and prioritise the most important needs. You also often find that the option of rearranging everything to squeeze/fit everything in within a specified perimeter will cost similar (for a somewhat compromised design solution) to that alternative option of minimal renovation + a "clean" extension that minimises any make good/changes to existing. Without knowing the condition of existing (or site conditions/scale/context etc) it's difficult to provide accurate advice but as a general idea I would suggest consider an option that archives a living/kitchen dining in a concise new extended area, integrate a new entrance in-between the old and the new with possibly the existing living becoming the master suite and not touching the other part of the home. You may be able to achieve a better overall value/m2 end result, but it will involve a larger budget. $120K will struggle to cover much more than cosmetic upgrades/minor reshuffling of existing areas essentially maintained in current scale and position....the other option is considering a Master Bedroom/Bathroom extension and keep existing living/kitchen dining zone, but again really need more info/understanding of your context to provide detailed advice in this regard. Hope this helps with you thinking it through.....it's rarely a straight forward process :)

My house is also built at the top of a hill, the summit and is cut into a cliff. We bought it, it was built in the 90s and the orientation is entirely wrong. The living areas face west and all bedrooms are in the east. The master is exposed to the western and the northern sunshine. It’s nice in the winter and entirely unbearable in the summer. The same goes for my living room. We take extra long holidays in the summer to avoid being at home. The home had no insulation in ceilings, and raked ceilings. So the first thing we did was remove the roof sheeting install battens to create a cavity and installed R3.5 insulation. We are also upgrading installing new windows to upgrade the glazing on the western windows and looking to put insulation in all the walls It also gets really windy, so windy. So I understand your concerns. When it gets windy the entire house shakes. So the next thing will be to improve the bracing. There is a 3-4metre clearance under our home for storage. We could do a build in under. Even with the positioning of our shed and close proximity to the home it does little to shelter from the wind. We are considered the building an “outdoor room” which would act as an alfresco with skylights, lounge, pool and kitchenette that could act as an outdoor entertainment area when weather permits. I just did a sustainable design for a client nearby. I am so jealous of her amazing home. Her land is smaller then my land and her land cost the same price as my house and land. So I am grateful for what I have.

Wise words anonymousanne. Thanks all for your helpful advice so far . We have a 3-5 year plan I guess our priority will be creating 3 cosy bedrooms, with fresh paint, carpet and blinds ......not sure if they will be the existing bedrooms..or whether we will take the lounge as the master. A dilemma how much to do in the bathrooms.... Flat pack kitchen, appliances paint etc...It would be cheapest in the kitchen to replace the Existing L only...but I do like oklouise and siruiskys suggestions for the kitchen dining areas in the plans that have been drawn. I will get a builder friend to take a look structurally for now..still hoping to open the back up a bit more, for better internal flow of the house, so we can enjoy living there while we save to do major works