I'd play off the colour of the new tiles - check out Dulux Henna Red to use as a core colour then choose a red-white, a charcoal grey and high gloss black for the door and small details You could be super brave and go with a Red roof too :) This is a great site to have a look at the differences between a bunch of different colours and doing it right :) http://www.oldhouseguy.com/exterior-paint-colors/ Good luck!

Oooooh lovely to see such great work in my neck of the woods. Pity City of Bayswater doesn't do heritage awards you guys deserve one.

I'd still be looking at carving out more northern external aspect......you could fit it what you need by following this more "L shaped" concept by pulling back to the easement and strategic hugging of southern boundary in places and increased pushing further north in the central zone, and flipping the west verandah to the north and accommodating more extension to the west......you have enough space to work with Rather than think of what you can do in terms of size/length, you need to resolve from the basis of function.....the reason why we'd be encouraging the resolution in this direction is that it will feel much more spacious and light, be better zoned and mitigate the one dimensional central corridor factor which will be what you'll get if you take a elongated rectangle and try and fit it all into a predefined external shape.....easement restriction is not the major issue....what you want to do is maximise the external aspect from as much of the house as possible....you could put the shed in the south west corner and get it out of sight - that north west corner is prime external focal point Good luck! Cheers PD :)

It's always exciting to think about potential plans for a newly purchased home. However unless you have experience and knowledge in regards to construction, costs and understand how particular design decisions impacts these things, you'd be best to (a) take some time to develop a clear picture or "vision" of the type of home you are aiming for and then (b) invest in some professional advice to help guide you towards your goals. When you say you can't afford to spend thousands on drawings, I'd argue that anyone considering a significant renovation project should allocate a certain component of their budget to professional design as a no-brainer investment to maximise the project potential and mitigate potential issues such as cost blow-outs or worse spending money in ways that misses opportunity and doesn't add value. Investment in planning and design is arguable THE most critical and $$ worth spending in order to get the best outcomes. As you have brought up, there are a whole lot of aspects to work through and negotiate, such as levels and structure. In order to get any sort of advice (either independently or on forum) measurements are critical and the first thing to establish, as well as other relevant contextual information such as levels and boundaries. Any design decisions directly impact costs, and unless you know what you're doing you can potentially head down a path of relatively expensive and extensive internal reconfiguration. Sure some of this may be required, but as we find regularly with these types of projects, mitigating renovation scope and exploring opportunity for some complimentary logical "clean"/simple extension aspect can be often the better option on a number of levels: better value, increased living space & better investment return longterm Best of luck working through it - and even if you do minimal work, it's clearly a good property investment Cheers PD :)