Congratulations n your new home, I would suggest some rough ideas for your $150K which won't go as far as you could imagine. I don't know if you plan on replacing your kitchen but either way the kitchen can remain in the same position with a new WIP and easy access to the laundry.

Save money by closing off the Two way toilet, and adding another toilet within the ensuite.

A mudroom storage drop zone next to the garage would work well with a family chee

rs

Thanks for your comment! Not a terrible idea about putting the toilets side by side. I will give that some though. It sure will save money on installation however I liked the idea of having the toilet in a separate room in the ensuite.

With the walk in pantry, that area is a really light filled dining area where we have our table (not the formal dining room which we will never use), so it's not a good place to put pantry as it will restrict a lot of light and leave no room for our dining room table.

where is north, describe your climate, do you have a site plan (hand drawn with rough measurements is ok) showing the house on the block and the distance to boundaries and how many and what are the ages of the people expected to live in the house?

The plan page is actually north oriented.

The climate is generally warm this time of year (30s) and cold in winter.

I'll add some photos to the OP.

Age is early 30s and its just my partner and I at this stage.

Another rough idea for you, opening up the kitchen and still using the breakfast nook as a lovely Bright WIP, I can imagine having a sink in there to clean up.

You should have plenty of space for an enclosed WC in the ensuite and keeping plumbing for that close to the other WC will save money, as mentioned $150K doesn't go very far these these days. The dining room would make a great study/home office

That is an interesting floor plan that I have never considered! I'm liking what you've done there... I'll show my partner tonight!

I think we need 2 living areas. It's not 100% necessary to see out the pool area from the kitchen- you currently can now but not completely necessary.

I have to say that it's very important to be able to see the pool from the kitchen and family, for pool safety especially with a young family The current living room only has a a dwarf/hip wall so it's already open plan

I do agree about seeing the pool from the kitchen, which to me it has a fairly good view. Can you explain what you mean about the dwarf/hip wall? New to this!

Look on your plan it has a dwarf wall marked on the passageway end of the living room, that suggests to me it's not a full height wall?

Oh I see. Sorry I wasn't sure what a dwarf wall was. It is just a small wall separating the toilet and the sink in the en suite bathroom.

Haha, sorry that makes sense I thought it was the other wall, I call it a hip wall. can I ask you. it's just a couple living in the house at the moment with possible future children adding to this. Do either of you work from home so do you need a home office or just a study area.

Hi. Yes, its just the 2 of us with plans for kids in the future. I work home around once a week, and most days are on the computer doing other work (I'm an IT professional and my partner is a teacher). We aren't really wanting an "office" exactly.. maybe list a study I suppose.

The below picture is a place we saw once that we really liked- the office was just a nice strip that we thought worked really well, which is why I was thinking of splitting up bedroom 2 into an study/storage.

anything involving changes to existing plumbing or adding new plumbing in a concrete floor is super expensive and it's usually best to see what can be improved ...it's already a great house that just needs refreshing to your own taste...once you start removing walls there's extra costs replacing existing flooring and ceilings and removing the dividing wall between kitchen and living will convert two good sized living areas into one big space that doesn't improve the function of the rooms and extending outside the existing walls would use up substantial parts of your budget with Council Fees and attempting to patch up roof and walls and always look like a cheap add on...my suggestions include using any one of the available five spare rooms as a study and making minimal changes to add an extra wiw, separate toilet in the ens, extra storage in the entry, direct access to the garage from the entry, keep the existing, study, lounge dining and bedroom 3 and 4 as is, add a more open new kitchen and use the biw from bed 2 and laundry and space from the family room to create a big pantry and new hall to access bed 2 with generous extra storage and, by having external access to the pool and northern courtyard from the meals area the family room can have a more comfortable furniture arrangement

I totally agree with not carving up any bedrooms and working within the spaces you already have.

The kitchen could be changed to my rough drawing as the plumbing is already in a similar position, and giving you the WIP that you would like. Or just run it along the same wall with the island in the other direction

The ensuite WC walled off and used as a powder room, coming in from the garage via the Mudroom and storage and then immediate access to a WC, great with kids.

Adding another closed in WC in the ensuite next to the other makes plumbing easy. Remove the the old spa bath and replace with a longer larger shower and vanity, this could have a sliding barn style door entrance.

I would keep the WIR in situ but just redo the fitout

By adding sliding doors to both the current living and family rooms out to Vergoa pergolas, these will control light and weather. these doors will help open the house up to the garden adding size and interest to the indoor living spaces which I find too enclosed and restricted, the pergolas will also add balance to the current meals area.

The other consideration needs to be for access to a WC from the pool ( sorry for the very rough drawings of the floor plan could possibly redo better tomorrow, time allowing.

...you'd be surprised, by the time your roll through ensuite, bathroom, kitchen upgrades, as well as floor coverings etc $150K will be gobbled up in just fit-out components. If you want to start changing internals signficantly with moving around / splitting up rooms, possibly introducing a corridor, to assist with bedroom privacy (an issue here), possibly extending a little and re-plastering and replumbing & adding doors etc then it will probably add another $100K to $150K on top again, and that's not touching anything outside.......recently I did what I consider a "little" job which involved a small extension for a bedroom and converting an existing bedroom into a bathroom and pantry, as well as a cosmetic upgrade to the existing ensuite (no change of plumbing), added a little overhang to the entry and it was an easy $200K and that was also with the client taking over the build management from lock-up............

I'd go a "light & easy" approach here just to freshen up, particular since you don't have kids (yet)......

These things always come down to most importantly costs, so understanding how decisions decisions translate to real costs is the difference between the Pro's and DIY design.....

Maybe seek some preliminary consultation with an architect/designer just to help guide you at this important early stage - the earlier the better when it comes to investment in design consultation

Best of luck

Cheers PD :)

1. turn laundry into pantry

2. run new laundry along outside wall of bed 2 access via pantry. With a laundry chute from kids bathroom above bath into hamper. Could also have access via new study see next.

3. front of bed 2 turn into study niche, entry where robe is and desks either side along side walls

4. Use dining as nursery/ tv room later. If you need full 4th bedroom steal space for robe from existing study

5 study becomes mudroom and poss incorporate powder room in future. Don’t waste money here yet.

Hi all.

We've gone through many different iterations but I think we are pretty happy with the following floor plan. Would love some input on this. The only issue we have with it is that the "meals" area is a bit empty.. we have too much space here. We initially wanted to remove the meals area but it was going to cost too much, so we have just added a sliding door and going to get a big 2.4/2.8 dining table.

Original plan:

Proposed plan:

the plan looks OK except for the short wall and powder room opening off the living room but would be very surprised if you could achieve these changes for less than twice your budget plus months of rent if you have to move out while work is done...i would allow about $150,000 for a new kitchen, ensuite and laundry before rearranging any walls, doors or windows and replacing floors and ceilings.....strongly advise consulting a builder who can oversee such a big reno to get a realistic idea of costs before you finalise plans

So you think this is a 300k plus build? I had a builder over the other day and shows him the plans and he said 150 to 200 is a healthy budget.

i guess it depends on the finish he's offering but if you can get the job done cheaper that would be excellent but would want an itemised quote that also states what's not included but assume you'll replace all the flooring and need new appliances, extra joinery and light fittings and window coverings etc that he may not include but you'll probably want

I'd say it's an easy min. $250K minimum flagfall on a relatively basic/not fancy spec/fit-out in a super good package deal. You're essentially renovating an entire house including moving plumbing, walls replastering, new floors throughout etc....not to mention lights, rewiring etc etc, it goes on and on.......This scope would still cost a builder themselves $150K, not factoring in their own time/labour, paying cash for sub-trades and getting super deals on all materials....and then you could only really potentially roll this type of operation out if you actually have the money in the bank. If you need to borrow then you'd need a building contract which then brings in market rates, profit margins and GST. Take profit and GST out from $150K and there's barely enough left to cover materials alone, when the labour/materials ratio (of a construction cost) these days, particular for renovations is labour being the most significant cost involved.............you can fine tune and perfect a floor plan like you have (which I reckon is pretty good as a plan), but when push comes to shove it always comes back to budget and costs, which is why we always are encouraging people to utilise design professionals who manage the challenge of designing within budget limits. If you separate budget/costs from the design process (rather than integrate it) more often than not it will leads to disappointment and misalignment of your expectations of what is realistic.

the proposed plan has some discrepancies with the dimensions eg if the laundry and pantry total 6m why is the kitchen only 5850m? and some more suggestion to consider

I really like tthose ideas! Let me discuss these with my wife. With the discrepancies.. Not sure will get it looked at. Thanks!

I also had problems working with the floor plan dimensions yesterday and gave up to go back and take another look today. I have the same master and powder as OK and previous suggestion, it's unnecessary (cost) to move the powder room across to the other side of the entrance.

I was also thinking that you might even consider not adding another toilet, and just seeing if the main bathroom's separate toilet would work better as the powder room as it's better positioned to the pool and other areas that you might entertain in.

I'am concerned about all the changes you are planning and the cost involved, you have a stunning house as it is, you must have felt the same way to buy it.

I love those columns and the quirky angels. Yes it needs updating, kitchen,bathroom (s) flooring, window treatments and the "opening up". would be done with adding new Glass slider/stacker/ bi fold doors in the family and meals which will then open out onto the Verandah and the pool.

Importantly you need to be able to close off the family kitchen from the front of the house to control noise and heating cooling.

Good advice to live in the house for period of time before making any changes.

I'll get those measurements looked at.

We are going to put big stacker doors in the opening towards the pool.

In terms of cost, we will be doing a lot of the work ourselves and it doesn't all need to be done at once- can do over the next few years.

In terms of closing off the family kitchen - yes, we are thinking a frosted glass door or similar (seen something done similar in my area and it looks great, although not sure of the thermal properties).

If we don't put the powder room in at the other end of the house, I feel that the bedroom that we are going to relocate to that area will have quite a walk to get to the other bathroom?

We don't want anyone to have to share the en-suite toilet, which is why we are going to remove it. We also want a bigger walk in robe which is why we have added the powder room to the other side.

We've been there for 6 months now and living in it has definitely changed our view on the changes that we want, so I'm glad we didn't go straight into renovations first!

Regarding the columns - we hate them- I'm surprised we haven't taken a sledge hammer to them already!!

Thanks for your comments.

Agree Siri, but everyone has their own preferences & priorities don't they.........this is a case of what I'd suggest is a relatively expensive "rearranging the sock drawer", in that what is gained/changed is relatively low in proportion to the (high) costs involved. The cost benefit ratio is not as good as it could be. It hasn't say added a significant change for the dynamics of a working family home, say like a rumpus or MPR space zoned in with the bedrooms which critical for growing families (most willl agree if they have one), rather just streamline/pretty up the existing spaces, which is fine, but is a lot of effort/money for arguably not the equivalent value increase........

Yes Paul, it's their home and a lovely one at that, I think that they could achieve a great result by doing less and importantly spending less and ending up with a quality renovation.

I find it frustrating that the trend for WIP's drives a lot of decisions, when the floor space needed in these Pantries would be better used in the overall space, Full marks to them for not rushing in,

After looking back at the photos I see that there are already doors dividing the family and living areas and that I miss read the floor plan in the meals area, it is a lovely open space and shows a table and 8 chairs fitting comfortably

Disregarding some of the dimensions I would like to suggest the following ideas with keeping the kitchen the same position and adding a very large island, any extra pantry needed is along the wall that backs to the laundry. I'am not a fan of having to access the laundry through the kitchen. Keeping the kitchen in the same position will not only save money but will give you the best view to the outside and pool area, much needed with children.

Seeing as you don't like the columns that space could be used as per the floorplan. You could even consider turning the living room into a bedroom, with a combined living office opposite, this will give you access for any clients that might want to call in without interrupting family. cheers