Try ColorSnap to test colors This app can mock up what a paint color will look like in your living room, with the furniture and décor in the room. Also, you'll maybe find Magic Plan useful - it measures rooms and draws floor plans just by taking pictures with your phone. Read more about these home design apps

Hi Clareg4 - Thankyou for your kind remarks on my comments, in reading your reply I'm a little bit more aware of your intentions. Although you have mentioned the northerly aspect it would be a help to mark the north position on the drawings if you could. There are a few more comments in regards to the overall process and the look of the proposal that you might like to consider. In the face of the building - the general entry it might be more pleasant to make more prominent the part of the building forms the entry - thus that part is closer to the street and service areas like the garage would recede further back. This mighty need to be repeated on the other side to retain balance. At the moment the whole of the front is basically on a straight line, with the garage actually being more forward than the rest of the remaining part of the house. The emphasis to people coming to the house is the garage - not the entry, and maybe verandahs that might surround the entry should be further forward. It might be interpreted as if you are saying that the garage is the most important part of your house, as it is the "item in front" of the rest. One of the ways that you can save money in any Building Design, is to detail your spaces in such a way that all your furniture is included. This will allow you to trim where you have wasted space, and reduce any space due to excess circulation. This might require further detailing but it will show up areas of wasted or bad circulations and large areas. When you consider that building cost might average $2,000 a M2 or more, if you reduce your area by 10 M2 you have saved $20,000, and 10 M2 is not much on a project of this size. Also if you have 3D software number of views are always good to get an understanding of the proposal especially if you have to "sell/include/convince/persuade" other stakeholders in the project. (If you can not do the 3D pay someone to do it, the investment is generally worth the cost - there is also free software that you can use on the web - found by a simple search) Some of the windows in the kitchen- opposite the bench top - which I assume are facing north might be a bit abundant making the work areas very hot in summer. You might consider reducing the number of windows and/or increasing the eaves - a 1meter square window due north in summer is equivalent to a 1 bar electric radiator - not only would make the areas difficult to work on, but food would spoil very quickly in summer. relocating the kitchen might provide a more pleasant solution. I notice in the initial design that you have a verandah outside the laundry which I assume you were trying to include a "mud room area". In my humble experience with the countryside I must say that mud room proper is a must - there is nothing like putting your gum boots in the morning and finding out that the occasional friendly creature has crawled in during the night - not a good feeling. Also, it is good to have a proper storage for coats, jackets, boots weeps and leads. These items tend to be expensive and generally need regular maintenance as to avoid frequent replacement. I noticed, or I missed it, that you have not provided any spaces for pets like dogs washing facilities, or cat litter areas in the laundry. You might consider this a little trite but it helps to avoid issues later on, again larger scale detail of the laundry areas and say mud room might allow for this consideration for the nonhumans that might share yours and your family life. Your proposed position of the pool is certainly well placed, if you are keeping that layout it would work well. However, you would have to include the pool immediately after you finish building as a bushfire will always occur when you don't expect it, especially if you were going to build the pool "the following year". It would be good to include you fire rating assessor (BAL - if in Victoria) and your energy rater as early as possible, this will help in reducing costs in re-design. If you can afford it, you should look at windows that have a "thermal break" this means that you have windows that are low maintenance and good energy performers, they do tend to be a little expensive especially when you include double or triple glazing and high performing glass. I hope my comments are of some worth, not all might be applicable but if it improved the overall result it is always worth while. You might also like to look at my website FAQ for further points in the construction and design process. FAQ's http://www.newhomedesign.com.au/index.php/faqs-article-based General Website http://www.newhomedesign.com.au/index.php Wish you the best with the project. Michael Manias - mm407p@gmail.com - working online from Tasmania, Victoria, NSW, to Northen Queensland and Western Australia. Serving clients using Skype, Dropbox, Google drive and other Building Design Software and other methods as requested by the client.

When I first wrote in August 2017 we got a lot of great suggestions and comments. At the time we had accepted the limitations of the block (easements, tree, solar access etc). It is now one year later and I can tell you we found a way to move the garage to the south-west corner. This allowed us to move Beds 2 and 3 and the bathroom to the northern side. Pantry and laundry between garage and kitchen/living/dining. I think it was all of the comments and suggestions that encouraged us to look at it again from different angles, rather than just accepting the limitations. Thanks to everyone for their generosity! The solution involved working around a lovely tree (it is nice, just in the wrong spot). It is still in the way (council said we couldn't remove it) but we've opted for a long, curving driveway that starts on the other side of the block and weaves its way around the treeline to the garage entry. Not ideal, because a large portion of the front setback will now be a hard surface, instead of a garden. But if there is one thing that designing teaches you - its all about compromises. Thanks everyone. MB Design & Drafting Shara C Nik Star girlguides oklouise siriuskey genkii saragraham76 Andy Pat brizcs Mel N 3D Home Concepts suancol Caro

Hi lovely lady's. I'm still going around in circles with the floor plan.. I've just found out that I can't put a toilet on the Right hand side of the house as it woukd require a very complicated and expensive trench to connect the existing sewer pipe to a new toilet on the Right hand side. So a bathroom woukd need to stay on the left. I have a structural engineer taking a look T the load bearing walls next week.. Any other suggestions would be great appreciated. I thought about leaving kitchen where is is and knocking the wall thrpufh to make sauna and dressing room one room and turning this into a dining room. connecting the kitchen with the dining room with an archway. but this looses some cupboard space on the left wall and with the current kitchen only being 3 metres wide it's a bit too small. The other challenge is I would like the laundry door relocated to the kitchen wall instead of walking through a bedroom to get to the laundry... I'm stuck..