As an architect, I have a list of words saved on my desktop that I am conscious can sound confusing to the client! One day I hope to write a little archi-dictionary to help clients work out what we mean when we use so many of the words that seem natural to us! 'Form', 'honest materials', 'warmth', 'documentation', 'draft', 'sketch plan', 'detail', 'mass', 'spine', 'circulation', 'water harvesting', 'floating', 'dynamic', 'heavy', 'celebrate'... etc.

we're building in Childers Qld (Zone 2) on top of a hill 120m above sea level with no chance of being built-in as we are on a 69 acre block. Quite windy all the time predominately from the SE. All outside doors will be security. Roof has vents in the gables on all four sides so I can leave open to purge heat during summer and close off in winter. Bed 2&3 doors used to be adjacent bathroom door for cross breezes but a layout change in the bathroom meant having its door on the east now. Not ideal but necessary. Dark colour unfortunately is dictated by our very red soil that will stain any light colour so had to go dark, would of preferred light. So I should make my eaves 1200mm all around?

what is the ground/floor made out of, what's the height of the whole space. is the ceiling (bottom of the upstairs framing and floor) the same height throughout the whole space, are the stairs inside or outside and do you need internal stairs from the new rooms to upstairs or a separate external entry, where is the street frontage, is there access around both sides of the house and is the view at the back or front of the house etc?...we can make suggestions for possible floorplans but you may need Council approval to enclose the space under the house for liveable rooms so suggest you first consult them to make sure that what you want to do is legal and possible but there are many questions to be answered and best answered with an on site inspection by a professional before you can make any serious plans but doodling with the space shows that there's plenty of room for quite spacious self contained accommodation

Cheers all - some really interesting ideas! Paul I think you are right about the building designer. So we had an architect come round the other day for a discussion to get the creative juices going. But I'd be really keen to hear what a designer could do and how we go about investigating. Some of the comments have really made me have a think about things. 1 - the upstairs Rumpus is currently our best room in the house as we turned it in to a big living room, pulled up the old carpets, sanded the floor, got the Terrace white on the walls, and put a nice flat screen TV on the wall. Its currently the family retreat (Mum and Dads room) but I'm thinking it could be an EPIC bedroom up there - hec we could put 2 bedrooms up there and have a 5 bedroom house. 2 - a few suggestions about changing the middle bedroom and opening up in to living - I'm starting to come around to this idea. My wife thinks it would make the living area just too big, but part of me thinks, for a 4 bedroom house and an expanding family it could be a good grad of extra space. By the way we have 2 young boys (less than 5 yrs old) 3 - Good advice about not closing the back passage way up and squaring off the house. I guess financially it makes sense to just convert in to the Laundy and not go to the expense for little floor space gain. What I did like was that it connected to the kitchen and allowed it to also be a pantry. But also I guess if we were to block the Kitchen Windows (that look on to the extension) we won't be looking at the oddity. 4 - the Reason we haven't though about expanding in to the back, I did initially when we bought the house, is that it just isn't a great extension. The house is very high at the back (quite raised to the pool) and above the house to our right. I don't think opening up the back, steps down, would give that amazing step out on to the pool you'd imagine. Plus at the two back bedrooms the floor also steps down 10inches too. It seems a bit to hard with ceiling height / floor height etc. 5 - This kinda puts me off the bedroom running down the back, massive bifold along the side of the house wiht the height of the house. 6 - I didn't even go in to it here but the Master bedroom, door, ensuite is whole other mystery to solve. We have a strange study with a stair case running up the side of it that I bang my head in to all the time! We've thought about blowing the wardrobes away, bringing the door forward, dong something there too. I think with the cost the whole 200-250 is where I think this will get to. Very rough sums - we also need to res stump and it seems like we should know what we want to do before we kick that off. I think where our heads are at is to Restump Do the Family Bathroom / Laundry Then maybe our ensuite And then tackle the Kitchen / Open plan living In that priority which also makes this a bit of a multi year project!