I can only give you my experience. I've lived for over 20yrs on real hardwood floors. And every time I stand on any kind of laminated plank it looks and feels like cheap plastic. There is just no comparison to actual wood flooring. Timber absorbs vibration, feels pleasant underfoot either barefoot or shoed. It looks real, because it is. Timber planks are 20mm thick, laminate ones are 5mm. Laminate flooring looks like a printed piece of plastic because, well it's very similar except for the top 2mm of veneer stuck to it. It may fool us in brochures and magazines but I've never once been fooled by laminate in person. They can give it all the fancy names they want like 'engineered' but at the end of the day it's all the same stuff. Laminated veneers on cheap plywood. But not one person on the planet has ever fooled that it's a real floorboard. Does timber scratch? Absolutely. So don't put a piano finish on it then. Stick with satin and matte finishes. It shows up the marks a lot less. Does timber dent? Absolutely. But those dents become part of the character of the home over time. I recently lived in a home with floorboards over 100yrs old. They had dents everywhere and yet those boards just looked lived on, they didn't look terrible. Does timber suffer water damage? Yes of course. But before you worry about it, go and check out the thousands of 100yrs old hardwood homes sitting on flood plains in this country. Every single one of them has been underwater more than once in it's lifetime. The original boards are there, strong and unfazed. Unless you plan to flood your home for weeks on end the occassional spill and overflow won't damage the timber at all. I'm a quality over quantity type of person so of course I'm going to rate going with the lifetime option over the rip it out every 5yrs option. If I had the money for hardwood I would not even consider plastic planks.

You should ask your builder why he is reluctant about 3 metres ceiling heights on the upper level. It is more work for him, so he should quote appropriately, and be paid for the extra height, the extra materials, the extra scaffolding etc. If you are building as an investment you need to understand your market. Will people pay extra for the extra high ceilings so it is profitable for you? In some really expensive areas homes with ceilings less than 3metres are looked down on by the buying public. In poorer areas people are more interested in square metres of floor area than ceiling height so you would lose money by putting in 3m ceilings to both floors. When building townhouses you need to think with your head, and not with your heart. Everybody loves high ceilings, but make sure that you increase the door and window heights proportionally. Standard height doors look funny with 3m high ceilings. This is one of the reasons why 3 metre high ceilings do cost so much more as you need everything taller, including window furnishings for it to look right. If you are building townhouses for future rental you will need to outweigh the additional cost of the extra height with the small increase in rent that could be achieved. While you say the height limit is 11 metres, it probably isn't 11 metres when it is close to the side boundary. Many townhouses are built close to the side boundary so you should check with your council about the side setback requirements. Usually the taller the building the further it has to be from the side boundary. Best of luck Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls and Dr Retro Virtual Visits

Love it as is. Well done. The void above living will let on light, just be careful of not letting in the western light too much. So some way to shade house on the backyard end. would be good.

electric underfloor heating is great for bathrooms (and laundry, mudrooms, entry and hallways when it needs to be left on for weeks at a time and not much good for a ten minute shower) and is preferable to anything visible like hydronic heaters that take up wall space but your voids will suck most of the heat upstairs ..our reverse cycle AC has been much more economical to run than the whole floor electric slab heating that we had in our previous house (supplemented with a wood burner and gas log fire in our cold climate) but we made sure that the void over the stairs was able to be blocked off to zone heat downstairs with separate heating upstairs but having lived in different areas of Sydney i'm wondering why a new built well designed house with great insulation would need more than modest supplementary heating that can be more economically provided with AC