Hi Louise, hope you are settled in your house now, it looks lovely. Having lived in a house with a west facing living area I'm sorry to say your rooms will get very hot over summer and even if you install air conditioning you will still need to minimise the sun and heat coming into the house to save on electricity. Stopping the sun reaching your rooms is the ideal but outdoor blinds can look ugly so ultimately it comes down to looks -v- comfort. Thermal blinds or curtains will help keep the sun and heat out considerably but they do darken a room as well. Fans will help with air circulation but you do need cross ventilation to help the house cool itself especially if you get breezes off the water. I think your bedroom would be enhanced by a covered deck to add some character to the house too and this would certainly help with the sun in that room. Another tip is the colours you use in these rooms will help improve the look and feel of the room, I found soft blues or aquas made a huge difference with a lot of white for freshness. Neutral colours for some reason just did nothing and made the rooms look and feel hotter.

love the design and colours of your new house, definately not too dark, looks stunning and edgy. love it.

If you make the garage roof appear horizontal/flat from the front without any eave or visible roof, you will notice a huge difference... This could be a flat roof and box gutter to the garage, which would retain the look around the corner. It could also just be a simple parapet in front of the roof as designed, which would be less of an additional cost for you. I also agree with others, if you can get the lower verandah roof to also appear flat from the front it will benefit. The reason for this is that it will allow the two roof pitches on the first (upper) floor to become the dominant roof forms. Right now you have 4 dominant roof forms competing. Flattening out the bottom two will allow them to look a little heavier and become the anchor for your building

the shape of the extended roof depends on the available height as which roofing material is used...i notice that the existing verandah has two sets of posts as though it has already been extended and appears to have corrugated iron on the verandah roof which really needs a higher slope to function effectively over greater distances...although it will be so much more work and cost i suggest that the very best result would be achieved if you first decided what size undercover spaces you need and then redesign the whole space rather than adding on an extension ..my suggested small gable is only on top of the existing verandah roof to add some interest instead of having a deeper verandah across the whole front of the house you could add a new area at right angles to the existing house that could is much more generous and avoid changing too much of the original...post a rough floor plan of the house showing inside rooms, verandah (showing all the posts) SIZES, direction of north, and any views, describe your climate and show the distance from the front of the house to any front and side fences how do you plan to use the new space??