@urj123, Cricky!!! I knew you were going to ask that, after I looked at the sample I had that was full strength ha-ha.....AND I re-read you post and you wrote quite clearly 1/4 strength!!! I will return to the store, AGAIN, ha-ha and ask for 1/4 strength. All jokes aside, I think 1/4 will probably be real nice, as I didn't dislike the full strength but too creamy for the ceiling. My daughter actually painted all her ceilings the same colour as her walls with Hog Bristle but all the experts seem to say that a ceiling should be white or at least traditionally its always been white and I like the look of that too. I won't be back in town until next week but I'll keep in touch when I have the sample in my hand. Hubby and I are hay contractors and are at our most busy time being in tractors for many long hours but we are nearing the end and then I can take a breath and turn my focus back onto the home. Actually have 80mtrs of edging or capping tiles around the veranda to do and then the same amount of concreting to do on the 1.8m wide veranda and then we can get the colourbond roof on the house and during the cooler months, we can start to lay the limestone bricks, so there's plenty to do on the home!!! I have photo's attached in an earlier post. Best get to bed, more hay baling to do tomorrow. Cheers, Barbara

We went with Monument and I am delighted. I was worried about it making the house hotter, but not at all as we added some extra insulation while the roof was lifted. We look over our roof to Mt Dandenong and it really feels like we are floating above the rooftops now (previously had a lighter color). I have also noticed there is far less glare being darker. Pic below is not my best shots ... but you get the idea. Forgot to add we also have a flat cliplock roof and used a combination of Monument and Dune on the house.

Thank you oklouise. That’s very nice of you to offer. We have had a builder provide some advice around some of the structural walls, etc - one of which is that little storage area under the new ensuite. We had explored removing that to make it a double garage but it really would blow out costs and advice was the extended double garage would probably be cheaper. I do very much see your point about spending money on legal-height extra room though - makes complete sense. I would like to do something with the front porch - with the deck and under deck areas, I don’t foresee us using the porch much at all. The exterior house walls are structural though so again, it could be costly to move. There is also a window into Bed2 that opens onto the porch so this would either have to be filled in (there is another one but not sure we want to decrease light or breeze) or built around. I did want to close in the screen door to the living room and build in a bit but it could be a lot of expense for perhaps a metre wide gain!!? I wasn’t sure how we were going to use the storage under the new ensuite but from your design, I think that garage area would be good as the kids play room and that area as their toy/games storage. With family overseas, we usually travel once a year and have luggage for all of us so happy to have just an extra storage room (such as that under the porch). We only really need 4 bedrooms so I still think sacrificing the upstairs study is probably still the best use of space. We were going to do the reno in two stages - garage, ensuite and stairs before we moved in and then downstairs afterwards. Perhaps we hold off on the stairs to live in and feel first.

With a North facing house the sun makes the front of house quite hot but only on those few days a year when it is over 40 with no sea breeze and I love the heat so ceiling fans work for me. The back of the house is much cooler and the winds generally come from the ocean side but can be from all directions at times as we know. On the west side of the house it is only app 1m to the fence line and so the option of having the garage on that side isn't viable. Sorry I am not up on terminology so when I said the set back was 7 odd metres that is the current set back from the front of my house to the road. The council requires 3m for house and 4.5 for garages. I have been looking more at mid century modern design and I don't really like it so I am looking at ways of changing up the bland facade to disguise the fairly flat roof line. With those in the know could I add a front porch and somehow blend the roof line into my current one to look more like this style? I realise it means saving more to afford it so on top of my current budget. I am just not sure how the roof line of the porch would look at the back end (how it would attach to my roof and look from the side and back) I wouldn't want it to look like it was just stuck on at the front. Would I carry that through to back of house so end up with a witches hat roof or is there a better way you can see this working. Once again thank you for all of your input I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to help me :)