Hi Sheila, what a gorgeous outlook! i would consider Planting out a low hedge as your boundary the same as the one adjoining the church walls. If your not sure what it is, a local nursery could help with a broken branch, my reason is to try and connect establishment and your homes new landscape, so that it doesn't feel like new and old. I think blending between might be nice. I would urge you to not keep your boundaries square and obvious, instead, layer in front of this low, dense hedgerow, with perhaps balls of trimmed wistringea, also known as coastral Rosemary, it is soft, greyish green with small little lilac flowers, it's also a native that with tolerate the cool winters and hot summers well. I know it to be a quick grower, and cheap to establish. clipped into clusters of balls, it becomes sculptural, and I would continue that idea by mass planting around your borders with interesting layers of foliage. incorporate local stone, which the church is surely built from, in the form of bench seating, random paving, or stone boulders in your beds, ground covers are carefree, interesting and low maintenance, things like euphorbia, with white subtle flowers look like snow on the ground, clumps of lambs ear around pebble pathways are soft, tactile and silver, they blend between the ground cover up to the low lying shrubbery, and the occasional tree. i would build a post and beam structure out your alfresco with perhaps a Boston ivy planted to cover it, or maybe a wisteria in white, the Boston ivy turns from green to red in autumn and is striking against stone. reclaimed timbers even railways sleepers might provide the rustic touch the church provides. Being a small area, I think a crushed granite pebbleb could be sufficient in your back area, with gardens not defined with borders, they could cascade over the edges, softening any man made lines, use random stone pavers crazy paving where a harder surface is needed underfoot. It will be low maintenance, and can grow a ground over between them, in time, this will become your greenery to an otherwise almost fully paved entertaining area. I think the gorgeous gum in your background could provide your colour palette, greys, blues and lilacs, with white as a standout accent in your chosen flowers, if any. try not to formalise too much, keep things free flowing and create generous beds, so your outdoor area feels a part of the surrounding landscape, and not just put in for barrier. I would use some clever, and cheeky lighting, both in your yard to highlight your topiary balls, your alfresco and that gum tree, so the ghostly trunks are a real showstopper by night, and without fences, spotlight to angle at the adjoining stone church, and highlight it by night to your benefit. I agree you can tell a story with your landscape, but not everyone wants to delve into a deep and meaningful connect ion with their project, sometimes a story already exists that you just want to sit back and appreciate rather than write a new one. Be mindful of the church, it's contribution to your landscape and how you can passively connect to it. i would first get a list together of some plants thT youse locally and are beautiful to you, also look at the churches gardens, and if there's anyway you can link into its architect, or garden in some sort of tribute to it. good luck, can't wait to see more.

Hi Anna, Some really good advice from others, and it does sound like you should consider the custom home path, rather than look at packaged house designs. Undercover Architect's blog has some info specific to your situation and is definitely worth a read if you haven't done that yet. I would like to add a couple of points though: -There are a lot of great builders in this area, so there is the potential to speak to a quality builder who will refer you to their designer and handle much of the process similar to if you went down the volume builder path. A volume builder won't allow occupancy without finishing the entire house, but a custom builder might with this type of arrangement. -The benefit of having your house plans & permits done independently of a builder is that you can tender to a few builders and more easily find the best price/quality. Doing a custom home will also give you a lot more scope to exclude items if you were looking to save costs by doing some of the works yourself (painting etc) as you've mentioned. It will also allow you to search for a building designer / architect who you work well with, trust and like their ideas, rather than being put in touch with someone the builder uses. -Builder's generally prefer to use their own sub-trades because they know their quality and punctuality. Some custom builders will allow you to select your own sub-trades, but you can't hold the builder responsible if costs rise due to their available times not matching up. If the builder selects the sub-trade, then it is the builder's responsibility if something goes wrong. -Judging by your comments, at some point someone will mention going 'owner-builder' to you, which is a way you can essentially control the project and select all of your own consultants, trades and subtrades. This will often result in a longer build process but is worth considering in some situations. There are many additional responsibilities (building insurance) and some constraints on the house (additional issues with selling/renting it out within 6 years) which many of our clients have not realised when coming to us, so speak to a knowledgable builder/designer/architect or a building surveyor before choosing this path. Good Luck, Matt - DIMA Design Studio | Geelong

- Any wood fired heating we have would be purely run with wood from our farm, as opposed to buying anthracite. We would really like to have woodfire doing at least two jobs, i.e. cooking and heating/heating and hot water/cooking and hot water (as we are under the impression that solar hot water would not be enough in winter??). There's nothing like lighting a woodfire to keep your house warm, except for the great big hole in the insulation that it causes. As beautiful as they are (and I'm a massive fan of open/wood fires), they are pretty bad when it comes to ceiling penetrations. A lot of insulation is lost by having an open fire, a wood heater not so much, but still bad enough. For heating, the best advice I can give is this. You need a battery storage system! Then whatever type of heating you go for, you won't run out of energy for your cooking, cooling or anything else you won't to run at the same time. I believe this is a necessity, not to mention a very smart investment. If you want to be off grid, then be completely off grid. I personally don't believe in still being connected to the grid and having the energy your home creates, sold back to you for an absolute pittance. If you invest in a good battery set up, it'll last you up to 15 years and you'll have never have to worry about heating or cooling. I visited a house about 12 months ago that was off grid for power. They purchased an induction cooktop and electric oven, that way the idn't have to worry about refilling gas bottles or having a gas bill come in either. They didn't have the smartest idea when it came to lights as they were still using halogen's, but even still, their battery system never went under 80%. Even during winter, with two teenagers, and a couple of plasma tv's, playstations and all other sorts of electrical goods that they used. They were never too careful so as to make sure they had power in reserve. They just lived life and if they needed to make adjustments, then they could've done. But they didn't need to. That was all done with a 5.5Kw/H system. You'd be surprised how well solar hot water works. It just depends on the type of system you get. Again with battery backup, you won't need to worry. - We are planning to insulate the slab, but have not gotten as far as deciding what product we would use, are there several different products like the one you described? We do plan to have polished concrete flooring throughout the entire house – with the possible exception of bedrooms on the south, if absolutely necessary they will have carpet. I know it's probably more expensive, but I would recommend the Kingspan K3 Floorboards. It is a brilliant product and I recommend it to be used in all my jobs. The effect it has on an energy rating is massive. Depending on the layout and orientation of the house, just by adding slab insulation, I have noticed an increase of almost a full star difference in the rating. So that's from 6 star compliance, to 7 star above average. Here is the product site: https://www.kingspan.com/au/en-au/products-brands/insulation/insulation-boards/kooltherm-k3-floorboard - We will also be aiming to have the optimal amount of glazing for solar gain (and prevention of heat loss). I still haven’t worked out why I can’t upload a picture of our plans, but will do ASAP as we would love to hear feedback on our plan. As for the layout, you just need be mindful of window sizes and orientation. If you have the time before you build to play around with a few different variations of your plans, it might be a good idea, as just by changing a couple of small things, it can give you large benefits. One of the main focuses I have with my business is to help people such as yourself utilise the energy rating software to make small changes at the design stage, instead of just using such a powerful tool at the building permit stage. By then it's too late to make any significant changes. Just keep that in mind. It's a small price to pay to know that your house is going to be as energy efficient as it can be. If you want to, feel free to email me the plans and I can give them a quick look for you. Just to give you some quick advice on them. Giuliano green design & consulting

Hi, Just a few quick tips to take or leave: -The nook will need some form of natural light & ventilation such as a skylight (you may already be aware). -You mentioned you wanted a slab on ground for thermal reasons. You would actually lose a lot of heat with an uninsulated slab on ground in Ballarat. Insulated underneath it and the thermal mass would be of benefit, but the general advice that a slab on ground will allow thermal mass to couple with the earth for a constant temperature would not work in Ballarat (unless you want it to be constantly cold) -Otherwise your plan has a lot of positives and you've put your thermal mass wall & fire to the north so you could also use it to store the heat from the sun via windows. I think there is a little wasted space which could be improved between the kitchen and N/E living area caused by the 'long & skinny' shaped living and island bench... Something which could be tweaked when you have your working drawings done? Or you could even take a metre out and push the kitchen/dining up to save some floor area (dollars) or add to other rooms.