@ambulastar1985 - The lack of insulation in Australian homes is indeed appalling. Coming from a European background where insulation standards are very strict (although they differ from one country to another), I fail to understand why Australia is so behind on that matter. We may not have much cold weather compared to Europe but our summers can be extremely hot and it's silly to rely solely on air-con to regulate temperature. So much energy (and money!) could be saved by just planning the house and insulating it properly to start with, without affecting much the initial cost or construction time frame. In France - which is definitely not a leader in environmental matters! - these days, when selling a house, you have to get an expert to estimate how energy efficient your home is and to indicate the energy rating on the ad and sale documents. Houses that are not energy efficient sell for less and can also be taxed at higher rates by councils. It's been a great incentive to get people to think twice when building and/or renovating.

luckily this shouldn't cause any major structural or safety issues and, even if it had been done "correctly" there would still have been some narrow cut tiles across the doorway so why not just add a row of tiles across the whole strip as a textural feature if you have matching tiles or a colourful feature in matching thickness different colour tiles or fill the gap with concrete stained or painted to tone with either the door or the floor or you could try a strip of wood but it may be difficult to cut a long narrow piece of wood thin and strong enough to survive the heavy traffic in a doorway although a piece of quad or scotia timber moulding or the curved edge cut off a piece of MDF skirting might be OK if sealed well...but hope everything else has worked out well for you

If you want to make the house hotter, then painting the roof charcoal will certainly achieve that. Repointing the brickwork is the most sensible from a maintenance perspective. Once you render and paint, then you have to keep painting (and it's likely to be out of fashion sooner or later). Try to keep passive cooling in mind (i.e. light colours & permeable landscaping) with any of your renovations, and I think it always pays to try and embrace and compliment the original architecture and be unique, rather than trying to look like the latest project home. In my opinion the arch window is actually quite cool, and the excellent mock-ups provided by Geo Toria are along the right track.

Your renovations are well underway, so after seeing the small floor plan and that the vanity is on an internal wall and you apparently still want the Shaving Cabinet. Having cavity brick walls I would get your brickie to remove a section of the brick wall so that the shaving cabinet can be recessed back into the cavity, this will overcome any concerns you have about bumping your head, this opening can then be patched along with other walls. I would take all of your photos and measurements to someone like Reece to pick a hand basin to fit,, I would also keep in mind that if say the width of the vanity is around 900 the shaving cabinet would match that width and you would end up with say 2 x 450 mirrored doors, which puts the mirror join in the middle and in your face when using the vanity. cheers