@Karen Hodge, I hear you!! Sometimes I think the estate agent should carry quite a bit of the blame actually. If they do their job correctly like you see in the adds on TV, they should bring these discrepancies to the attention of the sellers, stand on their morals and say if you can't get it better than this, then you'll have to find someone else to sell your home!! I know you can't make everybody "house proud" but the saying "do unto others" springs to mind. I bet if these same people bought a house not up to scratch, "a current affair" would hear about it but they don't think it wrong to simply walk out on a house that isn't being left nicely for the next family!! I have some friends that recently sold a house in Essendon, Melb and whilst the buyers were back and forth selling their own home, my friends kept watering the plants and even did things like painted out the wardrobes because of the scuff marks made over time!! They cleaned the entire two storey house from top to bottom and finished by mopping the floors as they were exiting. The buyers were so taken by the entire home, they bought it with almost all the furniture that my friends had in it!!

As we hand our lovely house over to new owners - thank you for the time we have been given in your embrace; thank you for your beautiful space and light, and for giving us the most peaceful and lovely place to eat, sleep, enjoy with friends, laugh and love.

Hey Nik Star, I've had a PowerPoint play with oklouise's edits. This is what I meant about garage entry to the pantry and a laundry in the garage. The red arrows are to stipulate to the builder that level access is required. I added extra garage depth to allow for the garage, that would definitely impact your facade elevation. If you remove the wall between the butler's pantry and mudroom you would have a SUPER PANTRY! But a true butler's pantry in that it was supposed to be where you would land with the veg from the garden so you would kick your shoes off inside the door, so I've noted a little bench seat there, then head in and wash it before heading over to the actual cooking area. Then if you get rid of the sliders and reduce the storage to shallow shelving on the middle wall you would have plenty of space to manoeuvre with mobility devices. For the washing labour machines - washer, dryer, dishy - try getting those mounted on plinths so the load on your poor back is reduced. I have dodgy joints so I am researching all the ergonomic ways to design work spaces to help me when I get to the awesome stage you guys are at with getting to build!

DB.....A LOT of ideas and advice flying around here.......skimming through I see you are endeavouring to establish a basic concept for a designer/architect to consolidate for you, which is great.......whilst you may think this is a logical approach to achieve the best outcome, you are arguably just throwing around random ideas rather than properly resolving/focusing on the critical aspects ........my advice is do this: firstly clearly ascertain two things on paper, not in plan or building format but in writing...that is 1. List all your requirements/needs/goals and 2. Nominate a budget. Next, identify/research a logical local designer/architect option and approach them with this information....A designer's job is to come up with an appropriate concept/solution that best balances your requirements, aligned with a budget and of course make it viable within context/site. Sure, you want a cost effective/modest result, that's fine, and that will influence the solution, but as a general comment it feels like there is massive potential being missed considering the site..it dens;t necessarily have to be that big or fancy, but you have to put the EXPERIENCE of the home front and centre of the process, and not just think of it as a kitchen or whatever laid out this way or that ....This is about an amazing site and the living experience of that and the design should be based on this and bring together your specific requirements elegantly balanced in context......The issue I have scrolling through all this is that you have all these almost disconnected ideas of building form, but you have this incredible site....... the process of resolving the spaces ideally needs to develop from cues of the immediate environment/site in order to make the most of it since you are pursuing a customised solution.....agree with MB, every project has a budget and ultimately from experience this is in general the ultimate/overriding constraint. This project could be anything upwards from $500K and it will come down to the working out how far you want to take it, and what your priorities are over various levels.......this one has seriously significant potential -make sure you make the most of it as you're truly fortunately to have this opportunity to build a home for you and your family to enjoy there.......best of luck :) PD