Thank you for all of the suggestions. As we are currently getting renovations done elsewhere in the house it is hard for me to provide photos. The two exterior walls in the living room have floor to ceiling windows, whilst the dining room has three consecutive windows around 1m off the ground. One of the windows in the living room it is not possible to put blinds on as it is too close to another window (perpendicular from it). There are also a second set of glass doors onto the balcony which we do not wish to put blinds on. Therefore next to the front door there are four windows/glass doors, only one of which can be covered with blinds. So as you walk across the balcony and to the front door you have a substantial view into the house, even if a wall was built to separate the living areas from the entry. It is for this reason that we don't think a front entry way will work. We are not too fussed about the privacy as it is a raised Queenslander hidden front street view due to a number of large trees. However, we were concerned that having the kitchen in view from the front door could affect resale value (although it doesn't bother us). We enjoy having a large kitchen however could happily have a smaller one if it meant the space worked a lot better. We would like to keep the laundry in its current location if possible, to minimise renovations. The main reason we are concerned with the floor plan is, as I've said before, that we would like to have it open plan and we think that simply knocking down the wall separating the kitchen and dining room would not be the ideal way to go about this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

What an exciting project - providing you have adequate ceiling height and the budget to pay for the services for a bespoke solution. You may want to consider using one of the better shop fitters who can design, build and project manage the whole job. They are used to doing quirky, small scale projects to a high level of detail. The better ones don't come cheap as you are paying for a multi-disciplinary service that is project managed and co-ordinated.

Hi Sarah, hope you enjoyed your travels last night, that's something we have spent our lives doing plus living in different countries. Do look into the attic room/s they are lovely and the Velux skylights very unobtrusive, look great and if positioned correctly take care of venting any hot air, as I mentioned ours were pivoting ones and could be locked open in several positions. I much prefer these to dormer windows, you don't really notice them. The stairs were built off site and lifted into position and installed, built in. At the time we did ours a very good friend a builder did the same but just completely opened the whole ceiling space right out towards the gutters into a large bedroom play study area for his daughters, also using Velux windows. Glass ceilings, like Velux windows have been around for years, believe me I know, we're both getting older. Velux windows can be used as glass ceilings in opening and non opening configurations. I would love to see you keep the outdoor loo as well and updating the old shed into a new connecting space to the house, perhaps a glass breezeway. I will have another look at your plan again over the weekend. I love your front iron gate as well, auto sliding driveway gates work really well and would really fit with your carport. My brother in law put in a tall timber sliding gate at his last home, lovely cheers

Hi again. Finally took the plunge and had the kitchen resprayed. So much lighter and a great job by the professionals. Hard to remember the mustard kitchen now, except the photos remind me.