Louie - pretty well I think. See my latest renditions below. I have been playing around with how to screen off that toilet/shower area from the living room. Not only would it be preferable to keep the toilet out of sight, but it would also be nice if people pop go down and up the stairs to visit the toilet or shower without having to do a short "walk-of-shame" past the potentially occupied living/dining room. I was thinking a of having a partially-drawn pair of curtains or perhaps one of those dangle-y "fly curtain" type things to disrupt the view a bit, but then I thought a set of swinging doors with tinted/diffuse glass in them, because: 1. You can charge in and out of this busy area by just pushing through the set of doors, and letting them swing back in to place behind you (like saloon doors) 2. The glass panes will still allow the person to see if anyone is on the other side, so they don't bowl them over. Will also let natural light in. Also means could do away with the laundry door perhaps, since it will be kind-of redundant (main purpose was to eliminate washing machine noise in the living area) 3. The doors also stop heat from the fireplace drifting up the stairs on cold winter nights when the fire is going. Not a crucial thing at all, but a nice additional benefit Thanks for sharing the floor plans - it's given me a much clearer picture of what you've done with that pole house...looks fantastic! brizcs - great point about the chair by the window, that's really struck a chord with me so I am toying with ways to do this. One idea I had is in the plan below: Rather than put a narrow table hard against the glass, maybe swing the kitchen table 90 degrees, make it longer, and have people sit along the south side looking out the windows most of the time. When it's night time or there are lots of guests or whatever just drag the chairs to the other side and you're back to the conventional set up. If a table where flush against the windows it would mean a lot of direct sunlight on its surface throughout the cooler months, due to the low angle of the sun (glare might become a problem?)

thank you for all of your comments. The main issue is that this wall faces quite a steep hill, so if I excavate too much I run the risk of creating a 'pool' under a suspended floor, facing the hill. This would be a disaster for the old double-brick home, which already has damp problems from water from the hill. My other concern about a slab is creating a permanent damp patch next to the house, assuming the black plastic membrane under a slab would be permanently damp (no evaporation). The mortar throughout the original house is lime mortar which is highly permeable and turns to dust when permanently damp John Cameron, I appreciate you mentioning passive solar, I'm familiar with this. Would it be best in this case to put rigid foam (say 50mm) under the actual slab before casting it? There will still be a thermal bridge at the perimeters though. MB Design I like the idea of a graded slope under a suspended timber floor, so will check with a structural engineer as to 150->400 allowance, noting my comment above about not wanting to pond water Two's Company I like the idea of a cement sheet for the wet room area - I have actually done a bathroom like this before and it works with great waterproofing. TBH I'm wondering right now if I should just redesign the whole thing. I'm going to make another post to canvas opinions on the two options and costs. Thank you! Sue

our kitchen dining area was tiled, and its all cracking, but the bathroom is fine. i think it's just that the bathroom is smaller and the posts pretty much run around the wall so it all moves together, the kitchen/dining is just too big an area and the posts run right along the crack, so of course is really cracked and needs to be pulled off. lovely tile, but wrong choice for this house. i plan to use lino for the floor in the kitchen and bathroom, it would have originally been lino. our neighbour has a concrete slab under their house and i'd been puzzling how they stopped it cracking till they showed me they layed it in sections like massive pavers. this sort of soil is like big sponge, so i prefer to keep it moist and use plants that soak up any excess moisture. i've got water loving subtropicals, gingers and cannas and half the lawn is mint. look, don't panic, get to understand what this means and factor it in to any further choices.

How big is the room that is higher? If you have checked under the floor and it definitely has timber supports and timber joists, then yes it is possible……but that is a huge job. All the sub floor then the horizontal joists will need to be removed from their vertical supports, the supports cut down then the joists, if reusable, reinstalled. The walls will also need to be extended by 3cm at the base…?? While your doing all this, how are the walls going to be kept up if you remove the floor? Definitely a job for a builder to assess.