What’s your rough budget for the extension? This will show what size extension you can afford. Am I reading right, do you want to end up with 3bed, 2bath (1 ensuite) and 2 living? Will there be kids living here?

Budget for reno and extension is $250000 ish. Yes to 3bed, 2bath and 2 living. No kids at this stage, but this is a possibility.

Can you post an aerial photo do we can see the roof line. It may be better to knock down and start again given 2 bedrooms are very small or add it as a seperate building with a corridor link
With north to left I would run extension down south side of block

first task is to make a site plan and double check the dimensions as the the sizes of the rooms in the original plan are inconsistent and what is the distance from the house to all four sides of the block and what is the house floor and roof made out of (eg slab on ground with tile roof or?) and what are the garage and shed built out of, what is the distance between the house and the garage and the garage and side boundary and please describe your local climate and how does the back verandah look?...and/or some external photos would help

I don't think we can make valid suggestions without way more info .

Some things confuse me already though -- you haven't moved in , and you want to spend $250k more ? There's 2 of you , but you already want to 'double' the area ? You show a large rumpus room ? The garage door is out of whack with the terrace as drawn . You'd need to know way more about construction , flooring , plumbing , load bearing walls , how much the section drops , any easements , as well as Kate and Oklouises queries .

Anything can be done , but is it worth it ? Even with all the info , only you know that , but suggestions on what info you have given may not be realistic .

Yes, we plan on spending $350000 (max) in total including reno, extension, shed (my partner needs a large shed for his work), pool (this may have to come later if budget prevents) and landscaping. Yes, we want to double the area, we are currently in a small home and are creating a family/entertaining home - we are a relatively young couple. The garage will no longer exist there. We will be building a large shed/garage at the back of the block.

Probably a silly few questions , but first one -- did you look for a bigger place and/or one with a large shed/basement , as it sounds like you have the financing ?

Is the partners business activity actually allowed ?

Did you think about some kind of live and work -- buy or build a commercial building with an office in front and a flat upstairs or similar ? Or demolish your house and do that on this section if its allowed ?

Just me , but why buy something , change most things , build on , build a large shed , build a pool . Buy something like that in the first place . If nothing like that is available , that will tell you no-one has done it before , so your resale will be difficult .

The only slight proviso to that is lifestyle blocks -- a large building is sought after for business or cars or horses or a whole variety .

I don't want to be too negative , but you buy something that suits 90% of what you want , not 30% .

I have done several live and work units , and they are popular with investors as they lease easily ; and popular with owner/occupiers , but this idea of yours doesn't seem all that well thought through sorry .

Jo Jenkins, it also might be handy for yourself, to use the graph paper and draw your design ideas to scale on that graph paper. This would help get this squishyness from your design, as at the moment your design is definitely not to scale.

This is a birds eye of the block. I’m not finding you too negative, questions are not silly - it’s hard to give all info via text/discussion board. We wanted a block that was 1000m+. We have been looking for 3 years, when one comes up, they are gone before they’ve hit realestate.com. Yes, shed is allowed. Blocks this size are very rare in this area as most have been subdivided. The reason why we were able to nab this one is that it’s 2m under sub division width. We actually don’t plan on changing most things. The plan is to keep the existing house mostly as is (with new floors/tiles/paint). Then extend out the back as we have another 800m+ to play with out there. The resale will be fine. Big sheds and blocks are a wanted commodity here. Not that we want to sell. We want to live there forever and make it lovely. A knock down is possible but we were hoping to avoid that.

Love okl plan, as usual.

Lovely big block.

Sounds a great buy. Always buy for the land , it lasts forever

The following suggestion, making the extension the Master suite with Living room/MFR,

Bathrooms can be easily accessed from the fenced pool, plus pool can be viewed from internal living spaces making the pool safer and giving a lovely outlook to these rooms

Wow, thank you oklouise and siriuskey - you’re both very clever. Loving these plans.

This is the newest plan, we are meeting with the builder today to discuss. Very exciting! Thanks for everyone’s input. An architect will draw up the final properly, I’m obviously not skilled at this.

Here is why the architect has come up with. Still in concept stage.

*what

I like your new plans. There are 2 things that I would consider. The first is that the children are a long way from the master, they often need their parents during the night in thd early years. The second is that you may need 4 bedrooms after having children, so a study nook maybe useful.

Looking again, I am inclined to swap master with rumpus.

It’s an exciting time for you. One of the drivers for my renovation is peace and quiet so I’m sensitive to some area of plans. I notice your main bedroom has the bed on the same wall as the living room TV. TV sound will carry through that wall. Insulation and sound check plaster can minimise but not remove sound transferring.

Good points me me and bigreader, thank you!

Maybe swap a main bathroom door out for a cavity slider.
3 wall hung doors...seems a lot to navigate!
Swap master bed to ensuite wall.
Nice view as you walk in..to see the bed.

it's disappointing to have such a narrow gap between new and old parts of the house when there could be a great courtyard and/or clothes drying area and better use of the garden along the eastern fence, the master bedroom feels cramped and the laundry too big, where will you park/garage a car and carry in groceries and how do you plan to use the rumpus room as i would rather have the rumpus and laundry swopped with master bedroom suite for more indoor out connection

some more ideas to consider with a bigger courtyard (ideal for a drying yard, vege patch and/or play area for small kids) and two variations of the master suite and an opportunity for a covered side entry into a laundry mudroom and keeping the extra toilet and furniture out of the pool area will make it safer and easier to use from outside

Thanks oklouise! I’m really enjoying your perspective. It’s very much appreciated. I’m a complete novice at this stuff and we weren’t looking to renovate but it just ended up being that way. Excellent ideas 🙏