Hi Vy I would suggest a couple of changes based on the floor plan design, and making the most of the orientation. - a master bedroom really needs a minimum width of 3.5m to fit queen size bed, bedside tables and circulation ether side. I can't see a dimension on this, so just check - I don't believe the games room will be a valuable space, and will be hot given its orientation. Consider making this your ensuite, and turning the end of the hallway into the master suite entry. - it's often great, in order to create spaciousness, that you arrive at open spaces at the top of stairs. Consider opening up the study area but give yourself flexibility to close it off with a large panel sliding door (Centor make great sliding track hardware for these). Given its orientation, it'll be a lovely spot in the home, and could help natural light at your lower floor entry when the space is opened up. When your kids need quiet, or to watch TV, you can close it off. - alternatively, switch your master to this end of the house. - consider mirroring your stairs, so you don't have the landing right by the door. It'll clear up circulation around the front door, and give you some opportunity to do something interesting with the understair space, or stair design, to be a feature at the front roor - given the orientation, I would flip your lounge and kitchen. I'd possibly put your TV joinery on the wall shared with the dining. And I'd open the dining up to the hallway more so you have a visual connection across to the kitchen, and it feel more spacious, and the hallway at that point gets more natural light. - I'd also play with the configuration of the downstairs laundry and bathroom so you can privatise the entry to them a bit more, and potentially widen the hallway at that point Best wishes for your renovation. It's great to take some time to get the planning right at this point, and really unlock the possibilities for your home, Regards Amelia Lee Undercover Architect

Hi Sarah, I completely sympathise with your situation and very sorry to hear about it for you. You're in a complete mess with this. As a Pro it's super frustrating to look on and hear of these stories because 100% this is so easily avoided with the right approach and astute investment in using a competent design professional. I've lost count of the number of times I've had people eventually come to find us, but in a bit of state/heads done in/in a shemozzle of a situation, after spending time/(sometimes years) and money getting nowhere, being disappointed with higher than expected quotes etc yet still pretty much back exactly where they begun with no logical plan forward.........sound familiar? The common thread is lack of alignment or management of expectations of Project budget to Project brief relationship. And that's why we have a job as professional designers - we develop solutions for specific needs, balanced within context and balanced within constraints, the biggest one always being budget. You just can't bypass this process and expect to get good results. And you won't achieve it effectively on a Houzz forum. Hopefully though a few of our Pro responses will help steer you in the right direction. Unfortunately people think it's a good way to save money on their projects to not pay for design - it's actually quite the opposite. There's no easy answer here of say "move the kitchen there, flip that over, change this or that" etc unfortunately you're back to the drawing board....and you're best to accept the time and money put in so far is actually part of the process and your particular journey. This reminds me of a project years back where clients came in asking me to tweak and draw up a design that someone else had done - they already spent $40K and had a planning permit for it but there were big budget problems - it was clearly/unfortunately a poor & inefficiently resolved design beyond budget (similar to yours) & I could visualise a much better alternative solution. So I convinced them to move on, toss it all away and we go back to the drawing board - I'd redesign it from scratch much better and better value/cost effective overall - they reluctantly agreed and that's exactly what I did. Fortunately they did themselves a favour knowing deep down that they had to go backwards to go forwards. I designed and delivered a far better, less expensive and more impressive home. that they are eternally grateful for, and for my honesty and advice at the time that was ultimately in their best interests. Like always, with all projects, it ALWAYS comes down to money.........so their success relies predominantly in the design solution..... I'll try and keep it simple: 1. Design is a process of balancing requirements within context within constraint/limits 2. Good design decisions involve having understanding of cost/budget consequences 3. the above points are primarily what distinguishes design professionals from amateurs 4. It's therefore false economy trying to DIY design and/or pursue projects of this scale as Owner Builder unless you (a) have a passive income (b) significant construction experience (c) a flexible budget and are just in it for a hit & a giggle So our Advice: Seek Professional Design assistance How we manage these types of projects is by starting with clarifying the project brief in writing - forget about the floor plan - define and specify your brief requirements and goals and define the budget. The next step is to look at broad form options that we develop in a "Feasibility' stage of service in which we analyse the context, identify some logical options/variations of format for a nominated project scope relative to context and apply accurate construction cost projects to each to compare. So in your case we'd be looking at answering the critical questions of in what particular format can we best meet the requirements? Is it with an extension, or hybrid alterations&additions, do we go up, down or out, what are the cost differences and pro's and cons to the different configuration options, how much should we renovate, how does the investment one way or the other stack up in regards to property value? Is it actually better value to do more than less (more often yes!) Is staging/breaking up a project into parts beneficial or proven to be less cost effective? So many questions that need professional assistance and experience to answer to get the best outcome for you and your family. It's not easy business........Labour cost these days is the killer on renos - if you don't know what you're doing (ie understanding how certain design decisions translate to X cost) then you've got no hope in balancing the numbers to success................ Apologies for the long winded response! Hope this helps Sarah. Trust us, we know what we're talking about. Happy to provide further advice/assistance if you'd like to contact us directly Kind regards, Paul Di Stefano Paul Di Stefano Design www.pauldistefanodesign.com

we're still waiting for answers to all the question posted from your last post only two days ago??

OK, a few issue here. General comment : It could be heaps better - there's nothing much exciting here. What do you see when you walk in the front door? The back of the garage door beyond the window. There is a disconnect of flow from the kitchen and the living/dining zone. To start with The plan is missing furniture (big designer fail). You'll see once that is put in whether it's working appropriately for what you want or not. I'd guess if you got a lounge onto the plan immediately you'd see that you'd be squeezed walking into the end of it trying to access the dining table and depending on the dining table proportion's likely that area is squeezed. The relationship between the dining and kitchen area could be improved. I'd suggest there is an alternative that avoids such an exaggerated doglegged end to the space that renders some precious unusable outdoor space and is a clunky resolution. You'd be better off building hard up to the end and enlarging the main outdoor areas so it's a single space, or potentially getting some external storage into it. The living/kitchen dining could be a lot cleaner and more spacious feeling. Would be good to understand where north is. On something like this you're better to exploit the site length rather than try and compromise the width. If north is up the page my instinct would be to flip the whole thing entirely having the kitchen running along the south. Also for a house this smallish scale arguably it would be more efficient to combine pantry and laundry for a more spacious outcome. Also I'd suggest that the outdoor kitchen is oversized and out of proportion for the site. It's always about balancing and prioritising elements, and in tight sites you have to work harder and make robust decisions about where you give & take. You can't afford to waste a square inch here, and if you want it to be awesome the design needs to be super efficient and to achieve a reasonable amenity that doesn't feel squeezed in the main spaces. It takes experience and skill to get this stuff right. Sorry if am seeming overly critical, but when engaged in resolving spaces for people I consider it a responsibility as a professional to ensure a client gets the absolute most out of the opportunity. There is so much underwhelming "vanilla" design work that people pay good money for, thinking that it's "good" when they are no idea how much better it can be. It doesn't have to necessarily be more expensive, but it does have to be throughly considered and properly managed, and opportunities identified and harnessed. Typically this involves considering a number of various broad options and then fine-tuning towards an outcome that is properly aligned to budget and project brief. Budget of course is the biggest factor to get a proper handle of, think here at least $500K+. If that's pushing it, then you'll have some hard decisions to make and need to be consolidating the extent of the expensive fit-out areas in conjunction with a more efficient design that achieves something in a smaller extension......if that's so then possibly one of the front rooms may have to be repurposed for bathroom.......again this comes back to starting the process by considering various options in broad form together with properly applied costings to each option so you can be making informed decisions on what's possible, rather than nitpicking detail on options that are likely beyond budget. Hope this provides some food for thought from a professional perspective Good luck with it PD :) www.pauldistefanodesign.com