Love the choice of kitchen - shaker style! I have that style myself and I love it. An interior designer definitely will be able to help you with design and configuration, colour scheme etc. Just letting you know, we had to put 5 structural beams in our ceiling for support and the cost blew us away, it is a very expensive exercise. You'll need an engineer to draw these up. Your draftsman will know of an engineer. Also, as a rule you have to allow for budget blowout. Everyone who has ever done a renovation will tell you. Once you start on the journey, you're emotionally involved and you want it all to be right, and you always add on more changes as you go along. It might be worth pricing things from your kitchen to floorboards to fixtures and fittings, ovens, fridges, lighting choices etc and then draw up your own costings. Builders generally don't do costings, they allow a budget for certain things, like $5 a handle, but then if you choose a $7 handle, then you get hit with a bill at the end of the job with all the extra costs. Make sure you know what the builder has allowed for when it comes to the kitchen, fixtures and fittings etc. I also agree with the others, the oven is too tight in that spot. I would swap that with the sink and put the sink in the island. Hope this is helpful. Good luck with it all, it's very exciting!

the wooden floor makes it so much easier to consider moving plumbing and i'm wondering if moving the kitchen next to the laundry has been considered to enhance the indoor outdoor feel with a servery window and use the old kitchen meals area as a sitting tv area (with or without a means of closing off the area) and square up rumpus room and include the old entry to enlarge rumpus and create a new entry more centred along the verandah, having the new walls around the rumpus would allow for sound insulation and the two sets of doors between theh rumpus and living areas should improve separation without losing the separate study (guest room) and access to the other bedrooms and bath...accurate measurements would allow better consideration of this idea

What we try and do in a professional position, is take the time to identify,clairfy and extract the underlying goals and the specific needs of the owner.....every situation has different and varied (intimate) order of priorities for different aspects/details/functions etc....eg storage for some people is more or less important, same goes for benchspace, or fridge size or any other detail......but until we understand this order of priority of the owner, we are just comparing different sets of personal opinions, and one suggestion is not necessarily any better or worse than the next........this goes for all types of design situations, whether fit-out like this or say the larger scale complete home scenarios.......in my opinion, having the capacity to set aside personal preferences and focus on getting inside the head of the client/owner is critical/key to productive design assistance & support

Hi Kim, Re other comments that have been made on the northern orientation of the house, this does seriously benefit the performance of the dwelling and energy savings no matter what climate you are in. If your preferred aspect is north east, you can still acheive this by stepping the plan rather than angling it. See my rough sketch below. Laundry and office could be interchangeable but with the laundry as I have shown it, you will have outdoor access to an area that is away from the front door. If you can keep your plumbing together, that helps with keeping the cost down but this is not fully aceivable with having separate wings to the house. I'm assuming you want to keep the kids play room as far away as possible so keep that on the north west corner. You can get some afternoon light into the living space via the kitchen or a skylight if you want that. You could swap the dressing area and ensuite in the master bedroom to give sound privacy and allow a bigger window into the ensuite that is not onto the outdoor living area. Also, that could give access to the ensuite from both sides of the bed but keep the plumbing off the bedhead wall. The toilet could be nearer the room entry too for quick access when needed. If you are in a hot climate, for bed 4 have the main window facing south but west if in a cool climate. Alternatively, a corner window might work. Put larger overhangs to the north that suit the sun angle to allow sun in for the cooler months and keep it out in the warm months. East and west, control the sun with window sizing and placement and screens if desired. Good luck. Christine.