To me , it looks a bit like its designed for you , which is fine , but not so much for resale ?

Some things I'd query , in no particular order --

-- is the entry slightly lower ? Are those steps , or doors , shown a couple of metres inwards ?

-- lounge looks a little small for the size of the house .

-- likewise , Bed 2 and 3 looka litle small -- think of the next owner .

-- the 2 kinks in the garage/hall wall is weird-- be better to move the 'right' side of the garage 30cm if you need the space IMO , and have a straight wall and wider hallway .

-- the powder room and main bath entry looks busy , for no real reason .

-- likewise , the laundry looks pokey -- okay for 2 people , not so much for 5 .

-- nothing wrong with a large veranda ( I am assuming it is under the same roof and trusses ) but when you take into account my other queries , it is maybe too large in comparison .

Basically , I'd probably make the footprint 2 metres 'deeper' and 1 metre 'wider' , add 50cm to Bed 2 and 3 each , add a metre across the main bath/powderroom/laundry , widen the garage a bit . Basically , make it a 5/6 person house , not a 2 person plus guests . Spend $10-15k now , get $50k on resale .

But hey , its your place , and we have no idea on section size or covenants etc , just where I'd query and consider .

My wish list
Big Verandah on north side to sit and enjoy. Wider eaves on west side to protect bedrooms unless there are big trees there.
Move internal garage door to main hall so can go directly with shopping into kitchen.
Add a door from living to hall opp laundry. Do a layout for family meals as I can’t work out the recess on hall wall.
Move pantry entry towards the outer bench eliminating corner cupboards and getting better bench space behind island.

Agree with above comments from Kate. All points are valid.

The family/dining is a HUGE square room. This is more of a challenge to furnish than a rectangular room. A, to scale, layout for furniture placement would be beneficial.

Will you use beds 2 & 3 as guest rooms or will one be a home office? If both as bedrooms, do you need a space to work from home and if so, where would you put it?
Plus hope you are going to have adequate shade on western side to minimise summer sun into bedrooms. I'm in Qld and with one bedroom on western side, it is always very hot in the afternoons.
I'm also not keen on having a bedroom right next to the garage - even if just a guest room that isn't used a lot.

Thanks so much everyone. We pushed out the family dining area to try and capture some northern sun into the back area with a glass door and louvre windows which will lead to an east facing alfresco area. Bed 2&3 will be guest bedrooms only and very rarely used. We do not require an office either. I have asked for the extra floor space in bedrooms/laundry and main bathroom. The north side faces the road and south will have a nice garden area so this is why we placed the alfresco on south. Yes totally understand re west rooms. We had a west facing house once and said we would never do that again.

My biggest concern is that you have a house that suits you perfectly , but is only really going to interest empty-nesters 55 plus who occassionally have guests or grandchildren , and want gardens and maintanence , and like you , aren't too worried about resale -- you are catering to 5% , not 75% of potential 3 bedroom purchasers .

Even investors wanting a rental property ( and renters ) will be wary , especially as it is likely this will be an executive level rental for the foreseeable future .

You probably intend to stay indefinitively , and I'm just thinking ahead .

To pick up on 1 point Kate made too -- if your entrance from the garage to the house itself was along the 'kitchen' wall , that whole little hall where the internal garage door is now could be walled off , and you could make that area a larger wardrobe for bed 2 , deleting the intrusive one , giving a bit more space there too .

Thanks @pottsy99. Yes you are right. We have bought and sold many homes and this time were just thinking of ourselves I guess. I will have to really rethink what we are doing. We have looked at a lot of plans and project builds and just can’t find anything to click with us.

it's great to have a home builder planning for themselves as it seems to me that the first thing new buyers do is change whatever the previous owner had...my suggestion would be to move the alfresco/verandah to the east to screen hot summer sun and provide direct kitchen access, add partially covered verandahs to north, east and south after you've lived in the house long enough to decide where the shade suits you best... consider louvre windows or at least partial louvres for most of the windows with external electric shutters for western windows and internal shutters for a big window over the bath so you can lay in the tub and admire the garden...my rough copy of your original plans including the verandah is 315sqm and my variation doesn't enlarge the total floor area but has extra space for the wiw and ens, moving the broom storage to the hallway has enlarged the laundry and added a porch, there's external access for the powder room, changing the shower has made the bathroom more spacious and rearranging the hall cupboards has added extra space for the powder room, made furniture arrangement easier for the family room and includes generous storage for the dining area .. beds 2 and 3 are a little bigger and there's a mudroom with direct kitchen access to the bigger kitchen with servery to the year round alfresco .. adding furniture illustrates how much space is available and there's access to the back garden and plenty of room for a pool and a lush tropical garden

Thank you so much oklouise. This plan looks really good and what I have been trying to achieve. I really appreciate all the work and thought you have put into this for me. I’m just wondering if there is any way the alfresco can be still on the south side and still work? This will be our main view to our garden. Apart from that this plans will be perfect for us and thanks again.

i wonder what we both think an alfresco means?.. .my intention for the eastern side is a paved outdoor eating area shaded by a roof supported by posts so the roof would help shade the eastern side of the house and have a close connection to the kitchen for outdoor eating but would have almost no impact on the views to the north, east or south gardens and there's still about 3m of garden space from the side of my alfresco to the eastern fence and that would be an ideal area for deep garden beds...of course you can still have the big roofed area on the south side but then the family room would be darker in winter and in summer the eastern side would be too hot to sit outside ..please share a site plan showing the house on the block, direction of any views beyond your boundaries, where you plan the gardens and any other buildings and i can try some other options for you

Ah yes I see what you mean. Our orientation is a bit tricky but I am determined..the views will be to the rear of the block (south). My poor long suffering partner is waiting for me to choose a plan before he starts thinking about the landscaping but we will definitely have a tropical theme and work on shading the home for summer. At this stage we do not plan on having any other buildings or pool on the block but will do a fish pond and a nice water feature. This is the site plan before we started changing the plan. Once again thank you..

why the wide setback on the west?

This will get changed to 1.5 as required by council to have more over east side. My apologies. I should of mentioned that.

that makes more sense and i have tried to make the alfresco on the south but if it were my house i would have to have the alfresco closer to the kitchen and i've added a verandah across the south, increased the pergola and added access from the lounge, a servery between kitchen and alfresco and, with raked ceilings for the kitchen, dining, family and alfresco and careful size and placement of shading and louvre windows to maximise ventilation and your gorgeous garden it will be a lovely comfortable house ... my latest plan shows how i think some of the garden would enhance the alfresco and views from the kitchen and dining area

I love this! Thank you so much for your efforts. Just a couple of quick questions if you don’t mind..with the alfresco and verandah..is this under the main roof and will the house still get enough light in? Once again thank you. I am certainly feeling very confident with this plan.

Well that looks amazing! It is exactly what I have been trying to capture and would sit on our block just lovely. I am seeing our builder next week and will take this with me. Thank you once again and I honestly appreciate everything you have done. I will post back once it has all come together so you can see final outcome.

Oklouise I tried to pm you but cannot see how I am able to do this. Would you mind please when you have a moment posting the plan in a couple of sections as I am having difficulty in reading the sizing of a lot of the rooms from your full plan. Sorry to ask you to do this but want to make sure I am getting it right. Thanks again.

Perfect..thank you

So we have been back to our draughtsman several times tweaking the plan and would love input into our final design. Unfortunately as prices are skyrocketing we have had to delete a lot of cabinetry and shuffle things around a bit. Any final tips / recommendations at all..have appreciated all of your help and especially Louise..

looks great although i'm sorry that you didn't keep the mudroom area, separate powder room and the plumbing for the bathroom off the adjoining wall to bed 2 but it will be a gorgeous house that will enjoy the views, happy building

Yes I see what you mean and that makes perfect sense. I will ask him to change plumbing to the other side of bathroom. We were worried bedroom 3 would be too small if we left mud room there..do you think room will be big enough if we incorporate back into plan?

what is the size of the bedroom i can't read the dimensions on the plan ...although another option could be to open the hall side of the biw so that you can access a hanging rail and wide shelves to use the storage from either side.. it's a place to hang outdoor clothes, hats, umbrella, dog lead, shoes etc when you come in from the garage and can be called a coat closet instead of a mudroom??

We worked it out as 3900 x 3500. I think if we do it I would prefer the original one you did as the full length of wall

no reason why you can't have no doors on the bedroom side and use a free standing wardrobe and chests of drawers for the occasional guest if necessary and that way you can have the bigger bedroom and the mudroom without the expense of storage on both sides ... a handy place to sit and take off your shoes or hang a coat is very welcome in our house and we've found that the guest room only needs a place to rest an open suitcase, a chair and pretty coat hangers on the back of the door for a dressing gown and longer stayers use bedside chest of drawers for extras

So just when I thought we were good to go my husband dropped the bombshell that he wants to do away with the third garage and now put an office/4th bedroom in front of house opposite the lounge room. I do get that this is actually being a bit ‘smarter’ with our area in regards to resale and would be another nice room to have north facing instead of a third garage. I am hoping the facade might look a bit more balanced too. I’m just wondering if we could do this and also include maybe a mud room. I do not want to increase the size of house at all. We have been back to builder previously and he is going to put a powder room back on rather than toilet in bathroom (@oklouise). I apologise for being painful but have really valued past input. Any feedback/input would be very much appreciated! Thanks again

without changing total floor area ..double garage with rear access, mudroom and office bed 4 (with opt access from entry foyer?) and bed 2 and bed 3 are now the same size

Thank you so much @oklouise