There are hundreds of suggestions that can be made on how to update, renovate and re-design a layout to make it functional for you and allow it to respond well to the built environment. Engaging an architect or building designer at this stage may not be something you're willing to do, as spending money for plans on a house you don't own would not be the ideal situation. The issue with this is that the design phase of a project takes a lot of time and consideration. My best advice would be to play around with the plans and create some sketches, whether online or on paper. If you are happy with the possibilities then buy the property. Any house can be transformed, but whether or not you are satisfied with the transformation is a personal choice only you can make.

our local council usually allows a front set back equal to the average of the two neighbours' and adding about 5m to the front and 5m to the north front would allow for a living area, master bed suite and 4th bedroom BUT any extension that's wider than the original front bedroom will need the roof to be wider and also much higher and needs special consideration to make it fit in with the existing house BUT adding a single bedroom to the front would be a lot of expense for little return..the cheapest option would be to use the old kitchen for a bedroom and add a new kitchen in the old back deck area but the front extension could be an opportunity to create something really generous...is the area worth the investment?

I've been playing around with a pantry location. Originally, I was going to move the pantry into the laundry with some custom shelving and cut the laundry space in half. Now, Im thinking of cutting into the study area and building a wall there, and converting the new space into a long and narrow walk in pantry. Either that or build half a wall and put built in shelving in the study. Building the extra wall will reduce the need to cover in the door way that is currently in place and instead utilising it. Thoughts? p.s. this isnt too scale.

obviously there are some "professionals" operating to arguably less than professional standards and unfortunately they contribute to the confusion of the value of what we do, and make it harder for you guys to trust us at the time that you actually most needs us. There is also a significant difference between a Pro who knows what their doing properly clarifying/translating information as required throughout the design process, to having the subtleties and complexity dumbed down for the sake of "plain language" that risks misinterpretation and underestimation of what's involved. I completely agree, it's often made way harder than it needs to be, and I think again it's horses for courses and certainly there are many professionals who would arguably be best utilised for their skills specifically contained to within the professional industry boundaries, yet others who are naturally better at "bridging the gap" and liaising/working/communicating seamlessly with both the clients and the industry. Unfortunately, to the average punter it's very very difficult to distinguish and gauge these critical key differences between the various Pro's.