Hi Chris Good plan revision there may be a couple of things that may help 1. You need 3Ds to make a decision on the front, its not to difficult to do if your Building Designer has the appropriate software, in all my design I give my clients 3Ds because it is difficult to understand spatial concepts from 2D's drawings - even fro people that do it every day. 2. Internal views are often more important than external - you spend more time inside the house than outside., your neighbours my spend more time outside looking at the house. 3. Upstairs I really like the master bedroom, but one of the robe has a window in it this would mean that the clothes would become decoloured. I would remove the window. 4. Also I would remove the window next to the TV in the recreation room - TV's will increase in size and the window might not add to better viewing. In my opinion the recreation area forces people to go around the sofa - children wont they will walk over them - more fun. I think the Tv should be on the Bathroom wall and the room squared of and the real furniture put in to scale - might help a bit with the final decision, some 3D's would help. 5. There seem to be no window in bedroom 4. 6. The downstairs works well, just that the kitchen bench still has a sink in it - not very practical, and a bit old fashioned because it really does not work - tend to spill between sink - stove and fridge - wet floors are not very helpful in work areas like kitchens. Hope this is of some help Regards Michael

I would recommend changing the colour of the window frames and the roof trims (including the one above the car port) to something more colorful, but still subtle. Like a soft, grey-ish blue, this wont be to different from your original selection, but will add some contrast and nicely underline the features of the house. Also soft blues look great with yellow and will work well with your colour selection for the door. I think the white you chose will look lovely on the may of the house and the fence. But if you find a white fence to boring you could brighten it up by painting it in the same colour as the windows. I agree with the other comments in regards to the bush covering your veranda, it might be worth at least trimming it or replacing it with something more suited for the area. You can also paint a few different sized pots in the same yellow of the door and arrange them along your fence line to tie the colour theme together. I hoped that helped and gave you some ideas, I've added pictures of the kind of blues I had in mind, obviously you can always go for a half tone if you find full to intense.

Hi Mic, Seek out a draftsman or designer who has focus on sustainability and can conduct an Energy rating as part of the design process. A designer who has their Cert Iv in NatHERS is qualified to assess and design for these issues. On a rough calculation - standard WA construction, 25° roof, 500 wide eaves, ceiling at 2.435h then a setback of 1.700 should allow for the sun to strike the floor at equinox, if you have full height windows. Best case scenario place the house between 1.7 to 4m from the fence/retaining. The further it is the more sun strikes the slab during winter. You question about increasing the ceiling height - yes that is a good work around, going to to 3m high may cost more than your think. Another 3c/300mm in height will give you more sun penetration in the winter if your windows are raised and would be a more cost effective solution. But there are many variables such as planning, engineering, buildability and cost. Speak to an qualified designer or architect and they will have the knowledge and experience to deal with all the conflicting factors.

Sorry to say but I'd suggest it's worse in some aspects. The doglegged entry flow (still) from front/street is not ideal and entry position blocks prime light into the sitting. Generally the planning still could be more streamlined. It's not ideal having the main access flow from the stair through the upper level living space. A more centralised stair would be far better, for both levels, now it involves moving into the secondary formal sitting space to access upstairs. I'm actually working on a project at the moment where the previous architect did exactly this rendering the front sitting space pretty much useless (slap forehead), and so now the new owner clients are faced with having to unpick/pull it apart to get the stair properly configured and positioned so the associated spaces flow and function properly. Imagine here wanting to move from the pool to your master bedroom - you'd have to move through essentially the whole house - it's not efficient movement configuration. You have in some areas of the design arguably oversized and undersized areas/spaces for the function, which means the balance is not right in the planning. For example there's an abundance of voids upstairs and massive swing room in the master bedroom, but then downstairs the laundry is tiny and there's unusable flow space between the dining and the living space. You still have issues with overlooking from the alfresco, which would mean screening on the north. Site restrictions are not an excuse for obviously compromised planning, rather they need to be negotiated cleverly so they're not obvious or noticeable and the design is not forced.