We watch a lot of movies... and buying a projector, even a high-end one is cheaper than a big screen TV. In our new house I was going to convert a bedroom into the media room, but now I might convert the "dining" end of the Great Room into a media room. Thanks for the suggestion! Why lose a bedroom, when you can appropriate enough space from a cavernous Great Room?

We have two wheelie bins outside, one for normal waste, one for recycling. Our council doesn't require different types of recycling waste be separated, and inside we have a slide-out under the kitchen island counter that hold the two necessary bins for separation. Separate to this we have a small compost bin on the counter. Anything we can compost ends up in the compost pits up in the veggie garden. A place we buy online stuff from is smart and packs their goods in these corn starch bubbles that look like foam - you can wash them down your loo/bath/tub or, as we do, compost them (they just dissolve when wet). This is important when remote - online is a great way to get everything you otherwise might have to travel 5 hours for, but packing materials quickly fill the bins, and there's only so much cardboard you can use as firestarters in winter) This is all helpfully motivated by the fact that we have no garbage service and our tip is about 30km away and that they don't charge for the recycling wheelie bin, while the waste wheelie bin is $10 per bin. We used to fill a waste wheelie bin every week or two prior to living here. Now we're only down the tip every 4-6 weeks (the good thing too is, all the old roof guttering & corro and ancient rolls of fencing and barbed wire that were dumped around the property are counted as metal recycling, and we've filled a couple of ute trips with that for nothing). We could probably do better than 4-6 weeks if we focussed more on (over-)packaging during the weekly shop. The only thing I want to figure out is dog poo composting. It's fine in winter, but when that wheelie bin sits in the summer sun for 4-6 weeks with increasing amounts of (even bagged) poo it gets a special kind of smell only the blowflies love (you don't want to see photos of our fly catcher bottle hung nearby).

my suggestions include swopping the smaller wiw for more bedroom and bathroom space rather than an extra bathroom and the entry to the master bedroom has been moved to allow a little more space for the ens and wiw and downstairs i suggest combining the living and dining area and using some of the under stairs space for bedroom storage for the guest room...having the patio on the north side would allow inclusion of the extra outdoor space up to the laundry door into a more spacious outdoor area with the barbq along the fence...your concern about using the pation in winter would depend on the climate but the northern corner of the house will be the best aspect during cool weather but the patio an dany other windows may need sunshade from the western sun

Sadly there aren't any digital, online tools to get super-accurate colour rendition. Most of the online tools give approximate and indicitive looks. There are many reasons for this, including your perception of the colour depending on the quality of light and time of day, and the accuracy of your computer's graphic card and your computer monitor. If you want to see what I mean then do a google image search for a popular Colorbond colour, such as "Surfmist", and you will be amazed at the huge variety of Surfmists show up in images ranging from blinding white to dirty beige! I used to be the national design manager with a large national builder and only by employing skilled graphics artists using top-of-the-line graphic workstations could we get close enough to the real thing, but they were never perfect. The best (and cheapest) option is to get samples of the materials and colours you are looking at, and assemble them together outside (in natural light), and see how they look different at different times of day under different light conditions. Don't waste your time with online colour applications if you want colour accuracy. Best of luck, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls