WOOOOW!!! What a truly impressive home and interior design. Very beautifully put together! Thank you very much for sharing your project, it looks amazing. The Hamptons style is definitely a style that oozes a lot of understated chic and effortless sophistication. Well done!

Just to confirm I have taken the great ideas presented here as advice only and have no intention to do some dodgy diy reno's. With the exception of a couple of quirky exposed timbers as you can see in my pictures there are no other exposed beams. As you can also see from the pictures there is a large roof space on the right (east) side of the house but the ceilings themselves are flat with a slight dip on the north wall. Based on my own personal experiences I would have to agree with Two's Company that there is a tendency towards rendered brick in WA (although there are still many exposed brick houses in my suburb) while double enclosed double garages are also highly desirable. I would also agree that toilets within the main bathroom and non traditional laundries may be considered unusual by many (but not all). Ensuites with toilets however are still very common. Also due to the nature of our work we would prefer the laundry separated from food/kitchen area. For a 4x2 house it is only around 155m2 excluding carport/alfresco which makes the rooms feel quite cramped, hence the desire to open up the family room. However, as Two's Company suggests we will need to first get a builder/eng in to check load bearing walls etc as this will undoubtedly affect what we can achieve within our budget. Having said that I still excited by many of your ideas and with luck hopefully can work some of them into the budget. Cheers all :)

Thanks for the advice team. So the house is block work on a cement slab, but when we did our renovating in the bathroom and had to cut through and re-lay the floor in the very small bathroom we noticed that the slab was incredibly thin and had no reinforcing. The walls have some cracks however we did have the building inspected when we bought it and thought we had a solid shell to start with. (Its brick and cement we said - what can go wrong?!) Our house is not in the flood zone. There is an asbestos ceiling which has also complicated matters a little - everyone who has quoted on the job has vowed not to disturb it - but I am not sure when you are walking around up there and pulling the original roof off if this is actually possible. The roof is a flat cliplock roof with no crawl space at all, so the ceiling is on battens that are attached to the rafters. The block of land is 822 sqm and will be worth about $130 000 if the house was demolished. (Demolition is set to cost around $30 000- due to asbestos etc) We have spoken to an architect who has told us that it may be possible to reuse our kitchen, the solar set up and some windows, but if we try to force the project to reuse all of our windows and doors it could end up being counter productive. So if it happens to fit we might reuse. I just spoke to a real estate who are telling me that in our area a small new house (3 bedroom) will not reach the $300 000 value point - so it may be impossible to reach the right formula to allow the bank to lend for a rebuild-

Conventional rafters to a cathedral ceiling are always substantially more expensive due to the skilled labour content needed, especailly if there is a large span, and you have large, heavy rafters that need to be hoisted up. If the rafters are exposed then it is even more expensive as you want a visual grade that isn't too knotty or has visual imperfections. A scissor truss roof looks visually busy if exposed, but is a lot cheaper and easier to install. They are also great at attracting dust and spiderwebs, and need more consideration for careful lighting design between the exposed trusses. The cleanest and easiest answer is a scissor truss roof with the ceiling lining attached to the underside of the truss, which gives you a decent ceiling cavity for insulation and wiring, and still a cathedral ceiling look. So much to consider with aesthetics, practicality, insulation, time and cost when weighing up these options. Best of luck, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls