Hi Mike and Emma Hope you are slowly but surely getting there... may I make some comments/suggestions that you may or not take on board, but hopefully it may at least give you some ideas/options... Going through a new build ourselves at the moment, and for what it's worth, here's what I personally think: A. Work with what you've got: - additional plumbing work, gas work etc may not be necessary and (particularly gas) can be costly when you're trying to work around existing walls, floors, etc, and as much as possible utilise the existing connections... after whatever you can save here and there, you can spend on nicer cabinetery, gadgets, finishes, etc :) B. Avoid unnecessry structural work: - removing the kitchen/living wall is a must (more space, light, etc) but removing the laundry wall is an unncessary added cost (may even require costly additional strutural support) - putting up a plastered wall on the other hand is inexpensive, allows you to redefine different zones and relocate doors/openings where required (*note: avoid hinged doors in small spaces as you have to allow for wasted space to open door - suggest cavity sliding doors, easy to incorporate in a new wall) C. Don't sacrifice functionality and natural light for design - love full height floor to ceiling cabinets, very much on trend... but they also tend to bring the walls in, which you want to avoid in an already small space... they will also block out more natural ligtht from the only window to the living and breakfast bench (meals area)... not to mention seated guests would be staring at a cabinet tower and fridge - on the other hand a walk in pantry (not that much of a walk in a small space) is also very much on trend, provides more storage and... as entertaining guests in open plan livings tends to happen more in the kitchen... it provides a good hiding place for unsightly items, including frigges... (an underbench bar fridge in the kitchen can easily keep those beers cold... though do consider that means sacrificing some cabinet space) - constantly wiping off the floors from dripping wet dishes across the kictchen from the sink to the dishwaser on the other side bench would personally drive me mad after a while... the dishwasher can easily be connected to the existing sink water and waste points through the cabinerty... any half decent plumber should be able to do that... ON THAT NOTE... or should I say those notes... I know I got a bit carried away :) ... if it were me, here's an idea of what I would try to achieve ...

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

Hi Khanh, we bought a 40 year old 2 storey house and it needs a lot of work (I'm 40 and need a lot of work too but that's besides the point lol)... the kitchen does not have a pantry (we're using an old melamine cupboard for that but it's not close to the oven, fridge or sink) so meal prep involves getting everything out of the cupboard first, before packing a picnic and venturing into the kitchen lo - and for a cripple like me with a multitude of health issues, it is inconvenient and extremely impractical... we removed an old intrusive bulkhead to help open up the space and allow more light but following some not so great advice from the father in law, we need to plaster and repaint again where the bulkhead was removed as it's showing some cracks :/ It is an awkwardly laid out space .... the rest of the house has Fraser Island hardwood floors - and while we did replace a thousand layers of lino in the kitchen with really nice grey tiles, there is no connectivity between the kitchen and the smallish lounge/dining space. We could potentially add a few stools to make a breakfast bar on the lounge/dining side of the kitchen counter, but then we have no clue where the dining table would go if we did that. I'm not sure if I had the money to throw at it whether we would just 'tart it up' a little, or gut it and change the layout completely to create a better, practical flow for not just the kitchen, but the dining/lounge space as well.

Hmm... as much as I agree that a scullery in the original plans is wasted space the location of the laundry illogical (where is the clothesline, not down the side of the house with its 1m distance to the boundary that's for sure). I'm not sure the second version is really much better. Here's why.... 1. The scullery looks like it's there just to make use of what would otherwise be a useless space in the plans. Typical builders solution, make it into some fashionable do-dad so it looks logical. 2. The laundry behind kitchen makes sense from the plumbing point of view but otherwise it terribly placed. I wouldn't want to walk through my kitchen to do a load of washing. And where is the clothesline? Miles away down the back of the house with the only route between it and the laundry either through the living room or by circumnavigating the entire house via a tiny walkway down the side. Neither are really good solutions. 3. But removing the scullery doesn't actually make your kitchen any larger. All the builder has done is pushed the original floorplan to the back wall, creating a slightly wider walkway in front of the island. wasted space again. 4. Shoehorning the laundry between the bedrooms is also a terrible placement for it. Ideally the laundry should be at the rear entrance to the house close to the clothesline. When you have a large heavy basket of wet washing you don't want to be walking the whole 30m length of your block to hang it out. I'll be honest the floor plan isnt fantastic. That dog leg hallway between the bedrooms created solely because of the pokey family bathroom with no toilet in it. A master ensuite that dwarfs the family bathroom by miles....just why? Shouldn't the most heavily used bathroom in the home actually be as large as an ensuite at least. A laundry accessible only through the kitchen and miles from the clothesline. But of the two plans the original is the least awful just because it places the laundry as far back as possible and it doesn't cost you any extra. These are the problems of using stock plans but you can always accept the layout as is and change it later if it becomes unlivable. If I didn't specifically need a scullery I would forgoe the planned sink in it and instead have it fitted out with cupboards for extra storage space. That way it can be used for any purpose. Who needs a scullery when we have dishwashers?