"Architect-designed houses are not accessible to all." This is a myth championed by the building industry. Alternatively, why not focus on the key benefits architects bring to a project. Here are a few for you: • Appoint an architect to your project and you’ll gain a home designed for the way you want to live.The alternative is a builder-designed home that suits what the builder is used to building. Quality builders will ask for plans and specifications to be thoroughly documented so that they can go ahead and do what they do best, which is build. Working out with the owner what you’re going to build and why is the architect’s role. • An architect manages planning approvals. This process is complex, often arbitrarily applied by many Councils, fraught with pitfalls for the novice and is ramped up every year with new hoops to jump. If you want a professional on your side who knows the territory, will go in to bat for you and will forge a way through this minefield, you need an architect. • If you’d prefer to put the works to tender to a number of builders rather than having to accept the quote of the builder you started the process with, you need an architect. • If you’d prefer to protect yourself with a proper, architect-managed ABIC contract that works equally for both parties and is legally enforceable, you need an architect. • An architect will minimise costly changes during construction as he or she will produce a proper level of drawings (expect 20 x A3 pages for a new home, rather than the 1-2 pages you’ll receive from a drafting service.). The reasons for this are that you have on paper exactly what you want to build. Without this, you are entering a contract with a builder with none of the details resolved. You wouldn’t do that if you were buying a house, so why do it when spending an equally significant amount of money? Unfortunately, some builders see this approach as an opportunity to happily accept constant changes from ‘project managing’ owners because it’s just another variation that he can charge for. The longer he is there, the better for his margins, particularly when there’s no contract to speak of. Finally, an architect is a specialist with a professional duty of care, irrespective of financial gain. In other words, they’re there to support and protect you, without benefit to themselves. No one else in the building industry can provide this.

.......and particularly at this time of the year no builder wants to know about anything - Christmas is here and the pressure is on from all angles..... As a start, compile a list of work to be completed, prioritise the items, meet with the builder and recalibrate the completion date. This is bad situation but very common, particularly in this industry and on renovations. The dilemma you have is, is it better the devil you know, or do you risk cutting your losses and picking it all up with another builder to finish what someone else started...... neither option is great and it depends on the situation. All you can be sure of unfortunately is that very likely you'll either have to pay more to get if finished quicker, or accept a continuing time blowout............ Reading between the lines and with understanding of how small scale domestic builders function, likely what has happened is this (& assuming you are on a fixed contract situation) - Builder has exhausted labour allowance on your job. If they don't do other work and get money coming in they'll go broke. They take on other work and parallel it to maintain cashflow so that the new work pays for the unfinished jobs in progress which they chip away intermittently in their spare time.............builders can be fantastic tradespeople/people but very poor managers/businesspeople......tricky stuff - good luck PD

I don't think the window it's actually that big a deal. If privacy is the issue you can put a blind on the window, or even develop a little screened off outdoor section with a nice little private garden outlook..........sometimes I deliberately INCREASE windows to powder rooms and ensuite designs to connect boldly with the immediate external spaces with glazing. yes this challenges conventional thoughts on privacy but more often than not when we embrace the constraint and go with it/look at the opportunity it brings, you actually get far more interesting end results and experiences of space. Some of the best high end resorts use this kind of design thought in their bathroom designs that blurs the lines between inside and out. Privacy can be managed/controlled in various ways........... I think the bigger issue here is the attitude of the builder and the way they have gone about it...

oklouise, your drawing is so good! I see what you and others have mentioned about how incorporating flow is really important, somehow even just looking at your plan makes me feel like it would be a calming space. Thank you for creating it. Do you think it would work to move the guest room alongside the sitting? So they would sit side by side (similar to bed 2 & 3) and would both be entered via the entryway hallway at the front of the house. Both rooms would then also have north facing windows. If this were possible, could the master then slide down and occupy what was the guest room, and thereby leaving the original alfresco where it was? I'm hearing that a covered alfresco joined to the house is not too popular on this thread but its something we are quite attached to (for better or worse!). Do you think that could work? There are so many good elements to your drawing but I really do like the entryway/garage/mudroom intersection. For me I would probably swap the study and the laundry around, and we definitely will be installing a outdoor clotheslines too. The drying room would mainly be used on rainy days and overnight. Overnight as we have bats in the area.... some days I get to clean up after all three Bs - bat, bird and baby...