Hi Bella D, Option 3 is a winner hands down. A few things to consider: * You do not want a bathroom/toilet directly off your or dining area. While that might be ok when it's just your family at home, it won't be with guests and toilet noise. * The bathroom placement restricts the amount of heat moving up the stair case. This is a major problem in open plan two-storey homes. In summer upstairs becomes unusable because it's so hot and in winter downstairs is freezing. * You could move the bathroom to the left so it is under your ensuite. Having all the water use areas in one spot (upstairs and down) reduces how much hot water travels and sits unused in pipes - it can be a considerable energy cost over a year. Locate your hot water as close as poss. This position would also block noise to the bedrooms. * The only prob is you have no laundry in this design. Could you move the kitchen towards the back wall and re-arrange a small laundry/bathroom here. How much washing/ironing do you have. I don't need a huge laundry in my modest house. I don't want to spend too much time in there. Just need storage for dirty and clean clothes plus machines. Good luck. BTW, which way is north - your whole design should have the living areas facing north and excluding summer sun from the east and west and have minimal windows facing south - they just give poor quality light and add to heat loss in winter..

Oklouise that is awesome! I think that could work! That gets the toilet away from kitchen and makes toilet almost underneath the other toilet. Which means less plumbing = cheaper build. We would have to add a cupboard into the kitchen as the door to the toilet/current bedroom is indented from the fridge. But that's easy enough because we need to put new floor boards in and need to cut down a few kitchen cupboards due to floor height. We have a Brisbane city view from our northerly aspect so it imperative that we keep that. We were hoping to get rid of the balcony door on the study. We are tossing up whether to put the pool in the back yard or front but need to get a pool builder out to cost us on the difference. Could you imagine sitting in the pool looking over the city?

siriuskey, Yes, the courtyard is open to the sky (no roof over it), I assume this is what you mean by double story. Ref. below photos, I would love to get this look, especially the first and last photo, where you can see family living space from the first floor. I can't achieve this in my plan as it eats a lot of floor space upstairs. The referred plan (photos) has a very big void combining staircase, hallway and dining area. I know it is not easy with cooling and heating when you have such a big void. So, I explored a few ideas (with my limited knowledge on this topic) before achieving the current floorplan. I have also thought about, in my current plan, extending the void on the staircase to the dining area (it is more like L shape) but i wasn't sure if that makes any difference. keen to hear your thoughts.

Thanks for the feedback everyone. @bigreader at this stage of our lives we don't feel we need a designated drop zone as our kids are all grown up. However, if we ever sell I'm sure a drop zone could be created either in the 7x7 garage or in the multipurpose room that we have designated on the floor plan as a games/gym room. I'm also sure that a sideboard drop zone in the entry would meet the needs of any visitors to our home. @oklouise when I do the measurements for the kitchen/dining/living I don't usually include the hallway in those measurements but if I was to include them the size of each of these areas would be 6.2m x 4.0m, which allows 5.0m for the kitchen wall space. Is this incorrect? We have also chosen to replace the Media Room with an outdoor patio/deck as we believe this will be a beautiful area to sit during the cooler months. The patio/deck will also allow more light into the living areas which is what we are trying to achieve. Re: the master bedroom - it has been moved to the western side of the house where the WIR and Ensuite will protect it from the late afternoon sun. We thought this location would be best considering the orientation of the house on the block and also not wanting to have any of the other living areas or other bedrooms on the western side of the house. If you have any alternative suggestions please share. The floor plan is currently the size we are looking at, not anything bigger - approximately 360m2 on my rough calculations. @siriuskey the room next to the garage has been designated as a Gym/Games/Media Room - in other words a multipurpose room, that I'm sure could be used as a drop zone/mud room if needed. The only people coming through the entry will be visitors, for which a sideboard in the entry will be used as a drop zone. Once again, thank you all for the feedback; it is much appreciated :)