Have you drawn your ideas to scale. They seem a bit off in measurements. Neither grab me as great. I’d start with Plan B but try the dining table up near the office and running the island the other way looking into a living area.

Ohhh, i understand it's to scale as it could be? What makes it look off?

Hmm, I hadn't drawn up the kitchen island looking a different direction, i'll give it a whirl - thank you!

Can you make the WC access from the laundry room. Giving more privacy. Or even make access from outside patio and close up both internal doors. I would hate to be using the toilet and know people are sitting out side that door watching television or eating their dinner at the dining table. Then you have to go back into the laundry room to wash your hands.

Yep! Good point. Thank you!!

It’s a massive area. You could do so much.

With my last plan you could put office to the north of laundry shifting living closer to entry.

Like this

my suggestions includes a separate entry foyer and hallway for privacy, noise and temperature control and to separate the master suite, pwdr room and bathroom from the public rooms ... there's dual access for the powder room and i've attempted to work around existing windows but i would include a serving window from kitchen to alfresco and maybe add a fireplace on the TV wall

Kate and oklouise, thank you so much! Kate, I love how you put a billiard table there! Ha, unfortunately one came with the house, but I love that you have made me think of using the space for something i hadn't thought of. Oklouise, we've had the kitchen in EVERY location...except for there as I was being single minded about the laundry/mudroom being there, thank you! Thank you so much for your time and thought Oklousie and Kate, we really appreciate it!!! THANK YOU!!

such big rooms create their own challenges but rechecking my suggestions the size of your entry area is not clear but perhaps you could include a mudroom in the foyer with or without the access to the formal lounge and a stacking window between kitchen and alfresco will be easier than a bifold servery window and i've included a fireplace and alternate seating in the family room

Oklouise, thank you so very much. I cannot tell you how much i appreciate your time and effort you have put in to help me! Thank you, so very much!

Been, can you confirm the bathroom master and ensuite are currently accessed via a hallway where storage cupboard is shown off the labelled hall?

Yep Kate, sure are. The master/ensuite was part of the 1980's extensions, and they used one of the existing (1820's) bedrooms as the entry point, so the new "hallway/storage" is currently a bedroom sized room which we're currently using as our office. The kids/family bathroom will be accessed by the new hallway/storage room as well. Unfort it doesn't have any windows to the outside, however we can't find anywhere else for it that isn't a huge trek for them in the middle of the night, and that is not off a living area (we want to keep it somewhat private from guests, as it's a kids bathroom...if that makes sense?), so we're planning on using a skylight that opens for the fresh air. Thank you for your help!!

Siriuskey, apologies, I missed your post - I completely agree with you! We've installed a basic yet functional WC by the pool, and yep, the kitchen and living we want facing north, over the pool for sure. The kids are little now, so we need to be there with them at the moment, but I'll still want to watch them even as they get older and don't need us within a metre of them! Thank you so much for your plan! All these amazing ideas that we haven't thought of - thank you for the fresh eyes! We've been thinking about this for so long now, our heads are kind of stuck, so we appreciate the new ideas, thank you!!!!

Oh, and yep, there are 4 other rooms off the hallway - currently 2 kids bedrooms and two other large rooms that could be for bedrooms, or anything really - although right now they're currently a kids room and a 'formal sitting/lounge room' (which is shown on the plan, opposite what will be the hallway/storage).

Are you able to post a plan showing the original house plus 80's extension and position of house on block with driveway, prior to Architect drawings, This is very helpful with showing details of existing plumbing etc. What is the house built with and is it on a concrete slab. Any google view of the house. Ta

Siriusky, that's a very good point. To be honest, I actually didn't realise there were so many people out there that would go to this much trouble to help us. There were no plans prior to the architect, the only one showing how it looks currently is the one she drew up with no measurements.

The red lines indicate where the architect suggests moving the exterior walls (which is what the original plans of this post were based on), the green areas (and the greyed out areas) are the 1820's structures - yes, we are planning to renovate one of the structures, but that is because it is falling down, and in a state where it's too hard (i.e. expensive!) to fix - depending on the local heritage council of course!

The birds eye view of the house yard. Over the years, the location of the formal front entrance has been changed a couple of times and the driveway has therefore also changed a couple of times. What you can't see in the below illustration is the pathway that leads the guests to the front door from the guest parking area (that area above the pool gazebo).

Once again, thank you so much for your help. We weren't expecting such generosity from all of you!

Wow big house and property. I put the kitchen in centre of house as heart of home with easy access to bbq outdoor dining area. It also flows to your formal rooms . The large office in ne corner could also be multi use and even have ensuite access with laundry redesign

A basic rough idea, the extension seems to be overly large and could be reduced to something like the following floorplan

I should mention that I was suggesting that the old 1820 store room be used as the office/WIP if the condition is OK. There are a lot of wonderful old farm properties out around Orange that you could research and perhaps your own area for ideas. Also it would be great to have a few dimensions of the original building and extension, width and depth. Thank you

Oh I thought the whole space was existing and I was working with existing windows

Thanks Kate and Siriuskey. Siriuskey, I tend to agree with your comment being unnecessarily large and although I can see what the architect was doing, perhaps we can pull it back a bit. Yeah, sorry Kate. I should have mentioned that we're not fixed on window and door placements, sorry! Can you tell I am a mere rookie here? Sorry. Man, this is a daunting process! I think we're getting there, though. Thanks to everyone here, mixed with the architects concept. Thank you!

seeing the original plans makes such a big difference to our suggestions: have you discussed the proposed renovation with a builder to give you an idea of costs before finalising plans...minor differences can make big savings instead of adding rooms that are too big and there are already rooms in the original house that are left unused...will you demolish and rebuild the entire old extension (including the old building next to the existing kitchen) or will you try to keep as much of the existing and make improvements by rearranging internal walls and plumbing with minimal extensions?.. what are the old extensions floors, walls and roof built out of and is the floor of the extension at the same height as the original building?

I also thought the walls on the original post were old walls and not movable. Makes a difference seeing the original floor plan.

Here’s an example of a much smaller extension

With this option I have actually demolished a corner of house on the assumption the existing office is a lovely room. I have demolished corner of current addition to improve access to natural light. The hall can be glazed and allow air flow into room. Adding glass door to laundry can also allow light to filter in Plus a skylight.
Smaller extension in north end for new kitchen that has access to both lawn and pool areas.

Oh I just realised the family bath is the on in entry. That I assume is a must change. Ok as powder room.

So in my last switch office to entry moving bath to office and access formal rooms from new dining space

Oh yes Kate. The whole floorplan as it currently stands is really clunky. When we invite a guest in through the front door, we either have to take them for a round trip to get to the kitchen/dining area, or take them through the walk-through butlers pantry - neither of which are great. The family bathroom is at the entry, which is also shared with guests, which I don't love, but yes, happy to keep it as a WC. The current office is really dark and I hate working in there, and generally take my work to the dining table. I love how you've seen that it's dark without seeing the house. There is also currently no laundry attached to the house. It is in the lower left hand corner of the largest greyed out building to the left of the main house. Although there are worse things about the extensions, it's just a liiiiiittle inconvenient having the laundry so far away from the house, esp at 3am in the middle of winter when the kids have gastro!!!

I can appreciate this is a hard ask given the only feel you have for the place are the digital plans, so I really appreciate your grasp of the place.

I apologise for not posting the original plan first up. I had no intention of changing the old part of the house (although now happy to open my mindset...within reason, ha ha), and everything else, and I mean EVERYTHING else is up for the eraser!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR HELP! I truly mean it. You have given us a LOT to think about, and we've essentially thrown out all our original plans we had drawn up! Thank you!

Just wondering if the smaller second green building on the floorplan is usable or does it need demolishing personally I hope it's OK. Old houses can be very dark but skylights can change this dramatically but your new extension should be filled with light.

And out of curiosity is the larger building where the laundry currently is an original cottage. and does the pool and outdoor alfresco suffer wind problems

And the dirty word of building and renovating is BUDGET ,and what are you expecting to spend, it looks like a beautiful property so money will be well spent.

Oh Siriuskey, please don't mention that word! Ha. Yeah, it's scary. We're hoping the kids will want to take the farm on afterwards, but if not, we're hoping it will stay in my family somehow, so we're happy to put in what we need, without going crazy. We don't see that overcapitalisation is a thing with this because we're not planning on selling it (ever, hopefully!), and it comes with a decent sized farm. But having said that, we don't have the deepest pockets!

Yep, the larger greyed out building was the original house with literally just 3 bedrooms (although also has had extensions done to it in the 80's), and a decade or so after that was built, a larger one was then built with 3 bedrooms and 2 formal rooms (the homestead). The one on the top of the plan was the 'servants quarters' (DA already approved from previous owners), and the smaller green structure was the kitchen and dining. The other greyed out building was a garage turned into billiard room by previous owners. Unfortunately they are falling apart, with large holes in the bottom of the walls. The render in the internal walls of the old dining and kitchen is like a soft sandcastle, and it got hammered during the mouse plague when they were getting through the crevasses. Worse still, one of the doors is holding the whole 'servants quarters' up, so we're planning on redoing that as it stands, just safer.

And we know as soon as we lift the carpet up from the homestead we're going to find more work. It's scary!

Old buildings are always full of challenges and surprises but worth it, I did wonder about guest accommodation and guessed that possibly the original cottage would cover that eventually. What has been planned and approved for the building marked cellar?

Keep in mind if u can stage the Reno and still live in the house. My last plan would allow that as they can build the extension and kitchen before removing existing bathroom.

if you plan to demolish the old building next to the kitchen/living it might be better to have the alfresco on the western side overlooking the pool and providing more shade and unrestricted views of kids.. using the old office for a spacious new bathroom allows the old family room to include a new study/retreat, generous storage, separate guest room and laundry.. the new kitchen has a walk in pantry and mudroom and the old bathroom makes a convenient guest bathroom and cloakroom that's also useful as a pool change room...room sizes and wall locations are inconsistent as we haven't allowed for different wall thickness but there should be more than enough space without expanding as much as originally shown and the formal sitting room could be used for the pool table and i've added some ideas for upgrades to the master suite without major changes

Perhaps something else that you might consider.. The new family faces north and overlooks the pool and also keeps the Kitchen in a similar position as the 80's extension. I have very roughly resized the rooms so they aren't perfect but gave me something to work with, The 4th bedroom which you may need if you decide to enlarge the family from two kids could also be used as the office having access to the breezeway and master. As mentioned the house has seen two entrances shown by the steps so I thought you could add a third so that there is a set of steps on either side of the family room, this could even give great access to guest parking. The old building next to the family room could be restored and reused.

The lovely original cottage not having the homestead looking at it could be a possible income producing building by being used for farm stays Air B&B. cheers

Hello Beej, very interesting project you have here. I wounder what you budget would like to be? As old homes will always go way over: only have to watch Grand Designs to see that! I think the architects idea of extending the roof will eat at most of any budget. If you can do what you want within the space you have It would be far better (read: cheaper!) The idea of the kitchen in the existing study space sounds good to me as you will be able to watch kids in the pool anytime. and the sitting/dining along that north wall is the way to go too. As to the rest I would love to play with the plan for you and get it right! It is my forte' to get the plans passive solar designed with all the rooms you need and in the right places too. I invite you to look over my website and read all about the previous works I have done, also read some of my blogs: who would have thought I could write two or three on laundries! Love to assist with this plan for you and see all the beautiful old details the home has too... Cheers Margot