can you add dimensions, we added two bedrooms and a study in the attic of our Federation house, this all looks expensive. Can you add the block with dimensions as well

Has the architect given you an approximate budget and does it fit with what you’re expecting?

I would do separate toilets to bathrooms. You could possibly have 4 people downstairs wanting to use bathroom or the toilet at the same time and the same scenario could happen upstairs.

Also, the noise of the upstairs bathroom is directly over your dining and living area. Can the upstairs bathroom be positioned over the downstairs bathroom and the upstairs WIR position over the dining?

A rough sketch of thoughts

Thanks for the suggestions!!

Added in dimensions with the current floor plan and the block.

> Has the architect given you an approximate budget and does it fit with what you’re expecting?

Yes they gave us a rough budget. It is at the higher range of our expectations. So we'll need to consider whether we can take a phased approach.

Thanks for the suggestions about separating the toilet and bathrooms. Also for pointing out the upstairs bathroom could be stacked on top of the downstairs one.

I can not believe you have to walk though your only living space to get to kitchen dining and back yard. The flow is wrong. Might be better swap dining and living.

What is the pitch height in the attic rooms

> walk though your only living space to get to kitchen dining and back yard

Great pick up @Kate! We considered a few options here. However, we have an ornate plaster ceiling in the living room - which we'd like to retain. That limits our options for additional corridor space to access the back of the house.

> my suggestions for a growing family uses similar amount of new floor area

Thanks for this @oklouise!! Definitely gives us a bit more food for thought.

We are already convinced about swapping the bathroom and wiw upstairs and adding a passage to access the loft. Our challenge is that the living room downstairs has an ornate plaster ceiling - so we were concerned about load above it.

the old ceilings "should" not be impacted by the new upstairs floor but that will depend on care and attention of your building team...in one of our renovations the builders removed the ornate cornices during renovations and they were installed undamaged in another room and there are companies that can match ornate plaster ceilings panels to patch any damage

Without details of the attic and having already done an attic conversion to 2 x bedrooms with study area, our bathroom was at the base of the stairs.

Bring the stairs up through the current living from the kitchen family up to the high center point of the attic. There is plenty of space between the stairs and the ceiling rose. Swap the living dining and add a study desk under the open stairs.

The rear kitchen family extension would have a separate flat/sloping roof which could been done in steel.

I understand siriuskey thought plan in having the family kitchen extension with no rooms above them. But I do not agree with having a bathroom over a dining room. Especially in your case, as the the plumbing would go between the new floor of upstairs and your ornate plaster ceiling, which you say is very important to you. (Maybe not just a ceiling rose). Apart from noise transfer of water flushing/running to downstairs, the tradesman would have to be very careful when installing plumbing, not to impact your ceiling.

Sounds like you have a nice period home and fantastic to see the intent for preservation of the existing character at the front......considering the north/back is pretty much needing to be completely rebuilt is there any reason why the design is being limited / confined to existing /similar footprint - is there opportunity to extend further north into the yard or is there a limit / easement? Or is budget trying to be contained? What is your immediate neighbouring context - are you aware that side setbacks regulations require upper level building to be set in from boundary (to avoid excessive visual bulk and overshadowing to private space)...depends of course on what is there / how neighbouring land is used and it's sometimes possible to be granted consent for reg variation but I'd think you'd struggle to get approval for encroaching setback profile that much as upper level currently proposed (bedrooms 1 & robe) being sited so close to boundaryl.....that said if there is an existing house with an upper level similarly on the boundary you could be ok ........Growing families needs are dynamic so we always think about how as kids grow through the stages they increasingly need their own/more space ..and so having a 2nd living area like oklouise's version is never a bad thing - I have another idea for how to get that but first think about the scale of the whole house....and the balance of space put into 4 bedrooms but only having a relatively small 4x4m living area (for a 4 bedroom home) - so I'd argue the scale is out of whack in this regard....it feels like the design is forcing a certain program onto the site/footprint, but something has to give - in this case it's the living room size, which would be fine for a smaller house but feels dwarfed directly next to the much larger kitchen/dining ........so coming back to the 2nd living area, is the attic a usable space you can kind of stand in? or is it just storage use only? It looks like from existing plans the roof pops up here to give more head height.....could it be potentially used for say a kid's hangout?? If so it may potentially be better to manage the house planning with upper level 2 bedrooms and a bathroom with connected 2nd living area of current attic, with lower level with Master suite and main living and potentially a smaller study/office........there are always multiple different options of configuration of your particular project requirements/goals and when you're at this stage it's always recommended that you scratch out / explore multiple variations before tightly designing down to one particular concept that you can design yourself into a corner with.......(fwiw we manage this preliminary process via adedicated feasibility stage of service that is crucial in establishing viable and most appropriate project direction for our clients, so they don't have to end up on a forum to sanity check!)

That's my 2 cents, hard to say much more without further detail on site, your budget and requirements but you may find the whole thing needs a bit of a rework due to the upper level siting constraints considering your boundary is hard to your existing wall. As a rule of thumb think the upper level (particularly if you are keeping what I'd guess as 3m ceiling heights in the existing/ground) will need to be setback about 2m in from existing side boundary. The other thing is you may need more steps that shown here to get over the existing ceiling height and accommodate sufficient upper level floor structure above it, particularly if you want to keep the original ceiling intact/undisturbed..

Anyway hope this helps a bit

Cheers

PD

www.pauldistefanodesign.com

Just looking to improve existing proposal to improve visual bulk and maximizing attic space. Good luck! J

I liked how oklouise's design made the existing Bed 1 into a lounge room. I would have thought that the original entry to the house would have been from the front verandah, not down the side of the house. Does the ceiling and fireplace make it look like it would have been the main room? What do the ceiling and cornices look like in the existing entry? If the house entry was through the existing Bed 1, could you give the space occupied by the existing entry to the new lounge?

Agree with putting in a separate laundry, especially with a 'growing family'. I've always been able to access for storage all the space under the stairs - not just the head-high end.

Good to see you back Paul and as you say there are many ways to do things, limited by budget and personal taste. And yes not a lot of detail to work with doesn't make it easy to make suggestions that can be taken to the local Professional to finalize decisions. There's a driveway down the side of the house where the entrance is, is there a garage, with the block around 10 x 30 m there's not a lot of land to work with. This made me consider trying to use the attic for bedrooms ( as I mentioned we did this in our Federation house which we all loved). And certainly with 3m ceiling and step up for attic flooring the stairs I have roughly shown would need a return possibly on the ground floor and into the attic to open into the tallest point of the ceiling. Perhaps consider raising the roof. In the end budget will drive what can be done. cheers