I would have a kitchenette in the downstairs rumpus to allow for backyard entertaining.

The clerestory windows get the northern light into your home. This will heat the home in winter. But, what is your climate? If you live in a hot climate, the rooms may get too hot. I would add an external staircase from upstairs balcony to backyard. I would also look at adding an extra, north facing window to the master bedroom. Again, it depends on your climate. Also the ensuite bathroom is facing north, it is going to be a wonderful room in winter, but ideally the living areas should be on the north side. With the garage staying on the west side.

@dreamer I thought I had it on my original post. Sydney, Hills area

please share downstairs floor plans

So, because I’m in Western Australia, what is your climate. Mild or hot summers? Cold or mild winters?

Downstairs floor plan:

@dreamer warm summers and relatively milder winters I would say

This is what AI thinks

"Sydney generally experiences a mild, humid subtropical climate with warm summers, mild winters, and rainfall distributed fairly evenly throughout the year, though with a slight peak during summer and autumn; expect sunny days with temperatures averaging around 21.7°C (71.1°F) year-round, with the coolest month being July and the warmest being January"

Thanks for the downstairs plan. I’d try and work a laundry shoot in. And a separate toilet downstairs with basin.

This may help you understand why orientation and building to your climate are important for solar passive design. https://www.yourhome.gov.au/passive-design/design-climate

I would like to see the stairs in both plans moved to the family room going down to the rumpus, this would give better access to rear yard. This would free up a drop zone for kids Stuff plus still have easy access to bathroom when arriving home.

Good ideas here. Having recently moved into a new house I would suggest having a door to close off upstairs from downstairs - noise carries.

Have a look at the link Dreamer posted. It has diagrams that show how the movement of the sun through the seasons changes. That's what makes north facing windows so valuable for energy efficiency and comfort.

Another point about upstairs downstairs, hot air rises, so upstairs will be warmer, maybe too warm in summer if you don't plan for that.

Agree with Macyjean, if you want the clerestory windows, they may need to be able to be opened to let hot air out of house.

I'd say yes it's an issue with no direct access to the rear yard from living - at the very least an external stair suggested...however let's just step back....are there any views to the south? Are you aware you'll have to (most likely) screen your upper level alfresco from overlooking neighbours? There's some odd planning/layout stuff going on ...and lots of wasted hallway spaces. Yes natural light/orientation is really important to internal space quality and I'd be trying to achieve the living zone to the north east side (but again not sure if views or grocery access is driving this??), rumpus room downstairs will be awkward to furnish with bedroom access points and walk through/flow. - bedrooms access main bathroom across/through the rumpus and there is a strange disparity of room sizes of bedrooms on the lower level. There's no furniture on the plan which suggests this has not been considered and the plans have been drafted/developed as a series of generic rooms as opposed to the whole building designed considering the flow and specific requirements about how you want to live and use the spaces and the connection and/or separation requirements between them. Scaling issues stand out as there are 4 bathrooms overall but the main living space is arguably undersized for 5 bedroom house....spaces have been put together that tick the box but feel disjointed....No separation between living areas will be problemmatic - doors/dividing options are your friend in family scenarios.........I'd suggest start first putting furniture on the plan so you can see exactly how this is going to (or not going to) work. The clerestory glazing will bring light in but not solve critical planning issues. I've mentioned repeatedly over the years here how design should be developed from the inside to out, starting with the flow, function and zoning decisions, furniture, layout, joinery etc and then walls and windows and doors are applied to the planning solution to form the building. Probably one of the biggest design approach errors I observe is doing it the opposite, believing that starting with an overall external rectangular shape and then filling it all in is the sequence, when it is more like it should be done the other way around. Yes of course you need to be conscious of the site conditions, levels, views, orientation etc but without driving design from how the spaces are functioning you risk spending the same (big!) amount of money on a design/build that is the same series of spaces but not as well resolved or thought through vs one that is elegantly resolved and well aligned most importantly to the way you live and connected the specific site/context. Also sloped blocks like this are a prime opportunities for more interesting layouts such as split level solutions that both soften the impact of the site fall and better connect the internal spaces to the land. The issue you have is that from the back yard your house form is going to feel quite imposing and overshadowing external spaces nearly all the time....these south sloping north facing blocks are arguably the most challenging to design but equally these challenges open the door for creative solutions such as breaking up the building with light courts etc....it's like the design has been governed/controled by managing the groceries which has in turn has led to various compromises and imbalance across the layout......take the laundry for example, accessed through the rumpus between two bedrooms (that's where the bathroom should be btw and vice versa) and although the groceries are given priority you're equally going to be lugging a lot of laundry up and down those stairs and through secondary bedroom zone.......

@oklouise Your post makes us think of a lot of things, particularly the light downstairs. How to enhance the light downstairs? We love the suggestion around the mudroom and the laundry on your floorplan.

@Paul Di Stefano Design Thank you for all the feedback. IIUC, the issues you have raised are 1) need to screen alfresco 2) Wasted hallway spaces 3) living area on north east side ideally 4) disjointed flow downstairs 5) Awkward positioning of laundry in between bedrooms 6) room size disparity etc. I think oklouise' suggested floorplan addresses some issues. There are some nice tree lined views at the back and it is because of that and the natural light that we are having the living area upstairs

@Shan B It's always really hard to provide comment/advice without having a proper full understanding of the context, design brief/family scenario and living needs in detail etc....we see a floor plan of empty spaces and have a couple of queries about windows and external access, which open up a whole lot of other questions and it's all open to interpretation and opinion........

I was just making some observations of a few things that stood out that could be potentially re-thought to improve the overall living experience.... You're on the right track with the natural light for the main living and treelined views sounds lovely but practically depending on the relative level the alfresco is above ground and your neighbouring property private open space you may possibly find this view will become somewhat restricted and you'll be feeling like you're living in a townhouse as opposed to a more open detatched residential scenario. Same potential issue for your windows out of the dining room & Bed2. Boundary position/offsets and neighbouring context are critical design controllers and when these are not indicated on the plan, similarly to not seeing furniture in the rooms, it suggests these aspects have possibly not been factored in when designing/resolving the planning/layout.

Definitely oklouise (as per usual fine form ;) ) has ironed out a lot of the bumps and made far better use of the space within the provided building footprint however just wanted to draw your attention to the wider context in case there are things there that may have not been factored in....

Last comment, don;t rush it, consider your options and if your instinct is that something's not quite right then trust your instinct and try and think about your plan from how you want to live, zoning and flow within the spaces rather than arbitrary tick boxes. It's not right or wrong stuff, rather it's about alignment with your goals and preferences

Hope this helps, best of luck PD :)

@Paul Di Stefano Design

Going back to an earlier comment "main living space is arguably undersized for 5 bedroom house" Are you talking about the downstairs rumpus? We had imagined the main living area of the house to be the upstairs living area which is 8x8. IN the traditional up-down home design, we personally spend very little time in the upstairs rumpus

@Shan B your main living space of 8x8m is hoping to covering all of kitchen dining and living amenity. Taking out the kitchen and the passage/path next to it coming through from the hall your left with as shown on the plan about 8 x <5m ...again if furniture was shown on the plan it would highlight how relatively tight this is for a large family scenario (assuming this is what you have from the number of bedrooms but am speculating on this). oklouise's plan shows this with a 6 seater dining and lounge with the dining table having to be positioned right in the path/flow of the hall and the only access to external space on the upper level - it's going to be a tight bottleneck. It's probably ok scale for a smaller home with 2-3 bedrooms with a smaller dining table and more consolidated lounge seating, but if you're wanting have a larger 10seater dining table with nice spacious lounge furniture to seat similar number of people it will be challenging and (a) feel like you'll be walking straight into the side of a table or couch/chair as you enter the space and (b) considering the nice larger scale of the island bench will feel relatively at odds/out of scale in this regard. Typically we'd be ending up with min 3.5-4m x 5-6m for dining area and minimum 5x6m for the living/lounge space that provides apporpriate movement/flow around the furniture, but ideally larger or a different proportion again depending upon how exactly you want the furniture configured and layout to be & work . We don't design to room sizes/dimensions, rather we design to the function/furniture and flow & access points in & out and within the spaces which then determines where the walls, doors, windows etc are managed/positioned. Measurements/sizes then come from that and it's only from expereince that I can suggest thatthis area is likely to be squeezed, but if you turn around and say actually we've got only 2 kids, we hardly spend time in tyhe living, our lifestyle is mostly outdoors, we never entertain etc then that narrative may well justify the current proportion/scale. To acheive well balanced and apporpriately scaled and proportioned spaces we consciously design 1. to the specific brief requirements / lifestyle dynamics and 2. from inside to outside, not the other way around.

Hope this helps

Not directly your question but your roof design doesn’t promote good solar panel orientation if you plan to add panels. NE to NW with about 15° pitch allowing for trees & other obstructions would be better

@twb60 I was talking about it the same day you posted, I will bring this up with the designer, might be a case of picking your battles and winning some :) Thanks for your comment

Here is a slightly alternative take and please excuse the hand-drawn diagram. We have removed the cut there was near Bedroom 4 earlier, so we have a bit more space to play with. I . think this addresses 2 flow questions 1) The bathroom is accessible to both bedrooms (instead of walking across the rumpus, whilst we could have a 2 or a 3 way entry to that bathroom, we would prefer to leave it this way 2) the laundry has more direct access to the outdoors to an elongated deck. Would appreciate thoughts

Delete the hall for laundry. It can be accessed from rumpus directly. If u want it to have an external door flip its layout.

some variations to your ideas to consider

Final approved plans

We have been sitting on this design for a while and I dont think we want to change anything further, super happy with the final outcome. but as with the last renovation, we are very grateful for the inputs that came in this thread. like what were we thinking putting the laundry between the bedrooms downstairs:D

IN the downstairs rumpus where we see the store next to Bed 4,

I do love that but the store reduces the wall length available to get the circle in. Do you need the store there there is a lot of space between stair and rumpus with no real purpose

We dont need the store.. that entire L space is for us to be creative about it, now if we can afford it or a couple of years later. Thanks for the feedback