Hi Clareg4 - Thankyou for your kind remarks on my comments, in reading your reply I'm a little bit more aware of your intentions. Although you have mentioned the northerly aspect it would be a help to mark the north position on the drawings if you could. There are a few more comments in regards to the overall process and the look of the proposal that you might like to consider. In the face of the building - the general entry it might be more pleasant to make more prominent the part of the building forms the entry - thus that part is closer to the street and service areas like the garage would recede further back. This mighty need to be repeated on the other side to retain balance. At the moment the whole of the front is basically on a straight line, with the garage actually being more forward than the rest of the remaining part of the house. The emphasis to people coming to the house is the garage - not the entry, and maybe verandahs that might surround the entry should be further forward. It might be interpreted as if you are saying that the garage is the most important part of your house, as it is the "item in front" of the rest. One of the ways that you can save money in any Building Design, is to detail your spaces in such a way that all your furniture is included. This will allow you to trim where you have wasted space, and reduce any space due to excess circulation. This might require further detailing but it will show up areas of wasted or bad circulations and large areas. When you consider that building cost might average $2,000 a M2 or more, if you reduce your area by 10 M2 you have saved $20,000, and 10 M2 is not much on a project of this size. Also if you have 3D software number of views are always good to get an understanding of the proposal especially if you have to "sell/include/convince/persuade" other stakeholders in the project. (If you can not do the 3D pay someone to do it, the investment is generally worth the cost - there is also free software that you can use on the web - found by a simple search) Some of the windows in the kitchen- opposite the bench top - which I assume are facing north might be a bit abundant making the work areas very hot in summer. You might consider reducing the number of windows and/or increasing the eaves - a 1meter square window due north in summer is equivalent to a 1 bar electric radiator - not only would make the areas difficult to work on, but food would spoil very quickly in summer. relocating the kitchen might provide a more pleasant solution. I notice in the initial design that you have a verandah outside the laundry which I assume you were trying to include a "mud room area". In my humble experience with the countryside I must say that mud room proper is a must - there is nothing like putting your gum boots in the morning and finding out that the occasional friendly creature has crawled in during the night - not a good feeling. Also, it is good to have a proper storage for coats, jackets, boots weeps and leads. These items tend to be expensive and generally need regular maintenance as to avoid frequent replacement. I noticed, or I missed it, that you have not provided any spaces for pets like dogs washing facilities, or cat litter areas in the laundry. You might consider this a little trite but it helps to avoid issues later on, again larger scale detail of the laundry areas and say mud room might allow for this consideration for the nonhumans that might share yours and your family life. Your proposed position of the pool is certainly well placed, if you are keeping that layout it would work well. However, you would have to include the pool immediately after you finish building as a bushfire will always occur when you don't expect it, especially if you were going to build the pool "the following year". It would be good to include you fire rating assessor (BAL - if in Victoria) and your energy rater as early as possible, this will help in reducing costs in re-design. If you can afford it, you should look at windows that have a "thermal break" this means that you have windows that are low maintenance and good energy performers, they do tend to be a little expensive especially when you include double or triple glazing and high performing glass. I hope my comments are of some worth, not all might be applicable but if it improved the overall result it is always worth while. You might also like to look at my website FAQ for further points in the construction and design process. FAQ's http://www.newhomedesign.com.au/index.php/faqs-article-based General Website http://www.newhomedesign.com.au/index.php Wish you the best with the project. Michael Manias - mm407p@gmail.com - working online from Tasmania, Victoria, NSW, to Northen Queensland and Western Australia. Serving clients using Skype, Dropbox, Google drive and other Building Design Software and other methods as requested by the client.

Blue Gum floorboards how could it not look beautiful!! and yes wheelchair friendly although if we were in a wheelchair I guess we would have to move closer to town and transport and shops as this house was going to be in the country talking of moving... husband has caved and said we can move to the Bay of Islands whoop whoop! he still wants to go to France for 2 years but he said we could build or buy before we go so that changes the type of house now because we were building near a school and families this will be more a beach house that we can leave for the kids to enjoy and various friends who want it while away so I have swapped the master over to be away from the laundry garage door and hot water heat pump which is quite noisy and the guest rooms now have a Jack and Jill bathroom I haven't changed the footprints at all it's still the same size just changed the layout a little bit The bunk room would have a sliding door outside which means you could access that part of the house privately without coming through the front door or the bunk room could be a small kitchenette /come dining room / come lounge room (very small ) and rent it out as a 1 bedroom self contained apartment Once we live there full time ... will upload a photo in the next Post

Lachlan, do you know what the council requirements for easements are in your area? In addition to your house, I doubt 500mm either side to your boundary fencing would be right? There’s so much better potential to get a great design going... and while you’ve put a lot of thought & time into a layout you believe will serve you well, I think getting a pro in to work through your plan (must haves vs wants), site considerations, council regulations, passive solar orientation etc, I think a pro will be able to resolve this relatively quickly for you. I agree the bedroom at the front is far too narrow to be functional & I think it would be a disadvantage to you in the long term... both as the owner or if you decide to move on from this place, how you might fair trying to sell it... Your laundry has great potential to work well for you as a mudroom coming into the house from the garage. You’ll get some awesome suggestions here .... mine would include clarifying your budget (not forgetting total budget to include whatever may be relevant for you & your area such as fencing, landscaping, air conditioning, solar, water tanks & anything else your builder doesn’t include ie, turf, letterbox, blinds, clothesline etc) identifying your local builders, checking out their existing plans & seeing how amenable they are to changing one of their plans to suit your needs. Building is an exciting time! Hold on to your dreams & what you would like in your house - allow a pro to bring it to life for you :)

Somehow the plans only show up on mobile, not on PC for me... I think that the kitchen/living/entertaining area in the front with the sea view is gonna be gorgeous. I'm guessing you and your family have guests over often? I love that there is a good separation between the entertaining area and the private areas. Some questions though, would the 2 garages have separate entrances? Would the astro turf / courtyard area on the lower floor be covered by the top floor? What's the distance from the building to the boundaries on each side? From the top floor, would you have to go through the stairs and garage to hang the laundry? For the en-suite in the lower floor, might be a good idea to future proof it, by starting to plan for hand rails, ease of access with walkers, etc. The gap around the vanity seems to be quite tight on the drawings.