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.

having extra living areas downstairs suggested to me that the 4th bedroom (guest room/study/mum's retreat) upstairs would be a much better use of the family room (and also allows enough extra space for the master wiw and hall storage) and makes the "giant hallway" more useful as a better proportioned entry foyer with desk and bookshelves btw..thinking about the downstairs i'm wondering if you have any problems fitting in the cars? and, depending on available space (and unlimited resources?) i'm wondering if an extension to the walkway down the side could include a carport and wrap around to create access to the rear terrace upstairs and an entry porch for the office and allow for more options downstairs but, we need a site plan and better understanding of the angle of the driveway to consider these ideas but always best to plan the whole house even if the work is not all done at the same time

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

Gorgeous brick pavers, I love that look for the floor! It has a rustic appearance yet you're right- sophisticated, even an elegance. I think this would suit the feeling I'm wanting for the room, the pine boards have a rustic appearance, this would go well with them. We have a 1m square oak table with cross back chairs for the dining section and a La Spezia 3 light pendant (Beacon), farmhouse sink, timber hood cover to give you an idea of the look we're going for. Thanks very much for your thoughts on this. I like the idea you're going with, but yes, we have the window and door in already. Door could be trimmed if necessary. It wasn't until the window was already made and the wall sheets and cladding was removed that we realised the original kitchen layout had the back door next to the window, and the door into the laundry section was a modification. I most likely would have put it back where it was originally or had double doors. It made no logical sense for the back door to be a thoroughfare through the laundry, eliminating valuable storage space. I may have just left the kitchen in the original layout and made an entry into the laundry from the kitchen side for a laundry/butler's pantry with fridge in there. Removed the side window for more wall space for storage and changed the existing door to a window. But it's too late now, the outside of the house has all been newly clad so doors and windows are as is. There's no other possible place in the house for a laundry. It is a very tight space. Plan to build an external laundry studio in the future. The one in the house would be temporary, yet need it to accommodate a washer dryer combo for now, and be suitable for prospective buyers/renters in future if the external laundry doesn't eventuate. This is the original 1960's floor plan. A previous owner made internal access into the laundry and made bench space where the original back door was, the next owners opened up the living to dining room and blocked up the hallway doorway which became the fridge space. The cornice didn't match up in the hallway though where the old doorway was. They had made a shelf from the cut out on the hallway side, and the protruding section in the kitchen side became a kind of bulkhead for the fridge. Old hallway We've rebuilt this so that it could have an upper cabinet on the kitchen side/ hallway later if needed. But the lack of space in the hallway didn't allow us to build a linen cupboard, so that will also be needed to be included somewhere in the house. At this stage, thinking we will have to configure the laundry space to have a linen cupboard/ broom cupboard between the dining room and laundry section. Open to ideas too for storage in that limited laundry area space. I'll add more measurements to the floor plan for reference.