Hi everyone, well the good news is my house is having the pictures taken tomorrow morning ahead of the first home open. Thank you all for the advice offered and shared. In the end I had to keep to a low budget as its unlikely I'll get it back in the sale price. What I want to do it MOVE it quickly, as the market is poor and we are heading toward Christmas. The first 30 days are VIP. So I did the following; -exterior eaves, guttering paint - whole house interior wall paint (grand piano quarter) and one ceiling - carpet throughout from Harvey Norman - verticals, as other spotlight/ikea options did not fit. I needed to have these made. - new lightfittings - remove exterior rotary clothes line, put an Aldi one that comes from one wall. - cleaning of pavers with high pressure cleaner (my new found friend) - cleaning of kitchen tiles and grout with toothbrush, gumption and patience (gumption is also my new friend) - new shower screen So there we have it! Thanks again for your help and colour suggestions, and multiple suggestions to CLEAN. This CLEAN priority cannot be understated. I considered staging the home however I believe as it is modest and first home buyer home and a new migrant market, it wasn't worth the spend. Fingers crossed!

i was wondering about a downstairs front door but then how would you use the upstairs entry and what about potential loss of the grandparents' bedroom and space taken away from the garage and storage... different internal stairs meant enlarging the whole downstairs floor area (and changing the roof) and sacrificing space needed for the new upstairs deck and future pool (and extending further into the yard encroaches on the neighbours' views) but the old front stairs can be lengthened to maintain the original look of the house and you'll find that friends and family will more likely come in through the garage or rumpus room and the old front stairs will be used for only very enthusiastic sales people and photo ops but you do need to confirm all the dimensions on the original floor plan as the room sizes are inconsistent and an accurate original floor plan (including exact location of doors and windows) will help ensure that my suggestions could fit with the least amount of alteration to the existing structure and may also invite different suggestions from other HOUZZERS and happy to redraw your plans if you can correct this copy

@oklouise Gosh, thank you for that. That gives us some good ideas. I didn't realise that's what you meant by 'will draw up your plans' haha. We were planning to have the house off-centred on the block, close to the western side, to reduce hot summer sun from the west in the living areas. That should give us enough room to put in even a double carport or garage. Your ideas have made us want to try and utilise the somewhat wasted hall space a bit better with storage. However, we do want to maintain the north-south dining room orientation. I agree that the dining room bay window is a waste. I agree that the laundry should be moved somehow so it doesn't jut out, but I'm not sure if I like the warren of service rooms. What do you think of something like this? I've seen houses where laundries and pantries are combined. Would the window pose too many issues if we have cupboards under the counter for 'larder' items like potatoes or things? It's east facing so it will get some morning sun. Not too keen on the upstairs rearrangement though, but they're food for thought. I can't see ourselves using the kitchenette, and we have a house rule of no food upstairs. And yes, we want to minimise the square metreage (is that a word?) if possible, whilst still keeping things reasonable. So it looks like a lot of the rooms could be made a bit smaller, to keep costs down. @C P We obviously intend to engage an architect but at this preliminary stage (several years until completion probably) it's not worth it. We know what we want, a closed-plan house with a formal and informal lounge, billiards or games room and a guest bedroom on the ground floor. We though that the architect would simply revise the idea, apply the finishing touches and then get it drawn up by their draughtsman. I understand most people begin designing with an architect but we don't want anything innovative. Might be in for a rude awakening once we actually discuss with architects, but it's a fun exercise at least.

Re your designer, the most important part of any house is the floorplan so you will benefit from what is spent on design. No, I thought that I had read in your first post that you were moving the driveway $10K, did you do that. As I said I am not an engineer, but for the sake of a better overall floorplan you can work with and around with Load Bearing walls but it does cost, you earlier discussed using posts to help with supports and using fretwork across the top to conceal if you felt it necessary. My upstairs floorplan has the staircase brought back towards the Alfreso with the access from that end up to the bedrooms, ie kids coming home from school, through the mudroom/laundry, powder room and then either onto upstairs or into the kitchen for something to eat and then up stairs. By moving the stairs back will give you a Grander Entrance which you wanted. Everything you do doesn't have to be in the same style as the old house, the rear can be more simple with large stacker doors etc keeping your beloved French doors for the front door and living room etc. Don't be in a rush to make a decision, you are spending a lot of money to achieve your dream house. Did you look at the Youtube program which shows you how to marry old and new. I think the dining needs a bigger window looking out from the kitchen etc to the view of the pool, this is also a good safety thing to do, work with a blind, pergola etc to help control any heat.