If the front of the house is west facing in Queensland and you have glass on that side of the house, in summer in the afternoon the sun beats down on this side for hours, heating up the whole house. There is some speculation on double glazing as some think that they do heat up, better than nothing. Once the sun hits the wall you are lost. These image are for north this is worst for west. A more passive means of cooling the house is to install tall enough thick leaves to the base trees on the western side so that they shade that elevation. Problem with that is that in winter, that sun would be nice. So you need trees that drop their leaves early winter and have them back on say September when the sun starts to heat up. Some trees hold onto their leaves till a few weeks before spring, so make sure you do your research and think root barrier up front to protect your footings. Photo below horizontal external shade screens, Another method is to shade the house with screens, i said house not windows. With western sun, it is low when it starts to clear the roof overhangs, so no amount of horizontal shade devices will make any real difference. The screens for western sun in Queensland must be of a vertical nature. So screens that hang OUTSIDE the house to around say 900 mm off the ground would be fantastic. Since the sun travels around the west from more south west in peak summer to west in winter, vertical blades tend to be ideal solution and should pivot, to deal with this moving sun. In the past, Queenslanders used to have these vertical screens on castors and they moved them around to suit the conditions, for some reason we did not learn from the past. This house the screens are not shading the walls at the bottom so they would still heat up. From the plans i see you are building in brick, so western sun and bricks in summer make an ideal oven. Takes bricks 12 hours to cool down depending on the colour. All material heats up in the sun, but bricks take longer to cool, light weight material which is properly insulated is a better choice and against popular opinion, glass is also a good choice, all better if vertically screened. Double brick tends to keep a house cooler and you might as well use the double brick for structure instead of the decorative nature of cavity brick house, but after a while that heats up and takes forever to cool. Studs hold up the roof, not the face bricks. Ever wonder why the house stands up during construction with stud wall and roof? Photo is vertical blades which pivot. A good landscape architect would be worth a look and they will know how to blend your style of house with the garden. North windows in Queensland even with no overhangs, (which is stupid in Queensland) do not get sun into the rooms, but in winter it might crawl in say 2 M which is nice. What are you doing with the roof and concrete tiles heat up nicely and the darker you make them the hotter they get, Colorbond is a good choice with all the hail we tend to get, or keep a stockpile of tiles for when they break. Colour also makes a difference to heat. Make sure you vent the roof space, whirly birds, and vented eaves or gable ends, make sure you fully insulate the roof and also ceiling, and choose a light colour. choose a style of external screens or trees to fit the house. See if that makes a difference to the report which is there to make your life better and we are talking the cost of air con for the life of the house, the reports are there to help save you money, maybe a bit more up front but worth it in the long running cost of a house. Ros

My 10c worth: If I was to make a door like the one in the pic, I would use a piece of 38mm thick Triboard. Having a good-looking exposed track system is expensive for a larger or heavier door. Also make sure there is sufficient strength above the door in the right place to hang the door. We sell these sliding track systems in NZ, Id recommend the Henderson Rustic 80 system. Looking online overseas, theres some pretty good deals, but there's always the quality risk. Nor sure how much you are able to do yourself, there would be lots of savings to be made there, as usual!

Dr Retro's analogy with a convertible are so true. We elected to wait 12months in our recent house purchase before embarking on major renovations. The magnificent view that we thought we needed to have stacker/bifold doors for turned out to be too breezy to have the doors open for more than a few days a year. So the extra wide mullions associated with this kind of door would be impacting the view for 99% of the time. In the end we went for extra wide sliding doors (3 for a 4.6m width) with the narrowest mullions we could find. As for your quandary re the corner post, how about a very small section solid stainless steel post? Along the lines of Miles van der Roh's Barcelona Pavilion?

I love Julie Herberts classy ideas ! I am budget , cheap , sorry value for money . Without seeing the rest of your house , and the fact you have some grey ( everyone who paints grey should be arrested IMO haha ! ) , you need to do something . And that something is pretty easy . A couple of litres of the brightest Sunshine Yellow paint . Paint both sides of the screen door ( don't replace it -- it's budget we are looking at here ) ; paint the front door Sunshine Yellow ; paint all the white around the side-light windows in Sunshine yellow . Done . Or if you really want to go classy , go yellow as above , get 5 or 6 lengths of 40mm x 40mm timber , plane or sand the sharp bits off the corners , stain them a nice rich light-to-mid-brown , and screw them vertically over the side glass ! Colour and class , for under $500 ! The problem is you will look at a few other ugly windows , and put those wooden uprights over them too , and even try and hide some of the grey and beige with them too !