This is the timber mezzanine that now house our dining area, lounge, piano and where the adults plays while the kids are in the study out the front. The bifolds doors open to the back deck (33m2 not 16m2) thus giving us a bigger entertainment space. The cabinetry gives us storage space for our CDs etc. I went against the architect's drawing to put in a 300mm concrete slab and had built in drawers and cupboards, bench high enough to double as seats for when we entertain.

The bottom photos are of our living area.

The walls are rendered in Japanese Wall render with rice stalks to give it a warm texture. The floor boards are black butt timber floor boards. On top of the dining table is a skylight to let more light in.

Below are photos of the concrete mezzanine that house the kitchen, WC, ensuite, our bedroom and half of our oldest' bedroom. As you can see the space was very dark and gloomy and depressing.

My brief to the architect, a Master student , this was his first major project, was 4 bedrooms, 2 living zones, a bathroom, ensuite, an internal courtyard to let light in to the back rooms, a deck and make sure it is opened, airy and plenty of lights. It was a frustrating renovation as there were heaps that was due to inexperience but luckily for us our builder was one with heaps of experience to offset that. In the end I was happy with the end product.

Here are photos of our courtyard. It is my most favourite place, it lets the breeze into the apartment to air it, provides light to the back two bedrooms. The sunroof is by Kennovations one of the very first ones commissioned in Victoria. It is sensored thus when it rains it closes itself . I sourced the antique lantern and rain chain from America. The antique gates and stool are from Japan. The design is Japanese, decking and pebbles inspired from a little restaurant in Kyoto.
In winter or when it rains it doubles as my laundromat with clothes lines running the entire length of approx 6 metres.
It also doubles as a corridor that connects the front to the back of the house. There is no wasted space in this apartment. The 150m2 is all liveable space.

I wanted ceramic roof tiles for the courtyard feature like the ones in Japan, couldn't source it thus hubby made it out of fence palings and half a bamboo to make the gutter for the water to be pumped from the fish pond up through the wall to the top and back down again through the rain chain.

Thank you, it was quite a challenge coming from a 324m2 house on a 600m2 block. I needed to fit 2 adults 3 kids into less than half the space we were used to. Our builder used to develop apartments so he understood our need for lots of storage space. This apartment is more functional than aesthetic, it just evolved to meet our needs as a family.

The kitchen cabinets colour is an Elusive Gold (Dulux) the granite bench is Black Galaxy with gold specks to match the cupboards. I chose glass tiles as splash backs for my bathrooms and kitchen (Southern Cross Splash backs)
The floor is polished concrete, the only restriction we had here was the rain water pipe that ran along the length of the apartment, half hidden in wardrobes, here you can see it is boxed up. It had meant instead of 2 timber shelves in the walk in pantry I ended up with one.

Since the bedrooms are like Ikea bedrooms, in the two back ones ours and our daughter's the builder gave us the maximum 2.5m ceilings. He had the plaster right up against the steel beams. To give us light he installed a sliding door in ours and in our daughter glass window and glass door, giving us views to the courtyard that ran along the lengths of our rooms.

Our ensuite and the kids' bathroom have the same cabinet, tiles except for the feature wall. Since we overshoot the budget, I had to use white tiles for the rest of the walls to save money.

The laundry have 2 linen cupboards plus a cupboard on top of the sink. I used the same tiles, cupboard colour and Caesar stone as the bathrooms to match. We started with a door then I had to take the door out as it was very cramped space and when the door opened I couldn't get to the linen and if the washing machine door wasn't closed properly the laundry door wouldn't open. In the photo you can see the door to the laundry obscuring the second linen cupboard. I ended up making some Noren curtains to hang up instead.

Noren curtains, bought two panels from kimonohouse.com.au and I hemmed it, threaded through a flat piece of timber and hubby nailed it to the inside of the door frame.

Drapes and blinds for our rooms, discovered that in letting my kids choose bright colours for their BIRs it was very difficult to choose blinds and drapes to match

Our BIRs were built by our builder as the wardrobes companies would not build them to my specifications. They installed the doors once finished. Personally I hate sliding doors!! I wanted slim timber doors, but wasn't able to due to the restrictions of having small rooms. I took ages working out how many shelves and drawers I needed for them. The two back rooms have built in desks and shelvings as well.

Finally found the bedrooms. The rooms are all alike, all have a fan with light, wall lights except for the yellow room as the bed could be orientated either direction thus she has a table lamp instead. I cannot find the photos to my teen's room the ones I could find was like a bomb site so no yellow room for now.
The two front bedrooms are quite narrow, they only have the width of 2.8m across. Thus could only fit a double bed,bed side and a BIR.

The single bed fits nicely on our mezzanine, reserved for the niece/nephew that comes over for a sleep over.

The next three are of the kids' study. The bench was for the two younger kids and hubby. Reason being that he could sit and keep an eye on them studying. I had my desk in our room and so did the oldest. I also had two sets of shelves built floor to ceiling. The ceiling in the front part of the apartment is quite high thus we could fit in a mezzanine as an afterthought to increase our living space, thus it is a bit more than 150m2.
The architect was worried that we were not getting enough light so he made room for a skylight plus highlight windows all along the width of the study where there was a difference in the roof line giving the mezzanine light. The builder saw that so he made me compromise to reduce the size of the mezzanine so not to reduce the light getting down through to the study

Forgot my before photos

And more..we had asbestos in the ceiling that needed stripping. The bottom photos are of the front room and the second room with the door to the left of the patched up stairwell. The corridor leads from the concrete mezzanine to the stairwell.

From the concrete mezzanine the two windows are that of the old bathroom. Because of the split level and not enough room to house the courtyard. Part of the courtyard was raised up, topped with blue boards, water proofed to give us a sealed courtyard with
drainage just in case the rain came and the glass sunroof did not close in time. The steel beam running across the place was a pain as well because my range hood was underneath it. In the end the builder had to remove the range hood, divert the pipe around the beam so that it could go into the roof and still give me enough suction. He originally placed the range hood 5cm from the bench and citing I was a shorty I shouldn't bump my head while cooking. Hubby agreed, I jumped up and down until he took it down for me and redo the whole thing. Now it is in line with the bench which I am happy with as a compromise.

The last bit we did just recently to make it into a more functional home was installing louvres to cover the area directly adjacent to the bifolds. The architect only drew in a partial pergola as I had specified I didn't want the back deck all covered up which in hindsight I regretted as it costed us extra to get the louvres in. If we had done louvres from the beginning the whole deck would have been a more usable space. I was worried about not getting enough sunlight into the living area.

From the photo the glass screen was very high due to council regulations and privacy laws so we do not look into our neighbour's house across the lane way. The deck doubles as a car port big enough to park two cars side by side.

I will dig out more photos of the deck later either that or go take new ones. My next project is to clad the wall out the back. Have sourced a blue board cladding company. It will look much better than the plain blue boards we have at the moment.

The yellow room originally the Ikea unit was suppose to be against the back wall. It fitted nicely there then her bedside and then the bed. She's changed the orientation of her room a few times and now this is how it is . Being a teen and studying VCE I relented and bought her a bigger trestle table to use as a desk and that's in the study now. I too have a work station in the living room as my desk was too small too.

The deck

The mezzanine and storage spaces. Next to the mezzanine the builder installed a little door for us to give us access into the roof space. As the kids are using the mezzanine as a chill out area to watch TV play video games the storage now holds their board games, art and craft etc. The girls painted the walls to brighten it up. As the ducted system didn't work too well at the front of apartment we had to install a split system AC to cool down the study and the two front bedrooms.

The photos

Remember this wall? Because of the split level we ended up inheriting a big storage area about 100m2 with a height of 1.2m. One has to crawl but it is great for storing our odds and ends

The hallway, the coat rack is home made. The timber was from a recycled timber yard , an old skirting board, then it was lightly sanded back by hubby, waxed by me and hubby popped the hooks (Schots) on.

The walls are blank at the moment still have to put the family photos on them. I've brought my frames and framed half of them just have to sweet talk hubby to put hooks on for me

you guys have done so well. such an amazing transformation!

Thank you it is home now still trying to declutter..:)

just found our plans will include it so it is easier to visualise..front of house facing street with two bedrooms..did not include mezzanine as this was the original plans..