The house looks very livable. I love that you have concentrated on creating one nice bath with separate walk in shower and a windowed tub! Since you have already thought of it, I'm going to assume that the attic is for future expansion and cannot be adapted for use as the current "away room." We are also in the process of designing a small house, and we've designated our study as the "away room." Ours will open off the dining room. If you switched the locations of the Study and Bed 1 on the same side, you could put french doors or an extra wide door with etched or decorative glass from the hallway into the right hand corner of the study. This would give you a really long diagonal view through the lounge and out the french doors, and from the lounge through the study to the window at the far end... The study window should be increased in width to match the neighboring window in Bed 1, and it then becomes ripe for a small window seat, either a clip on bay bumping out, or a "built-in" bay using narrow built ins on either side. Or both: build "in" for now, putting file cabinet drawers under the window seat, and angled corner units in for storage, and add the bump out bay later when you know whether your offspring would prefer a really cute desk, or a window seat, or a bed nook. You would, alas, lose the door from Bed 1 into the bath.... but honestly, there are lot of doors into that bathroom already, and that one has substantial collision potential. It might be best to make the single access point that door from the laundry. Either a glass panel set high in the bath room doors or a transome would make it easy to tell when someone is in the loo. Other ideas would be to split the nook under the stairs, so that half the depth opens to the lounge, and the other half to Bed2... with the wall thickness, you probably get close to 600mm or 2' on each side. Add a deep bookcase or other built in, and you're easily at a depth that makes both spaces very tucked in. Lastly, if funds allow a shallow bay window over the kitchen sink would visually expand the kitchen, particularly if you could arrange it so that the counter runs right into the bay.

It will be a very tight fit, but if you purchase a prefabricated - very small shower - it might work. The shower would have to be 36" wide with a corner entry, but I don't know how much room you have next to the toilet......? It's tight. so I am not sure about the width of the shower. You will have to measure the space. The stacking washer and dryer would be freestanding next to the shower at 24" wide. I agree that it would be better to have a tight bathroom and have more room in the kitchen.

It all depends on what you want to do in your laundry and what in your bathroom I guess. I appreciate the fact that there might not be enough space to do this but I store outdoor shoes in the laundry and the dog's leash and cleaning stuff. I need room to sort the dirty laundry into piles before washing it. I keep the ironing board in there and I need a tub to wash things in and to do flowers in and to put the odd cloth that wiped up the cat sick before it gets rinsed and washed.. heaps of things other than just washing. Couldn't manage with a cupboard laundry ( piles of washing on the hall floor when using it) and think these kinds of laundry functions might not make a gorgeous lavendery bath or shower feel that luxurious. So I am for as big a laundry with tubs, cupboard and bench nearest the outside back entrance and yes washing line as poss. And a lovely fresh warm bathroom near the bedroom separate from the dirty clothes and boots and all that other stuff.

Hi all. Two questions re my living room in a very cool but neglected house in NZ. Property was architect designed, built in 1980 but with a very sixties vibe. So it’s an eclectic / Interesting mixture of mid century architecture (floor to ceiling glass, atrium, flat roof, trees) but with 80s appointments (bathroom colours and fittings, crazy paving, floors, garden hardscaping, etc) After being built (to a high standard) it looks like it was neglected by subsequent owners. We bought it three eyars ago and have replaced the roof, skylights, plumbing and wiring. All stuff that had to be done. We redid the front garden because it needed it but it was also the first project we did for lifestyle reasosn as well – because we wanted to not just because we had to. Nice feeling. Two Questions : First - we’ve been here a couple years, and not really solved the living room furniture layout thing. The room is long and relatively narrow. It’s generously sized, but it always feels a little empty. It’s like it’s too large for a ‘single’ seating zone arrangement, but not quite big enough to create two distinct areas. The reality is I feel I have three different possible things I want to ‘look’ at – the fireplace, the garden via the beautiful end glass wall, and, frankly, the TV and Hi Fi. So we tend to settle on an L shaped arrangement, with the open part of the L facing the window and TV in summer, and reversing it so it embraces the fireplace and TV in winter. So what would I like? I’d like to create an area for talking and an area for tv watching / family time where the sofa s closer, but I’m stumped on how to do that without being too far away from the fireplace in winter (brrrr) or being too close to the very large window and its torrents of sunshine in summer (too hot to be comfortable and furniture fades fast in NZ high-UV sun). Ideas and thoughts welcome. Second question : flooring I was a bit iffy on the (original) marble tiling when we moved in but I've grown to love it. I hate the carpet though which definitely isn’t original. I’d like to replace it but can’t decide with what. I’d prefer something that links the three zones – kitchen and entrance area with its marble tiles, living area (currently carpet) and outside patio (grey concrete tiles). More tiles are out – pretty sure three different kinds of tiles across the three zones would look odd - so I’m tossing up w simply replacing the carpet (what kind? What colour? Grey to match tiles or amber-y to bring down colour from the brick wall?) or installing wooden floors. I was leaning towards wood except when we went to the wooden flooring shop both design consultants suggested simply replacing the carpet would look better (they’re wooden floor salespeople??????) which makes me wonder if they are seeing something I'm not. All advice appreciated. It’s a beautiful house, and any improvements I make are about lifestyle not resale value. I’ll be carried out of this place in a box.