We are also building in Christchurch :) So also had to look at these kind of requirements for sun, but we had a much smaller section to work with (800sqm). If cost is OK ideally a 2 story would get light into more of the rooms. You also saod the street frontage is 35m but the plans say currently the width of the house is only 15m, so you could run more of the house along the frontage to get it aligned with North. Its a big section are you setting it very far back from the street? Or are you worried about privacy? Is there a view Northwards, otherwise if you can set back from the street and add hedging or plantings to increase privacy I would try and align as much of the living space to get the North and west sun. Depending on what your roof is like you could also add a clerestory to get light towards the back - we are using skylights as well for our back hall and bathrooms to make sure they get as much natural light as possible.

Hello! I want to buy a navy velvet sofa for my lounge, but confused on how to decorate around it. The space is open plan, will it be over doing if I get (navy) velvet dining chairs and bar stools for kitchen? I want to include pink or yellow with gray and white as part of the theme along with some metallic - like gold/copper/rose gold. Also kitchen will be white with granite benchtop and mirror glass splashback. Where can I try to bring some colour here, maybe the pendant light? Any suggestions please ?

windows in master bedroom need to allow views and privacy and much as i would prefer bed on NE this keeps the bed in view towards and from family room so prefer bed on south wests wall and small sliding doors pushed towards north side of room with tall narrow window beside sliding door and highlight window for light with privacy and wall space for chest of drawers...acknowledging theta the pwdr doesn't have a window but my suggested arrangement uses less total space more efficiently and is better for older kids and long stay visiting parents (more people can use the various options at the same time) and a small ventilating skylight will exhaust and brighten the toilet and vanity area ...the wide door into the lounge can be a stacker or stable door so you need to investigate local options (and everything is expensive unless it does what you want...we always use solid core doors that can be ten times the price of a basic hollow core door but love them so we economise elsewhere) and barn door between entry and family would be OK as long as you like them and it doesn't compromise lounge doors but could look ok if both doors are the same style and different widths...and location of dishwasher is personal and if you have already been unhappy with sink in main kitchen then have it in the scullery...main advantage of my suggested kitchen location is that it's closer to the front and the family area and external doors and the pantry uses the central space that can be much better illuminated with another ventilating skylight instead of a tiny external window and noisy exhaust fan

Modern, sophisticated and lively were the key deliverables for this city suburb townhouse. The overall scope involved an upgrade to the open plan kitchen, dining and living areas including flooring, wall colour, curtains and kitchen joinery. Modernising the space through new colours and materials was the focus, without having to extensively rearrange the layout. This Mt Victoria Kitchen is now a refreshing, well functioning and lighter space. The well balanced combination of timbers, light marble tones and splashes of colour and pattern, such as the soft blue, hexagonal splashback, bring a delicate energy to the top floor. Before: After: Creating access to storage on both sides of the lounge facing island bench. The cupboards behind the dining table are minimal looking and tucked away to appear as panels, but allow for extra storage behind. The open timber shelves create an area for book storage and display, which improves the view from the lounge/dining direction. This breaks up what otherwise would have been a very deep, unusable storage if it were only to be accessed from the kitchen side. Before: After: Open timber shelves above the island on the end, offering a more accessible storage from the dining side of the room. At the same time this was a great opportunity to add in an extra area for display to further improve the view onlooking the kitchen. Before: After: The new kitchen design included tweaking small areas of cabinetry and maximising the available space, whilst also incorporating design features that didn’t compromise any of these functional gains. Before: After: Even with a sloping ceiling and staying within the existing footprint, the new kitchen looks fresh, the space is more streamlined and is easier to use. Before: With the number of corners in this layout it was important that storage space wasn’t lost in these areas. After: Using speciality corner fittings that rotate and extend to improve the access to the deep corner spaces was a must-have solution here.