Hello.

attached is our floor plan for first floor addition. In doing so, we are doing some ground works of knocking out two walls for open concept (combining a bedroom and living room).

NOTE: we are on a tight budget and want to include “invisible” upgrades such as ducted air conditioning and laundry piping upstairs. Our council is very strict so changing the floor plan as it is drawn up is not feasible- this is what they will approve. Just looking for design tips/advice for the build stage As it relates to look and cost.

CEILING QUESTION:

The living room (weatherboard), hallway (presses metal), and bedroom (dry wall) will be combined and they both have different ceiling types. assuming we are not going to touch the ceilings, what is the best way to seamlessly harmonise the three different ceiling types? People have suggested an exposed beam to demarcate the spaces.

WALL QUESTIONS:

the bedroom has dry wall that covers old weatherboard that presumably is in rough shape. We want to weatherboard the bedroom walls to match the living room. What are the pros and cons (mainly cost) for:

1. taking off the dry wall to get to the original weatherboard which would mean more work to get it to a good quality

2. re weatherboarding all walls w new weatherboard.

3. only weatherboarding The bedroom wall

also our architect said we would only need to weatherboard the side w the windows, and not the hallway side. Any reason why she would say that? And would that look strange to only have one side. should we do both? And how does that affect the ceiling?

FLOOR QUESTION:

the original floorboards are in rough shape in the 3/4 of the living room and most for the bedroom. Should we:

1. Replace the shoddy floorboards only

2. get floating floors for the entire space and possibly March it with the upstairs.

many thanks! I know there are some really loaded questions.