Now it's beginning to work! Luv the rug! A few more red showstoppers, and I luv the post about matting your family pic, and larger frame for it. Looks like you might be a bit uncomfortable with the great post idea of moving your sofa out into the room away from wall. If so, could you accept putting it diagonally from the entrance doorway, across that corner where it is, stopping at the edge of your window? That's a bit of a move outward, still can see the fp and tv, and show off your new rug, which could go diagonally in front of the sofa. Then, if you like that, after a while you could move it on out as Deb K suggests. Sometimes intermediate steps are more doable for us than those big changes.Same with painting; if you could first paint just the fp wall, then later paint other walls...seems some color would really make it more homey. Would you cosider a quite contemporary fixture for the light in the center ceiling? Maybe a bit of red could go there!

Hi Nic, I've been stuck with shower-over-baths in a few rentals and they can be slippery death traps! They also get grotty in summer with bare feet, post beach showers etc which limits usage as a bath anyway. If your kids are old enough I'd go for just a nice big shower area or a separate shower with a compact freestanding bath if you can fit one. If your kids are little or the above won't work for you here's some tips to make a shower over bath safer and easy to use: - Pick a bath with an absolutely flat bottom and anti slip texture at the shower end (those suction anti-slip mats are worse than useless). - Position the shower screen so that you can step straight onto the anti slip part. - Make sure the bath edge is low enough for the kids to enter end exit easily. - A hand held shower head that can move up and down would be a nice addition. Hope that helps! Good luck with the new bathroom :)

Hi IdaC, I had the pleasure of living in a California Bungalow many years ago now that had almost exactly the same plan as yours apart from a few modifications that your house has had. The living and master bedroom were switched and the ensuite was just a bathroom from the hallway. The problem with the house plan is the blocking of the rear of the house by the kitchen wall to the hallway and so the circulation goes around through the dining. If you want to alter the layout for a more modern lifestyle with good access to the back yard, I would make the living room another bedroom and put in a new long but narrow bathroom occupying some of the current dining room or possibly part of the existing living if you don't mind a smaller bedroom. The new bathroom can be just 1200mm wide having a 1200 long shower against the outside wall with a high window in it and then the toilet and the vanity near the door. Put the plumbing on the new living wall unless you install full length wardrobes on the wall between it and the new front bedroom. Then I'd delete the back bathroom and make that and the laundry into a walkthrough scullery and laundry and keep the outside door. Put a galley kitchen along the central back wall of the house with an island facing a new dining area where your current kitchen is with double glazed doors to the front hallway. Then make the back bedroom and 3/4 dining room, the living room and open that up to the rear yard. Ideally you'd want the living space on the North side of the house and the plumbing areas on the South, but that might be an expense too far. You could build a really great outdoor entertaining space outside the living room that links with the backyard bungalow if that became an overflow living area/man-woman cave!!!! or just a granny flat or office. If you want to do it in two stages, start by builing the new bathroom and opening up the back bedroom and 3/4 dining into the living room. That way you can start with the three bedrooms where they intend to be. Then you can look at doing the kitchen, scullery, laundry and dining when you are ready and either set up a temporary kitchen in the living space or eat out for a few weeks between when the old kitchen is removed and the new one becomes usable. Good luck, Christine.

my suggestion would be to move the sink, dishwasher and doorways to make space for the double fridge as i can't find any obvious advantage to removing the pantry walls or changing the gas heater location as that makes a good focal point with a wall mounted TV for a new seating area, study nook and kids play area, have a dining area in the old sitting room, use old kitchen doorway for extra storage and lose the side window and move theh lounge door closer to the heater to improve walking path between lounge and kitchen