Treating the sliding doors as a modern insertion and keeping the rest traditional could be striking. However, what does the house need from the interior? If it needs more light/views opening the house further with larger windows could be great too. An important detail for the sliding doors will be the casing (trim) - whether modern and intentionally different or matching the rest.

I think the most impact would come from a well placed, well sized Acer. You can get them grown fairly tall already, Tamata have them and I'm sure there are other places. I'd get one that grows to no more than 3 metres (although check this against your property as scale is hard to gauge from photo), and has changing colours of leaves/bark. I'd place it towards the left of the property, looking at it. That will give some balance to the windows, provide some privacy but not obscure light. It wouldn't be a cheap option but cheaper than painting the house, and would need almost no aftercare. Then some easy care phormiums in the border underneath the windows. Both phormiums and acers come in a range of colours- limes, bronze, purples, oranges, dark reds etc, so choose what you like. The acers are soft and provide movement and variety, the phormiums sharp and provide solid consistent structure. This echoes the plants that can be seen already behind and at the side of the house and should make the hour 'sit within' its environment instead of bing perched on top of it. Also, the edge of the driveway- I would dig a border to just beyond the seam of the gate, lay down a weed mat, and put some stones in there. The garden centre has a range of them, in several colours from white through green red greys and blacks. If you chose reddish (or reddish and lime/orange) tones for your acer/phormiums, I would prob buy a large specimen plant in a pot for the top of the driveway, at the eight hand side of the garage, to link the colours. And maybe paint the front door and have some pot plants there that tone in too, especially in the area near the path that can be seen from the street. For a cleaner line I'd consider painting the lower part of the decking (the vertical frontage) to tone in with your house.

Maybe look beyond the footprint of existing bathroom. We renovated a bathroom where we were able to have a seperate large shower and keep the bath by incorporating a built in cupboard in a bedroom room adjacent to the bathroom. New Free standing storage in that room has resolved any issue with the loss of the built in.

This is a new small two story dwelling, however the main bathroom needs some better design. there is likely to be a young family living here so a bath & shower is important. The designer has taken some space from each bedroom either side. I would like to see a better layout, I had thought of removing the window & putting in a skylite. Any help would be appreciated.