Hi Olivia,

First thing to do, as it is a relatively small site, is to check with the council to find out how much building coverage you are permited to have without going through the planning process. You'll still need to get building approval to do alterations and extensions but try to avoid the planning process if you can. That will determine whether you can get everything you want on one level. The building coverage will most likely need to include your carport and possibly your shed.

The next thing to look at is the orientation of the house and where you want the sun to penetrate into the house. I think the front of the house faces west and the kitchen side is therefore north facing. Even though you have a neighbour that may have a first floor window that looks into your back yard from the north, I would still look at an extension into the rear yard going along the south boundary and looking north into some of your yard.

In your current plan it is a long way from the front bedroom to the bathroom. I would solve this by changing the kitchen into a full bathroom and an ensuite for the master bedroom which I would locate where the bathroom is, making it whatever size you want and have it open up onto the rear yard with east facing glazed doors. Don't make the bedroom too long or you will not get much light into the dining area unless you go with a skylight above the kitchen or dining area. To keep the master suite wide, you may need to step the entry to the kichen, dining, living space over towards the fireplace.

On the south side of the house, I would turn the front of the existing living room into the fourth bedroom and around the fire place, I would turn into a pantry and laundry leading onto a new kitchen, dining and living room space about 4.5m wide and about 10m or 11m long from the fireplace wall. That would increase the back of the house on that side by about 4 or 5m.

I'd have a big low deck running beside this with a narrow pergola for some shading and lots of glazing on the north elevation of the extension. Put some small opening high level windows on the south elevation of the extension to encourage cross breeze in summer.

For the master bedroom you can also have glazed doors opening onto the new back deck but also put some windows on the north. You will need to locate and size these to maintain privacy from the neighbour. These may be tall thin windows or even look at low level ones if the neighbours look down on you. Windows from the floor to about 500mm high will bring in a lot of light and it will shine across the floor but give you complete privacy. You wont even need blinds on these.

If you can, have a nice high ceiling in the extension. 3m would be nice or sloping up from south to north.

Hope this helps.

C.