The house looks very livable. I love that you have concentrated on creating one nice bath with separate walk in shower and a windowed tub! Since you have already thought of it, I'm going to assume that the attic is for future expansion and cannot be adapted for use as the current "away room." We are also in the process of designing a small house, and we've designated our study as the "away room." Ours will open off the dining room. If you switched the locations of the Study and Bed 1 on the same side, you could put french doors or an extra wide door with etched or decorative glass from the hallway into the right hand corner of the study. This would give you a really long diagonal view through the lounge and out the french doors, and from the lounge through the study to the window at the far end... The study window should be increased in width to match the neighboring window in Bed 1, and it then becomes ripe for a small window seat, either a clip on bay bumping out, or a "built-in" bay using narrow built ins on either side. Or both: build "in" for now, putting file cabinet drawers under the window seat, and angled corner units in for storage, and add the bump out bay later when you know whether your offspring would prefer a really cute desk, or a window seat, or a bed nook. You would, alas, lose the door from Bed 1 into the bath.... but honestly, there are lot of doors into that bathroom already, and that one has substantial collision potential. It might be best to make the single access point that door from the laundry. Either a glass panel set high in the bath room doors or a transome would make it easy to tell when someone is in the loo. Other ideas would be to split the nook under the stairs, so that half the depth opens to the lounge, and the other half to Bed2... with the wall thickness, you probably get close to 600mm or 2' on each side. Add a deep bookcase or other built in, and you're easily at a depth that makes both spaces very tucked in. Lastly, if funds allow a shallow bay window over the kitchen sink would visually expand the kitchen, particularly if you could arrange it so that the counter runs right into the bay.

I'm finding it a little hard to see the detail. Can you enlarge the top 2 plans?

Is this a new build? I would suggest you look at each room in detail and put the actual furniture arrangement you will have, to the right scale, and think about how you will move through and use those spaces. Some of those look odd to me, but it may be the way you intend to use those spaces is different to my imagination. The access to the changing room seems only through the Kitchen. and either out the front door or dining and living to get to the pool area. How will this be fenced? Where is washing to be carried from the laundry? Is there a line nearby? Out the front door, or through kitchen dining and living? Bed 4 has to go through a living space to a bathroom, the living room is hard to imagine in use as arranged, and bed 2 and 3 look to have the beds right into a corner for no reason. How would you accommodate a double bed in these rooms? In a few years this may be what you want. If you will have other furniture, draw it in. There a large walk in cupboard/robe off a store room. What will be in the storage room? Draw that in too, so you know there is space and it won't block access to the robe. Many of the storage spaces/benches/shelves are shown with corner shelving arrangements which isn't often the best use of space. Bed 1 looks out onto the front access. How will you provide privacy? What different uses do you imagine in the living, family and rumpus rooms?

Hi there We recently built a house and for various reasons, we had to have the front door on the side of the property, rather than at the front. Now that it's built, we have ended up with a lot less space on the side for planting than expected and it's just a driveway. The door that's at the front is actually the laundry and so we have fenced it off (we also have a small dog who needs lawn). We have planted a couple of climbers to go up the trellis to cover the laundry door, and have planted a specimen tree (Michaelia Gracipes) which will have lovely flowers, plus the hedging at the front and we had planned to put reeds in containers up the driveway against the house, but I'm at a loss what to do with; a) the front garden as it just looks too empty and b) how to improve the street appeal and encourage visitors to come up the side, to the front door. The front house owns the drive, so we can do anything we like, but must allow vehicle access to the rear. Any suggestions (except renovating the house!) are welcome. TIA