The satellite photo below (courtesy of NearMap) shows our house, with north up.
The major change is the extension to the east (box 3). That gives us more north-facing rooms, and hence a lot more space inside the old part of the house. As the ground slopes down to the bottom right, we're taking the opportunity to excavate underneath and create a large, open, basement space. On top the roof will be flat, and to make up for the lost garden space we're putting a deck there, and maybe some roof garden area.
To connect the three levels of the extension we will get a stairwell tower (box 4) which will have big windows onto the garden, a spiral staircase up and down from the main house level, and will act as a solar chimney for shedding hot air in the summer.
The old courtyard (box 2) will be excavated to help build the extension, and then a new slab will go in at the same level as the rest of the house. The space underneath will be left as a basic cellar, and will house a (huge) rainwater tank.
The top corner of the house (box 1) is a carport, opening onto the courtyard. This will be enclosed and extended out the front, and will get a loft storage space above it.
Inside the house we're doing some rearrangement and improve the energy efficiency with new (double glazed) windows and doors all round, and putting a concrete slab floor into the lounge room for thermal mass. The extension will be reverse-brick-veneer and concrete, and everything will be thickly insulated. The old roof tiles will be replaced with corrugated iron.
What will it look like? Something roughly like the drawings below, first from the back of the house, showing the extension and stairwell
and the view from the front.
The latest satellite photo from NearMap (7 July) shows the progress to date with the extension, half of the new roof, and the usual swimming pool in the courtyard hole...
