Advise Needed on Home Extension -Window Placement/ventilatio

Hi

I'm in the preliminary stages of a home extension on our 1920's bungalow (almost 1 year down and still trying to get to the final drawing stage!!!). I'm struggling to work out the best way for window/door size/placement in the new family/dining/kitchen area with the aim to get the best light & sun into the area as well as ventilation. We are situated in the Barossa Valley, SA. I'm hoping there are some people out there that deal with this stuff regularly that may be able to advise my best options. Information is as follows:

Northern aspect is at the left corner of our building.
So far I've thought to put a single door in line with the hallway as our main day to day in/out access with a 3 door stacker on the dining side which opens from the RH side. This will enable us to open up the area onto the decking (Is also in line with the kitchen which would enable a more direct route to the outside dining area which will be on that side of the decking). Window on back wall of family area starting about 800mm from ground level (unsure as to what type, fixed glass, non fixed configuration). For High ventilation and morning sun, a high bank of louvres on the eastern wall in the dining area.

Where I'm stuck is the western wall. That wall would be utilised for the TV. I feel we need some window that side of the house for cross ventilation but I'm concerned it being predominately Western facing. Also, having a 4 meter veranda on the Northern side, though great for summer I feel will reduce a lot of our light in winter. I don't want a dark hole when it's not summer. Some advise I've been given so far is to either put 2 narrow windows on either side of the western wall, or a high bank of windows like on the Eastern wall (would these need blinds???), or to go for openable skylights like Velux. We're trying to stay on a budget & it was indicated that to go the skylight way it was advisable to have a raked ceiling which would add a further $5-$7k to the roofing costs + the extra cost of a couple skylights (I believe around $2k each plus installation). I'm a bit hesitant to go that way due to the extra cost of building (we're already above our planned budget) plus the extra heating requirements to heat a vaulted ceiling. We already plan to have 3 meter walls.

My initial thoughts for the Western wall was to only place a window on the little nib wall (laundry wall) - but worry this may not be enough for ventilation and light.

The decking is to be under our main roof with a ceiling. The roof line will be cut into the existing roof of the existing house, but has been created with a northern face so that we can relocate our solar.

Our Block has a slight slope - about 600 from the existing floor level. I've been lead to believe that we are in the 'grey' area of the best/most economical floor base. Builders have suggested strip footings with a suspended wooden floor. I would love to hear what others think regarding this.

Finally, the pantry 2500x2400 I'm hoping to have a sink in with our second fridge. I'm hoping for some bench space, a place to house the microwave as well as the usual pantry food stuff items. Would you consider this area large enough to achieve that.

I've done a 'muck up' of our plans which I'm going to attempt to post a link here for you so you can see what I'm talking about. Scale is 1 square = 500mm.

Any advice, suggestions people can give would be greatly appreciated. NB - we have been dealing with a local draftsman so though he's been helpful, he's not an architect. Thanks in advance.

http://imageshack.com/a/img18/1198/0j3h.jpg (plan)

http://imageshack.com/a/img89/6555/55xy.jpg (roof line)

(If you don't get directed to the picture, just copy and paste it - it should work )

Hi Anniex,

Wow! What a lot of work you are doing. It looks very exciting. Don't worry too much about the time it is taking, it will all be worth it in the end.

For my two cents worth, would you consider putting 2 banks of narrow louvres at either end of the TV wall. Tall and thin - maybe 500-600 wide (or whatever the standard dimension the manufacturer would recommend. This would give you some nice additional light and ventilation in this room without disturbing the area set aside for the TV. You could see how you go with whether you need blinds or not. You may not need them. I'm just thinking if you put a window by the laundry wall, you may get some glare across the front of your TV that may be annoying.

Just a couple of ideas. Good luck with it all.

Cheers, Jenny.

You could add a window with an awning to shade from the summer afternoon sun. I like the idea of a couple of tall narrow windows too,you could have a third on the narrow wall near the laundry too. I'd walk change the stacker direction so it's opening from the centre and remove the single door. I think a window, door and three stacker will be too cluttered.

Your extension is similar to our house, however our deck runs around the western side which provides some shade to our window. We hardly open this window however as most of the breeze comes from the front door on the south. And the window is hard to open as it is old! So you may find a window on the small wall only is enough?

Can you have your solar panels somewhere else? Because continuing the gable all the way to the end of the alfresco will let winter Northern sun into the house. This is what happens at our place it's lovely to have winter sun but shade in summer.