mforr - It's funny you should mention that, because I just looked at the map of queens, trying to remember the name of the highway that went thru a friend's neighborhood like that .. and I think they renamed it! There used to be an "Interboro Parkway", and now it's called the "Jackie Robinson Parkway"! Wikipedia says it was renamed in 1997 .. who knew?! "The Jackie Robinson Parkway is a 4.95-mile (7.97 km) parkway in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The western terminus of the parkway is at Jamaica Avenue in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York. It runs through Highland Park, along the north side of Ridgewood Reservoir, and through Forest Park. The eastern terminus is at the Kew Gardens Interchange in Kew Gardens, Queens, where the Jackie Robinson Parkway meets the Grand Central Parkway and Interstate 678."

I don't know why people want to invest in render. If money limited I would always first go with replacing Windows with energy efficient Windows which increase natural light and maximise views or garden trees from interior Plus I'd remove brick fence in front of door as houses where you can see front door always look so much more welcoming as upgrade of workers cottage on these latest dilemmas shows

sorry about the drawing, but I quickly just sketched over your plans. I tried to keep the basic design you had just to save on re drawing over, but I would suggest the following as there was a lot of wasted space before. Also keep in mind that you are able to flip the house over (mirror image) if it will be too hot for the bedrooms to be on that side. Following the above drawing I would get rid of all the small hallways and extra doors you have, I would put the activity room directly on the Bed 1 wall and have built in bookshelves around the two walls, this will turn it into a study which will be a better choice for resell value. I would also put a skylight in that room as there are no windows. Entry to Bed 1 will be via the corridor which links all bedrooms, it still gives you dbl doors into the master, WIR and your ensuite. Your ensuite I would move the shower to the end and put floor to ceiling glass and turn it into a dbl shower one side can have dbl vanity and the other the WC and you would also have enough room to install a cupboard which could be a nice decorative on with glass on the top half where you could keep your towels and door on bottom to hide things. I would move Bed 4 in line with the other bedrooms, I did not move the main bathroom but you could move int and have it in the middle between two bedrooms. The main bathroom I would do a wet room which incorporates a bath and the shower behind again floor to ceiling glass. You would still have room for dbl vanity and toilet. By moving the activity room in line with the entry way, it will give you room in the bedroom hallway to incorporate a linen cupboard. By moving the drop zone and putting the PDR room door at that end it allows you to have a bigger laundry. therefore, behind the laundry door you could have overhead cupboards as well as undercounter cupboards for extra storage. Drop zones end up becoming messy and with yours right in the entry way, whenever you had guest your mess will be out in the open. By moving all this around it opens up the main hub of the house; it gives you enough room to extend the kitchen bench a little further down, I would put a large square island in the middle it allows for better flow around the kitchen and it also gives you extra seating, especially for quick breaky with the kids in the morning before running out the door to do school drop offs and work. It also gives you extra cupboard space as you are able to have doors put right around underneath for extra cupboards. Your dining area now has grown and leaves you with extra space along the the new study wall that you can have as a kids zone. Firstly, being little you will want to keep an eye on them secondly as they grow they want their own bedrooms. Your family living area is still the same; I would also wrap the pergola around to the end of the house which enables you to build an outdoor kitchen/bbq area with a table for entertaining and on the other end you could have comfy couches to lounge in when outdoors, have your morning coffee and watch the kids play in the backyard. Hope this helps Good Luck

That’s pretty much the height we were looking at going for so it’s an obvious step up and matches with the front door height. Good point about the front door we will probably install new crimsafe so you won’t be able to see any of the wood at all. Yes landscaping is the biggest thing we need but we are so clueless we just shoved plants in but it clearly didn’t work lol We will be planting along the driveway and putting in lights along it as well and there is a (very messy) hedge hiding the concrete in front of the door- which looks even worse right now because there’s marks from the hail. Our biggest problem is we live on rock and it’s such a steep incline so everything we plant grows weird or not at all I would love a beautiful lush front garden:( Is there anything we can do to the concrete to make it look nicer? If it’s painted with some kind of textured paint would that be too slippery?