here's another japanese designed australian miners house from the 1920s in Cairns/ they look great and are sound, well made small houses on small blocks in tree lined streets. Very good design

There's a few things you can do with these houses in terms of lifting their quality and one is to cover the floor tiles with wooden/bamboo flooring, get rid of all window and door ugly security screens, put a few air vent rotators on the roof, ensure the roof is fully insulated,  whack on the roof a large solar panel, put a water tank on the side to take the pure rain run-off either into the garden or for tea making. It can be filtered if you like, but as it is, its very good rain water.