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You have a great home. Don't paint the fence - natural is always best with this style of home. And once you paint, you have ongoing maintenance. Look at the big trees on the LHS of the photo. These trees are above the height of your home and are helping to frame your home. I would suggest using a tall tree on the RHS behind the fence and if you have room in your rear yard, tall trees here. Then your home will be fully 'framed' from the road. Many will cringe at the suggestion of tall trees. People need to get over this attitude - we need more trees in our gardens and tall trees help with creating microclimates and assisting the hydrological cycle. People also whinge about leaves in the gutters. You will get these from the neighboring trees anyway. Cleaning gutters is part of home maintenance and shouldn't discourage people from growing trees.And there are now numerous gutter protectors that modern homes now have in place. Annuals in pots wont work if its too shady. You could use big pots - and they need to be big due to the scale of your home, and plant strappy plants like Liriope in them. There is a great variety called Emerald Cascade that you could consider. I would use dark grey pots as they are untrendy and will last indefinitely. Another great pot plant is Pittosporum tobira 'Miss Muffet'. Both would look excellent in the big grey pots.

Thanks for the photos, they help clarify your situation. A few points. The front wall, going by the brickwork, is approx. 700mm high. You could get this down to 600mm by sloping the lawn or garden slightly. Doing this should be fine and then you can pass the construction off as complying and replacement of existing wall. I'd assume the garden in front is part of the council nature strip in which case you can't move forward. I can't see neighbouring front fencelines so it's not obvious. Often there is up to 600mm between the boundary and the footpath but not always. I think there would be too much gabion. Contact a landscaper for a comparative price with sandstone. Obviously it's cheaper if you were intending to build the gabion yourself. The driveway is quite narrow. Widen it towards the lawn, not the boundary. You need to leave that narrow garden for softening of the fence in particular. A picket fence along the front should look fine in white, if that colour appears on your house but the paling fence should not be white. If you are doing a major reno of the house then the landscape items would be best left until the major work is complete. Then you can consider the landscaping in relation to the new look of the house.

http://pin.it/c0cD76w A pergola like this along one side, doesn't need to be over the door, would help blend. There are tonnes of native climbers on the Gardening with Angus site.