I have miles of decking at two houses. All timber when put in the Australian sun will suffer. When building our beach house we decided to go for Spotted Gum and let it grey. Why fight it? We applied Cutek, and will on a regular basis. At our main house we have lots of Merabu or Quilla. Will not grey the same, and leaches lots of red stain. Cheap, but would not use again. What ever you use, use a good quality oil that seeps deep into the wood not a traditional stain/or top finishing product.

From the point of view of how we manage our time, which is unrelentingly finite, I don't find oil a practical seal for the traffic and spills of the kitchen area, unless you enjoy constantly tending something, cleaning and re-oiling regularly. Timber floor finishes have changed a lot in recent years. Polyurethane gives timber a distinctly tan/orange colour. Water based seals are a bit more expensive but far more durable in low sheen than polyurethane, and doesn't add that orange tint. If you wet a piece of your timber you will see a similar effect to water-based seal - it intensifies the marks, grains, tones and colour differences somewhat - just like wetting a dry rock or shell intensifies the marks and colours briefly. You can experiment on a piece of your flooring first before making a decision. Good luck with the results - I too think your flooring has great potential.

Thanks. So, you could have access to a external tap garden near by? You could put some small irrigated vertical gardens in this space and plant out some grasses or low growing or cascading plants. This option will require some thought to the wall structure and allow the water to drain away and keep the wall space relatively dry. The other could be (the photo is not good to see) run horizontal wires internally in a set spacing you desire on the timber cladded wall. Then, plant outside in that corner (in ground or in a large pot) and grow a climbing plant (star jasmine or similar) and train it to grow on the wires you set inside that space. This will tone down some of the hard materials and add some softness... Just a thought!

Hi Jacki, firstly congratulations on your new home, what an exciting time for you! My recommendation would be to go with tiles because they are more durable. There are many different tile options for all sorts of budgets, usually the ceramic tiles are cheaper than porcelain, more prone to cracking though. The porcelain tiles are fired at a higher temperature so they're more durable. Then you have rectified tiles and pressed edge tiles. If you prefer the grout lines to be smaller go with a rectified tile, grout lines are around 1.5mm rectified, pressed edge grout lines are 3-5mm. I will warn you though, tilers do charge a little bit more to lay rectified tiles as it takes them longer to lay. The best finish in my opinion would be lapparto which is in between glossy and matt. Polished tiles are a pain to clean, you will always see footprints no matter how often you clean.