You can paint laminate. Products at Bunnings and plenty of instructions on Pintrest.

Hi Jaimia, I tend to agree with 12sally12 sentiments. Celebrate the house and it's foibles (boxiness, entry, colour, balcony treatment). However it's great to adapt a home to make it yours - just making the right decisions is the hard part! The extent of change depends on your budget and your tolerance for inconvenience. I've listed a few ideas that vary from 'nice to have' to significant structural (and cost) changes. These will affect the colour scheme, and therefore the way it will appear overall. Roof – dark colours appear heavier and more dominant. Your home looks to be built in the 70's, it's likely due for a new roof soon. Consider a fresh new zinc or white colorbond roof. Upgrade the gutters and downpipes at the same time. Balcony – remove the clutter (replace handrails), and extend the balcony beyond the face of the main facade. This will give the effect of elongating the front elevation of your home. The detail of the new handrail extending along the continuous balcony frontage should in turn provide a fresh new look (more contemporary). Arches – these could remain, or go (depending on your desire to keep the quirkiness). These are likely to be aesthetic brickwork only - but check with a structural engineer if these can be removed. Entrance – there are two parts to this: The first aspect is to do with the appliance from the street frontage. Prioritise making the front door the most welcoming part of your home. This can be done with a pathway from the front of the site, with garden areas and great planting to accentuate the entrance to your home. The other aspect of the entrance is how entrance 'reads' from the outside of your home. This depends a little on your location (and climate). As a guide I'd suggest revising the entry wall, including the door and windows proportions to 'open up' this part of the facade to the street. This should be designed in the context of those iras listed above, as well as benign conscious of security and protection from sun loading. I hope this helps Jaimia, (Keep in mind many of the aspects listed above will require structural design asa minimum!) Cathi

Wow now we can see the front, I think you should use the double garage for parking with side access to the garden to unload shopping etc. Remove the other roller door and carport, replace the carport with a pergola,. As previously suggested make lovely garden path access from the new front gate which would be to the left side of the picket fence, , Run another courtyard fence off the garage so that you can plant this area and include a clothes line, this now the rear entrance to the house. At the end of the new pathway to the lane side of the house, extend the deck and add stairs so that you come from the pathway up onto the deck on the old carport side. All that parking drive way parking space could be a lovely out door area. Paint the garage doors and gutters on both buildings grey to match your roof.Use a fence similar to this with a gate at the front and between the neighbours to the left. cheers,

I love the gates you’ve found Dave. Painted white, they will be perfect. You are probably struggling to find gates for further down the driveway because typically those houses didn’t have them. The driveway led straight down to the garage located at the back. If you need gates for security then I’d suggest something that echoes the front gates. Something that will keep the kids and dogs contained but won’t visually interrupt the wonderful frontage. You don’t want to cut off the cascading look of the triple frontage as it moves deeper into your block.