Flufftop, there have been many good suggestions in this discussion. You already have two 'WOW' factors in your front yard...your lovely cottage and the tree. Whatever you do needs to link these two with the remainder of the garden and that's not an easy thing to do when you have a variety of ideas coming at you from all directions. Walk around your neighbourhood, go to Diggers for inspiration but also go to your local nursery and ask if they have a garden advisory service. Another option is to find a local garden designer (www.aildm.com.au) and have them visit your garden. They have the knowledge to tie all your ideas and thoughts together. They will suggest ways to incorporate all, or some, of your wishes into a unified design which can be implemented immediately or over a period of time to suit your budget. It will cost you a fee for an hour or two ,or more if you get a plan drawn up, but will save you money and disappointment because you'll be eliminating guess work and mistakes. Best wishes Arthur

Down the side of the house with the strip driveway you could do a few things. Between the concrete strips and the houses -Improve soil and re turf - make sure you have the right amount of light, soil and grass for it to stay nice and well growing -Improve the soil and plant some low lying ground cover - a little more maintenance but a nice feature -Pebbles - a little more expensive but the pebbles are neat, fast and a good security measure as you can hear people walking up the side of the house -Mulch - just make sure it is bug free and your termite inspections keep up to date -Pave or brick between the concrete - be sure they add to your current colour scheme. I wouldn’t suggest the red brick shown in the picture for your house. -Otherwise you could tear it all up and put a full width concrete driveway - not as cheep but tidy and no maintenance. I hope that helps with some ideas as I procrastinate about my own garden design ideas

You don't mention where in Australia you are or which side of the house faces North this information will mostly determine what you can grow and where. Your block isn't small at all. In landscaping terms it's enormous and will cost a lot of money to put in a nice garden. As a starter..... The facade of your house is imposing, almost out of scale with the neighbours. I believe you will benefit from a medium sized deciduoos tree out the front behind the letterbox to soften the area between your home and your neighbours. Putting it on that side will frame the house nicely and balance the enormous scale of it. Something like a gingko would be lovely. But you need to be in temperate or cold zone for that one. Also the lawned slope is not helping the home sit into the landscape. I would go large boulders and a rockery across this part, not a fence nor retaining wall. Your home is already strongly geometric, a naturalistic strip will work wonders to bed it into the neighbourhood. If you can't stand the look of boulders then gabions are an alternative that look very modern and smart, especially if interspersed with tall ornamental grasses. There are many creeping conifers you can get that will grow in many climates. Once established they need no care but can look amazing. The easiest way to work out a cohesive scheme is to zone the yard into outdoor rooms. This is exactly what landscape designers do. So rather than going well I want a deck here, a bush there and lets just chuck some grasses in here. You end up with well defined area's that each have a purpose and a particular style, rather than random shrubbery dotted about the place. you'll need to cruise the internet a bit to find some landscaping you like. No-one here can guess what modern with character means to you. Does it mean tall strappy things, cacti, grasses? Hedges? It's easier if you can find a general style of garden you like, such as Balinese, Japanese, South Western, tropical etc. Then good old Google can show you every possible version of that from traditional right through to edgy modern versions. Typically anywhere in your yard that is going to get full sun all day will be unbearably hot in summer, you will want some shade there, but probably also want it sunny in winter (depending on where you are). This is where you need to plant deciduous vines or trees rather than evergreens. In terms of your access to the clothesline, the least expensive option will be a gravel path down that side of the house. You can lay it yourself and it only needs some lumber to define the edges and keep the gravel from spreading all over the yard. That won't be any good for dragging wheelie bins over though. You will also need to spend a weekend watching the shadows over the yard and seeing how far they stretch and at what times of the day. Any plant labelled 'full sun' needs a minimum of 6hrs of direct sunlight a day. Part shade plants need 3-4 and usually do better with morning sun and afternoon shade situations. And then there is the tiny group of plants known as 'full shade', don't be fooled. Most of them still need several hours of dappled light. There are really only a handful of plants that can survive full shade proper, so these area's of the yard are better off paved with a container filled with something known to be unkillable like clyvia.

I'll look out for it next time I'm browsing! I've found this new online company called painttint or tintpaint so I'm keen to pick something from there, though I'm trying to use up what I already bought. I let the kids go and pick about 6 different sample tins of pastel for their room thinking it would end up some sort of miami art deco vibe. But i have no idea how i'm going to integrate it all! I figure I can do some furniture and just top it with a clear coat of enamel to make it hardwearing. So far we have painted some boxes to make a dollshouse and test out the shades. I thought maybe I could make some sort of rainbow mural using painting tape, but then I found this really interesting painterly mural and my daughter loves it so I might just let them go for it and randomly paint everywhere! The kids room is the one place I'm happy to go a little bit more wild. It's entirely possible once the plywood cladding is up they will love it as is and demand I just leave it wood!