We can tell you that this is real, certainly not render. All of our projects are photographed by a professional who does an excellent job, as you can see.

Hello Fianou, Congratulations on your charming home. I think it has so much potential. I love the idea of teal, it is fresh and welcoming. I was thinking to give the home some street appeal and to also make it extremely functional. I would see if you could afford to put a wonderful wooden deck out the front, and then I would have window shutters painted teal placed on either side of the windows to give it street appeal, if you could afford to paint the brick I would paint it in a happier white tone with the blue accessory trim on the shutters on each window and also on the roof trim to tie it all in. On the deck I would have flower boxes painted in the same teal colour or whatever colour you choose to link in the whole story. I can see it can be so sweet and charming and a real place to call home. The timber fence at the side would also link in with the decking at the front. Good luck and congratulations on buying your own home ! Woo hoo !

Painting the front door a personal fave funky colour would be a simple start and would a more substantial letter box. A few landscape comments- because Landscape is invariably cheaper than building works. The white gum is magnificent but does not look good with the palm. Palms have a relatively compact root ball and are much easier to move. If you have a more tropical part of the garden maybe move it there or advertise it on gum tree (tee hee). It looks like you might be in Perth from the plants. You just need more plants in the front garden and to extend the beds a little. the existing style actually looks good from the photos but is not extensive enough. Decide on a simple theme with the planting that goes with the white gum and the xanthorea because it is a bit of a mixed bag with the palm, little conifer and the flax? If you get out to a native nursery e.g. Zanthorea or Lulfitz you can get some inspiration. Plants like kangaroo paws and scaevolas are fun in Perth to get a bit of colour in a native garden although both are short lived (2-3years)

Don't forget that you can edit the standard sketchup library hatches. For example take yesterdays cube and paint it using the last wood swatch. Its a red brown timber with circular grain. Once you have painted click edit then click on a section of the colour wheel nearer to the white centre or move towards the yellow. See how the colour changes. You can also lighten or darken your timber by using the slide control. The problem is you still have a timber with roundish grain which is not what you are looking for. So click the chain link and change only one of the 305 measurements to say 2000. You now have a piece of material that looks like real timber with the grain stretched in one direction only. If you want the grain to run the other way swap the measurements over and it will stretch the grain to run in the other direction. You can do the same for all the hatches, however most are pre-set about right and only need colour adjustment only. That's 2 ways to manipulate the standard library that are easy. Just practice.