I personally think the cladding would look nice and be the easiest to maintain. We also live on the Gold Coast and have a brick house that has been rendered (not by us) and, to be honest, it is not particularly low maintenance (if you want it to stay looking good that is). It is prone to leaching which leaves ugly stains so regularly needs retouching with the paintbrush. It can also develop small cracks in the render due to temperature change and movement. However, the most worrying thing for us is with regards to termites. If you render over your brick on the lower half of your house, it is highly unlikely you will see the telltale "mud" they leave that indicates they are trying to gain access into your house (they climb up in between the render and the brickwork). I would be trying to keep the exposed bricks in preference to rendering over them, particularly if you have a garden bed up against the house anywhere.

The Bricks are OK, if you like them, keep that round feature deck in the brick and render the rest, or stone clad the feature and render the rest, or cheapest of all just paint the rest in a dark warm neutral and render the round feature in a lighter but similar tone. You have the windows to consider. If you changed the colour of them you could also change the overall colour scheme from warm to cool. Although a black and white scheme is current, it looks better on timber houses and in suburban and inner city areas in my opinion. There are lots of different elements to your house which would look more integrated if you chose a warm colour scheme with a maximum of 3 colours. You can even make the bricks work if you paint upstairs a warmer colour to match them and changed the tiles and front steps to wood. Wood integrates everything in a warm colour scheme.

Great to hear that you have decided not to paint the brickwork. Can I offer my opinion - I'd suggest painting the garage door and surrounding frame and the adjacent beam and column (currently white) in a dark charcoal/brown to match the ground floor brickwork try Dulux Namandji or Mali. I would redo the retaining wall with large boulders in a more freestyle layout than the current straight line and take up some of the concrete drive near the retaining wall to create a garden on the lower level, curved to still provide access to all of the undercroft unless you wish to enclose part of it with a large full height window. I'd love to see the wrought iron balustrade painted black. My home in the mid sixties had salmon coloured bricks, white window frames and fabulous turquoise gutters! The downpipes were painted to match the bricks thankfully - turquoise might have been a bit over the top! Good luck with your project, would love to see your progress. W

Hi Anna, what colour(s) are your features? You may find changing up the window frames, gutters etc. will change how you feel about the wall colour. If they are all aluminium and can't be changed, even adding a pop of colour with a strong front door colour can make a big difference, as can landscaping. Have you tried searching for homes with Colorbond Dune to see what other homes with Dune render look like?