After great thought with the advice given & other researched sites, we have decided to not render our bricks. :) We have begun re painting our pergola from dulux lexicon to taubmans coffee cake - very similar to our window trims. It's a neutral stone/beige colour. We hope to paint our garage doors & gutters monument & probably the facia trims in coffee cake. Fingers crossed for it to look ok. Thanks again.

Hi Melissa, the pic you've shared looks like a photo realistic render (i.e. digital artists impression) rather than a pic of an existing space but maybe that's just because it's screen shot. You could achieve a similar look with concrete stamping or large scale concrete tiles. This website might help... https://www.concretenetwork.com/concrete-patio/

H Brooke, Have you tried an angle grinder on the ridges, very messy though. if you could smooth off some of the very proud joins you could use a thin plaster board sheeting with appropriate glue which is applied by putting a big glob of it here and there, I know they do this on walls Adding a cornice and ceilings light that only reflect light down and not up would also help cheers

If you want to make the house hotter, then painting the roof charcoal will certainly achieve that. Repointing the brickwork is the most sensible from a maintenance perspective. Once you render and paint, then you have to keep painting (and it's likely to be out of fashion sooner or later). Try to keep passive cooling in mind (i.e. light colours & permeable landscaping) with any of your renovations, and I think it always pays to try and embrace and compliment the original architecture and be unique, rather than trying to look like the latest project home. In my opinion the arch window is actually quite cool, and the excellent mock-ups provided by Geo Toria are along the right track.