Hi, every reno show that I watch take out the arches in garage doors and internally as well, makes a huge difference in the before and after shots. We took up our brick paved front verandah and decked it. That really made a difference to our place. Hopefully some of the pros will give you some good ideas. Back to garage doors once square, some sort of architrave may break up the brick so you don't have to render or sand bag..good luck

Hi
I also love painted brick. I'd go white with timber decking on the verandah and timber posts. If you could remove the arches it would make a huge difference. Love the shutter idea but I'm not sure they would suit. I'd like peaked 'little roof" awnings over the windows to add some depth the the flat front of the house. The front fence is great so I would try to tie that timber colour into the front of the house.
Good luck

Thanks so much for your help! It's greatly appreciated. Yes, I like the idea of white or a light paint (not a great lover of render) with the timber decking/posts too. Though now I'm reading so many other discussions where people are saying to keep the brick? Need new timber posts AND definitely get rid of all the arches everywhere & missions brown - YUK!. A builder actually said to us that it was too difficult to get rid of the garage arches and couldn't be done? Why? (he wasn't a good builder by the way). Wuff - can you explain what you mean by the 'architrave' once garage doors are squared off please? I like the idea of the peaked roof awnings over the windows thanks Karen. What should we do with the windows. Geez - looking at the photos of the house - it looks like a face with two eyes and a big mouth haha. It desperately needs updating.

Haha. I can see the face now! Re the windows, I'd leave them. If you have the awnings and the brick is painted white or a pale colour I think the windows will disappear into the wall.

A diamond in the rough ? Lectrohair. My main focus would be to get your entry looking fabulous. It's really important to make a feature of your front door and entry to make your home inviting. The arched garage doors will be quite a hassle and expense to change and I think they could look OK if painted a dark colour like Dulux Domino and paint the bricks in a warm grey like Dulux Apparition. To continue this stylish look I would paint the posts and timber trim in Domino , change the veranda and create a wide path to the front door. Depending on your budget you could either re-tile or rip out tiles and create a timber veranda ( generally more expensive). Keep us posted, I think you could do a lot with this ugly duckling.

Ooooooh thankyou - I love your colour choices and ideas! Thankyou!! Yes - I agree about making the front door and entry more inviting. It's a bit hard to see in the photos, but there is a garden directly in front of the verandah that is somewhat overgrown and messy, I think (although my husband likes the look of the desert grass! haha). I think it needs to be completely redone with nice lush and green plants. In front of that is a nice, fairly level, large grassed area. We have removed the pine trees (bar the front one at the gare) along the centre that separated the driveway and grassed area, so I think a nice path to the front door would be great. Ooooh - I wish you lived in Sydney! I've had a look at your page and I love the work you have done! The house was renovated inside, although it needs a bit of refreshing/new paint etc. and we want to do something with the back deck too. With two young boys and close to the beach, we won't be moving anywhere. Would you be able to recommend anyone on the Northern Beaches, like yourself?...... please...... I really want to do this properly.

The above photos are a few years old - front garden is more overgrown now and pine trees down the middle have been removed (except for one close to front gate)

Hi, I probably used wrong architectural term, like a wooden or plaster feature, I can't quite get my explanation right. I have seen it on the U.S. Site. Breaks up brick without painting. We have a small brick house that is painted but your home is very large and would be huge job. Looks to me that it could be fabulous

Hi Lectrohair, Thanks for the compliment. I'd love to get my hands on your house and make it look fabulous. Not familiar with any Interior Designers in NSW unfortunately but happy to discuss the option of a remote consultation. I've done this several times with clients and it works well. If you'd like to explore this option you can send me your contact details via my email address vikki@vmdesign.com.au. Probably easiest to chat on the phone about how it would work.
Cheers, Vikki.

I'd keep the brick and the arches, but I'd get rid of the awnings over the windows, they make them look tiny! You could paint the garage doors a complementary colour (cream? A darker brown or charcoal to match the window joinery? White like the trim?) If you painted your front door a light or bright colour that would help to shift the focus to your entry. Good luck!

We have arches.. See if you can work with them at all.

What would really change the look/shape of the garages and windows is to use polystyrene architrave products. These can be made up to size and style and coated in a special coating in the colour you want or as I have done, because it's a third of the price, paint it yourself. I haven't got any photos to show you but both my norther and sister's houses were done with these products to give their rendered houses a 'french provincial' look. I have used the polystyrene for my fountain surround.

The arched garage doors don't particularly offend me and the builder was right - a nightmare to fix and expensive. I'd be more inclined to replace those sliding aluminium windows. Have you thought about replacing them with French doors opening onto a black wrought iron Juliet balcony? Just done this in my bedroom and though the bolt on balcony isn't there yet it already looks a 100% better because the windows are bigger. The wrought iron balcony can be in a modern design. The brick is okay but I think it would look better rendered because you otherwise forever linked to that dull brown colour. You can render the front - a more upmarket look than painted - but the rest of the house can be painted brick or left as it is. You can tile over the front verandah of course to save money.

I may be old fashioned but I like the colour of the bricks, I wouldn't sandbag, render or paint them. If squaring up the garage openings is too expensive, replace or paint the doors, as suggested by VM Design, Dulux Domino. With the verandah and steps, I would re-tile them, maybe with a larger tile in a similar colour to the garage doors. As you mentioned, the front looks like two eyes and a big mouth. You won't get away from that, so why not change the awning to look more like eyelids, curved, like the arches? How about making the downpipe disappear instead of standing out like a sore thumb and paint it the colour of the bricks. And paint the front door a lighter colour or replace it with a wooden one with a curved glass (vertical) panel, bringing the arches into play. I would also get rid of all those palm trees across the front and plant flowering plants such as standard roses.

I'd say leave the arches but render the brick. Put in timber look garage doors & remove the awnings over the window. Then from the top of the windows up put a nice timber clad feature. Then pop a timber deck over the porch & you've got one beautiful house.
Will go lovely with your fence.

Something like this..

Lots to think about now!

Hi, looking at the arches and brickwork remind me of a Moroccan villa. By bagging the brickwork and using a soft pastel, light terracotta, green or blue would lift the whole front. Might need to do the roof tiles as well. This would also compliment the planting (except for the pine) and be a lot cheaper than building renovations.

I think your house is actually quite lovely and shouldn't take too much to get it to where you want it to be. I don't hate the arched garage doors at all...
I would encourage you to take up the porch tiling and replace with nicer tile or even wood? Timber garage doors would be nice and perhaps timber framed windows or doors (French doors and a balcony as suggested!) would be stunning. I think painting/bagging/rendering of the brick should be a last resort consideration as I think you could improve the street appeal so much by just adding a strong contrast with the trim and this will smarten it up considerably.
I like the above suggestions of a wide path to the front door, garden planting etc.
It really is ripe for a facelift and very exciting! Good luck and I hope you post updates!

Hi
After our own nightmare experience with render bag style finish. (It has taken 12 months a disappearing tradesmen, poor quality finishes and still unfinished. We basically have to start again. If you go for render insist on a large sample area for the work not just a scrap of material about 30 cm in size. Also make sure you check you render colour and are happy with it, allow about 3 days for the proper colour to settle. The colour we ended up with was significantly different from our sample we were assured it would dry several shades lighter, it didn't.

We are now having to go to court.

I would just paint the brick. Some of the new exterior paints give a great texture finish. Taking out arches is costly so, if you are on a budget, consider making the arches a feature almost like Spanish style. You can use feature tiles on the under side of the arches and they look great fantastic effect for minimal cost.

I also would go for light colour i.e off white ,light grey tones.( something like Colourbond Dune or Resene tea) it will make the house look way bigger. Spend money on wooden garage doors or a funky finish or colour cheaper than you think, for contrast. Contrast with dark colour for trims on roof pick up the colour of the roof in the patterned feature tiles
Get rid of the awnings and add some funky outdoor lighting. You will be amazed at the result. Good luck Alison

Thankyou, thankyou for your great comments and ideas. I feel so bad for you Alison. We also had a really bad time when renovating our bathrooms - shocking tiler (son in law of owner) who was stoned most of the time I think and his work was soooo shoddy - different spacing between tiles, unfinished crooked window tiles and used his own grout (wrong colour!) for floor tiles - even though we had bought matching grout. He promised it would dry to the correct colour - NOT! So.... we ended up spending so much more money having to get someone else in to retile/regrout both bathrooms. I can see how it can go wrong with bagging, from your experience and we might just paint over the brick than render. I never thought about tiling the underside of the arches - some great ideas there- thanks.

Hi Zen - yes - Í really like that idea re: slats over the arches, but it would restrict getting into the garage unfortunately. Think I'll try and get my hands on a copy of that magazine though. Hmmmm - have to check with the hubby.

Think we've decided: we will go with a lighter (painted) colour on bricks & dark roof. Aim for Timber Garage Doors. I also want timber decking for the front verandah, new front door (maybe even a navy blue colour or something). White wood, French doors onto the front verandah. New path to front door, tidy/replant garden. White wooden windows & shutters (maybe some kind of wooden architrave over them?) and dark post & trims.

BTW: does anyone know if you can get wooden look garage ROLLER doors (that roll up - not roll out flat along the roof?). We are limited with height in the garage.

ALSO - does anyone know the name of a good Interior Designer/Colour Consultant that can advise & oversee our renovation, that have their own tradespeople that they use. We are on the Northern Beaches of Sydney.

THANKS EVERYONE !!

Lectrohair, I'm a member of my local library and I can read magazines such as Handyman, Home Beautiful and many other magazines online for free.
I'm sure it would be the same at your local library. If not, join mine!

Zen, I really like the pic of the house you posted with the slats. How clever. It looks completely different.

Amber tiles has great stick on sandstone so you highlight the garage doors. With that many doors you could highlight as an old fire station. Lol I have seen a couple of old fire stations done up as a home and love the idea

Ok cheaper option then squaring off the archways over garage doors
Get a builder or hubby to put a timber wall over the brick work so you end up with stained timber and then you can square off the arches as well
Then pain the brickwork or leave as is, I would personally leave it
You can also get architraves eg air rated cement mouldings online, these are simply glue and stew and add depth around your windows without replacing the windows, then you paint them a contrasting colour to your painted brickwork
I would definitely put timber on your front porch or large grey tiles, then you could square off the white columns with timber decking, add a bright red front door, or your colour choice
Good luck
Cheers Jacq

Not stew, screwed sorry

@jacquelinecollins lol

I can't wait to see what you do in the future, @Lectrohair!

this is maybe not a helpful comment given what you've stated you really want to work on, but I hate the tile roof. they look so tacky like those arches, that whole 70s pseudo euro look (?) And with your façade the lack of a decent eave makes it look flat and bit wrong. the boxy bits (can't remember their name..builders?) where the level soffits meet the gable are yuk. a lovely new steel roof with good insulation and an extended eave would be cool (pun intended) but a bit expensive. it would also allow you to colour match roof and gable cap options with other trim or garage doors etc.

OR.....yep I'm terrible..but....having just reread after posting I actually have to say I like labramouses comment about keeping all that med look stuff and making it work with a good paintjob. whites and blues would work with the brown tile roof. I'm seeing it, some vine thing growing up the bricks and columns, big blue front door, very beachy, very nice.

To me sandbagging looks like failed render. Also if you are in a dusty area the texture collects red sand dust or sooty stuff when bush fires happen. I would keep this brick colour unpainted and perhaps add a feature that hides the top of the garage arches and replace the window shading with a modern look sort.

good points about sandbagging, however.. after commenting this morning I rushed off to work (just got home) and across the road to the job I was on was a building with sandbagged blocks painted white and gee it looked primo. and it was next to Logan Road in Woollangabba Brisbane so it's subjected to some nasty road grime (believe me, this much I know) but it looked fine. I nearly photographed it for this because it had cool side architrave things that reminded me of someones suggestion about something similar. and i have to add that while that style and colour of brick is one of my pet australia hates, does everyone realise how prevalent it is in some suburbs and just how dated it looks and how connected it is to sooo many architectural monstrosities???!!! anyway OP, heaps of cool options here, good luck with it.

oh yes, i'll also add, just so you know, the other job I did today was a white painted house with blue trims, whaddyaknow? and it was a pretty average old house but when I stood back to admire my gorgeous roofing work, I realised how well the basic colour combo carried it.

This is just like our Mediterranean house in Canberra. It was rendered white which never cracked or got mould on it, though I would prefer it to be done in a modern colour like our current home on the Gold Coast which is a rich sand colour with a heavy bagged appearance that has faded from a strong dark sand. With beautiful dark patterned orangey tiles all outside that reflect their colour on the walls during the day it is quite magical. Roof tiles also spray painted after being re pointed. I suggest you amplify the lovely quality of arches and don't go for what is trendy. But go with colour scheme for the house design. At our entrance there is a built up garden courtyard feature with wonderful iron gates and a large water feature in the courtyard that the lounge room looks out to and has the French doors that also opened onto the courtyard garden. Commence the courtyard wall to the left side of the steps and create a flat area at the gated entrance where we had a north single gate and a west double gate. The Pines were planted on the outside of this courtyard wall and gave extra privacy and blocked the westerly afternoon sun. The house always looked impressive, yet was just a simple presentation.

Before

After