The house is meant to be striking and modern, so softening will confuse the design and lose impact. A south facing wall will always give problems with moss. A pressure washer will generally take care of this although be careful too strong a pressure could cause damage. Otherwise there are products on the market now to apply to hard surfaces that deter the growth of moss on outdoor surfaces and this may be a better alternative in the long term. Check your local paint shop. Vines that produce suckers to attach to walls can leave permanent marks and be impossible to totally remove. Your south facing wall will limit what you can grow too.

As others have said, it's all about balance. Firstly, replace the seemingly pointless area of paving to the left of the door with turf while keeping the sandstone garden edging. If you need the parking bay in front of the house reduce it down to in line with the corner of the house and make the garden in front of the house deeper by removing more pavers. If you don't need the parking bay get rid of it all together and turf that area. To make the front door easier to find remove everything in that garden to the right of the Frangipani (which needs some selective pruning) and then run a path from the footpath (or steppers) to the porch. I would also place a feature plant in a pot to the left of the front door to draw the eye and paint the door a lighter colour so it stands out. Lastly, a feature tree in the garden to the left near the Wooly Bush to add some height to that side of the garden.

Daryl, I for one, have been following this thread with great interest since your comment and am very sorry to hear the problems you have had. I had never heard of any of this, but with the dramatically increasing incidences of asthma, mental illness and depression, attention deficit and behavioural problems with children especially, autism - the list goes on - I often stop to wonder why, I know when I was young half of these issues didn't seemed to exist, yet did they and and no one knew about them, or is this because there are more people in the world now or is it all a part of modern living and why? Pollution has been blamed for many things but it seems as fast as we clean up one form of pollution we start another such as this. Technology is advancing at a crazy pace and the younger generation are eager for more and more but is anyone really stopping to investigate health issues or are we just becoming obsessed not just with the profits to be had from it, but also to free ourselves from everyday drudgery and live a Jetsons life style. We all want more free time, but what are we doing with it? In many cases working longer hours to pay for it !! It seems we are too obsessed with "improving" our lives to stop and question any consequences. For we seniors, this is not doing us any favours, we were not raised with this, it is a whole new way of life for us and the faster technology advances, the faster we are being left behind floundering in the mess. No one stops to think that women especially in my age group were forced to resign from work when we married or had children, there was no place for us in the workforce, our place was at home, cleaning and maintaining it, ensuring our menfolk were well fed and dressed and our children were properly raised. For many women, they lost workplace skills, but the male ego was also dinted if wives went back to work, men were expected to be the providers. Unless you have lived through this period you really would have no comprehension of just how much attitudes and opportunities have changed particularly in the second half of last century, I think we have lived through some of the greatest changes ever but sadly not everyone is given the opportunity to embrace them. There are many, many people in society today, in their 60s, 70s and 80s who just don't have a clue about technology, they never had the opportunity to use it or learn about it in their younger years, but now it is just an assumption that "everyone" knows, so many seniors are really falling through the cracks, they are missing out on many benefits and are totally vulnerable to scammers. The point I make here now is that trying to follow this discussion, I realise even more what a whole new language technology seems to have introduced and how much further seniors are being left behind. I had to look up what a "dect" phone was - never heard that word used before, so many other words and terms have me floundering too, half of Ian's learned comments might as well have been written in Swahili, just where do you go to learn all this? As a senior though, (and I have many friends agree) I have a lifetime of learning stored in my grey matter, it is full and it is tired, how much more does it have to learn, how much do I really want to learn - quite frankly as little as possible, I'm over it all now. I very much agree with Pottsy's comment of putting a tin foil cap on my head, if that makes everything go away I'm more than happy. However these health issues now are definitely a great cause for concern, not just for me but I think of my grandchildren, how reliant they are on technology now, they were raised and are being raised with nothing else, what is in the future for them? I had to have my modem changed to a Smart modem recently because the original one kept failing and unfortunately I have to rely in the internet now to stay in touch with family. I also rely on regular Nanna Naps to get through the day, is this just an age thing or is it the wifi?? How will we ever know these things - obviously Daryl, your symptoms were severe enough to identify this but for someone only mildly affected ??? It is like back in the early days of mobile phones and people developing brain cancer, there were thoughts this could happen, but it wasn't like suddenly millions of people developed brain cancer and it could never be proven that people who did would not have developed it anyway. We still don't know why people get many forms of cancer, but I can understand the skepticism and cynicism - how much slower would technology advance if we really took time out to more thoroughly investigage health risks. It is great that you have identified this issue for us Daryl, but realistically where do we go from here? It is a bit like closing the gate after the horse has bolted and trying to fight telco's .............yeah!! .

... "how do you choose the “right designer" for the project??" ........ A few more comments ........ Establish what exactly you are seeking in a designer for your project...clearly you are keen to explore options and the project's creative potential, and so you need to be working with someone who is aligned in this regard and can provide this process within their particular services structure......but not all "designers" necessarily work like that - as not all people want/need this - some people would like to know more clearly what they're going to get upfront, with less uncertainty, so they go with a designer with say a particular look/brand/thing, buy into that and they get what they get, a bit like buying a car. This is fine for some, but not everyone......As you seem to be seeking (and was expecting) a more "fun", explorative and adventurous approach to creating your home, enquire directly about a designer's process, don;t just assume a designer or the process/service they offer will be "creative" in the way that you may expect or imagine them to be..... Can understand how you could feel overwhelmed, as you've been at it for a while, invested time & money and seem to have hit the skids, questioning etc....but it's not all wasted, try and see it as part of the journey....recognising that you're looking at a plan that's not right shows you are tuned into your instinct - keep trusting this, it's your project, you know best as to how you want to live and how you want it to be..... Did you develop a written brief with your architect? If not it's important to estabish clarity on the project requirements and communicate all of it clearly to whoever you choose to work with....it also gives opportunity to review the vision and potentially for a professional to seek further clarification or point out potential contradictions / challenges in order to manage expectations... Design professionals present in the same category as "architects" or "designers" and to the general public there's a perception that they have the same/similar capacities and competencies ( they all "design buildings", right? ) as you can't tell from a photo of a house or space how exactly it came to be....it's always a result of a collaboration between client and designer/architect but the balance/relationship between the two can vary dramatically..... under the surface design professionals can be quite different and service different types of clients in different ways - not right or wrong but can be problemmatic misalignment/mismatch if people (a) don;t know what they're wanting in a design service and (b) don't fully understand how the particular designer operates ....... If you show a designer a photo of something similar to what you want, they will be more likely to deliver that to you, interpeting this as meeting your expectations. However as we know, a pretty building doesn't mean it works the way you want/need it to......A mentor of mine refused to look at any visuals as they believed it compromised / constrained the design process potential. I see the business of residential design as being all about people. The design process facilitates the development of architecture to achieve a certain human/living experiences......Coming from this angle, it's always ALL about the client and their goals. It's not about product......... however some professionals it is all about the product, which again is fine for some clients ...but you need to understand there is a difference, which one suits you better and and be able to potentially recognise this difference when considering your options Regarding how to potentially avoid repeating what you have already been through, in the endeavour to get a project on the right path for a client in a practical way that also retained creative exploration, we came to develop a way of managing the early stages of a project (regardless of the project type or scale) by always beginning with a "feasibility" step of service that aims to achieve 1. Establishing the project context, constraints, scope & requirements and 2. Exploring a number of various potential scenario options/configurations in rough/broad format with applied cost projections so at the very start clients are provided with various layout/scenario possibilities with pros/cons identified for each ....... it then really easy to see how different options sit and easily compare overall value and weigh up differences/pros/cons etc ...this mitigates the risk of doing a whole lot of design based on what is believed to be the right solution only to eventually hit a wall if it's just not cutting it ( a bit like what's happend here).......typically this then leads to a clear direction/path with further development confidently down an appealing option, or realisation that either the project needs to pivot/adjust or be re-thought, or staged or whatever.......sometimes the conclusion drawn is in fact no project or a smaller project, or a different project.......the main thing is that the process leads to some clarity in regards to client decision making.......have in some cases provided only just this stage for people to help get them on the right path, and the options/solutions then passed on to a local pro to properly develop/draw up etc.. Hope this helps! PD :)