I like the look of the whitewash walls - its clean. But the 3 hanging pots on the wall don't work for me. It would look better with nothing. Also the pots in the right hand corner are the wrong colour - they clash with the aqua of the pool water. Red or orange would work better here and be more in keeping with the period of the home. Even more aqua would work better. More big pots on the LHS also. But I would leave the bricks alone. Once you change their colour, you will have ongoing maintenance. If they ever need to be repaired or removed, then is the time to change the colour. A small evergreen tree would give you vertical accent in the right hand corner where the pots are. Its all too low and sameness.

Thanks MB Design. Budget is still to be determined as we are just trying to work out what we want to do with the place. We bought it to fix up and probably sell within 2-3 years. We have two little children and are planning to use one of the bedrooms as a playroom. Given it has a pool, it's really aimed at being a family home. We are trying to work out what would add more value to the place and thinking an entertaining space is probably the best use, moving the kitchen would be a huge job, but the rest of the house doesn't need much work so we could probably consider it. Depending on the likely cost, I guess!

Hi Ben, advise you engage a Pro to assist you with the front end design process. All these design decisions need to be founded securely on construction cost knowledge, and it's invariably about balancing your requirements to budget within context. Whether it's sub floor, 2nd storey or going out or whatever there are always options on how to achieve your needs and pro/cons & costs to stack up. Working out various configurations of spaces etc is relatively easy, however designing to budget is not, which is where you get the value of utilising professional services for this. These types of projects and investments involved are with all due respect too large, complex and significant to risk DIY'ing the critical front end. You can give it a go but I'll bet you continue to go round in circles. As we explain to our clients in the preliminary conversations, it's not your job to "work it out". All you need to "work out" at this stage is clarifying your particular living requirements and nominate a budget. The "how" and balancing up/negotiation/compromising between the project priorities/requirements and the budget limit is the job of the professional, what the design process deals with, and what we (as design professionals) have the superior capacity/experience to assist you working through it all to achieve the best solution for your particular situation/scenario. That's your best bet here. Hope this helps steer you in the right direction. Cheers PD

I think your suggestion would work. There are lots of homes that have their back verandah/patio across the back of the home, with bathroom and toilet windows. If you think this maybe an issue, you could install decorative screens in front of windows. Still allowing air flow, but privacy. Your land appears to slope up to the pool. Therefore the deck may almost be at ground level near the pool end.