Australia has nice examples of painted and rendered Art Deco homes. If it was a different kind of brick I would say keep it, but I think painting/rendering would really brighten the place. I love the windows. Although all pics here don't exactly match your style, they are all of that era. As mentioned in above comments, there are mix of landscaping styles that suit from conifer/gravel/grass to cottage rose garden to an Australian native garden. Do what reflects you and how much time you have for your garden.

Stools with wood on them would help add texture and warmth to your kitchen, along with accessories like your chopping boards, maybe a fruit bowl. Potted plants with lovely green foliage would brighten up your benchtop, and a large potted plant would look particularly lovely against the dark charcoal sofa you are looking at.

Thanks for the comments. To give an idea we looked at what we needed to do as the house is 30 years old and the kitchen appliances had all started to fail, cabinets falling apart, flooring damaged (only lino most of it) and bathrooms had cracked or chipped tiles etc. The previous original owners were also over 80 when they sold and couldn’t see the work required, in their eyes it was still fantastic. We realised we could easily spend enough to go into the low 100s k, so decided to do more, take it further and go over 150k so we could apply for the 25k grant which we did before new year. This mainly included more electrical work, a Zip tap and the skylight than the general wet areas. The builder gave us a ”mid-upper” range budget when we signed up which helped with tile selection and cabinet handles etc (not top end at all) and we have been pretty disciplined to keep the variations to a minimum (less than 10%). It helped doing the double glazing and buying new appliances ourselves this was cheaper. After getting the grant back we will be under 200k, but installing double glazing around the whole house wasnt cheap, this cost about 30 alone.

Oklouise, it is great! I am off work for a couple of weeks after a fall, so it is stopping me going totally insane! Use of rooms: the living near the master bed/ensuite is currently dining, the front lounge is the family room, and the rumpus room I rarely even enter, mostly used by the 20 yr old who has the bedroom at that end of the house. The decking is used casually as the space has a split eleven design meaning table and chairs fit if you don’t want to get in or out of your chair. Whoever designed that was foolish! There are sliding doors from the current dining to the driveway at the front of the garage. MB, not sure of budget, I have no idea really what these things cost, I guess my next step is to settle on some options and meet with a builder or similar and ask them of cost Aprox? I agree on the wasted space in the plans we didn’t use, especially around the bathroom! To move the kitchen up to the master bedroom would be expensive as there is no clearance under the two ends of the u shape, the block slopes a bit up to the back. I think I’ve answered the questions? :)