Great to hear that you have decided not to paint the brickwork. Can I offer my opinion - I'd suggest painting the garage door and surrounding frame and the adjacent beam and column (currently white) in a dark charcoal/brown to match the ground floor brickwork try Dulux Namandji or Mali. I would redo the retaining wall with large boulders in a more freestyle layout than the current straight line and take up some of the concrete drive near the retaining wall to create a garden on the lower level, curved to still provide access to all of the undercroft unless you wish to enclose part of it with a large full height window. I'd love to see the wrought iron balustrade painted black. My home in the mid sixties had salmon coloured bricks, white window frames and fabulous turquoise gutters! The downpipes were painted to match the bricks thankfully - turquoise might have been a bit over the top! Good luck with your project, would love to see your progress. W

Hi jdublya, happy new year and sorry about the late reply! I ended up doing the safe / lazy thing... left the floor untouched and painted a feature wall deep grey, as well as having two-toned grey curtains to both the sliding doors, and a dark grey area rug. The open plan living / dining gets lots of light, so it's still bright even with all the dark greys. We've paired it with mismatched sofas in light grey and brown, and sage green throws. Overall, it's still a "warm" look and not the cool Scandi look I would have preferred, but it's cozy and the greys have really calmed down the red. It's a lot more to my taste now than the show room furniture was. Bits of the floor finish are coming off though, I think (where the kitchen island stools have been dragged over the years by the past occupant), so in time I will get the opportunity to re-do the floor and it'll no longer be red!

Probably the cheapest fix is to paint the cabinets. Especially if it is a DIY job. But it is a lot of painting. If the budget stretches further then I’d update the hardware/handles/pulls and remove that overhead cabinet near the stovetop. That would open things up but it probably also means repairs to the ceiling and wall it is attached to. Do a google image search of painted oak cabinets for inspiration. Some of them come up really well. Not much can be done about the colour of the appliances except for replacing them which is expensive. There is appliance paint but I’m not sure how successful it is, and you can’t use it on the cooktop or oven glass. Best of luck with this project.

Hi Polly, How fabulous to have such a great room, I would make it as bright and cheerful as you can, some great floor cushions, scatter cushions for the fab futon, search out some gorgeous baskets from Ishka, and add a bright artwork, you could do this yourself, grab a large canvas, mark it off with painters tape, choose some bright sample pots , paint up and you can have your own masterpiece. What a great space.