http://houzz.com/photos/18381461 Something like this would tie in with upstairs I think. Hope you like!

I have been deep cleaning and oiling my deck for the past 10 years after we installed new wood decking. Twice a year I deep clean the wood deck using a hot sodium perchloride (cheapest Oxybleach from Woolies) wash - 1 cup to 5 L very hot water to activate. Add the hot water to the rectangluar bucket first, then add the oxybleach and stir to dissolve completely for 3 mins. I wear my wellies to apply a generous application of oxybleach with a soft broom to the entire wood deck, then come back and scrub the wood with a stiff bristle broom. This will melt away all the grim and really deep clean the wood. Then hose off or gernie off all the suds and grim. Leave to dry for 48 hours before oiling the deck. I oiled once a year for the first 2 years and now the wood is well saturated I only oil every 2 years. To oil and preserve the wood I use Cutek CD50 ( a good selection of tint colours are available if you want to stain the wood to your preferred colour). My deck is still like new after 10 years. This is a brilliant cheap method of deep cleaning and preserving wood decks. Good luck!

Are you able to paint the window/door frames Val or will they be staying cream? Personally I love the traditional Indian Red & Classic Cream colour scheme, if done properly it can look fantastic but it needs at least one other colour included with it. A frequent approach to painting a house of this type was to choose two shades of either cream, buff or pale green and a strong colour such as Brunswick green or Indian red. The majority of the timber work would was painted the paler of the light colours and picked out with the darker. The strong colour would then be used for the trim, such as door and window frames, gutters, barge board, capping and doors. - Ian Stapleton in How to Restore the Old Aussie House. Another option that would work with your red bricks and roof tile would be a charcoal (not black) with cream, again using two shades of cream to ensure you create depth and definition.

Is this your currently home in the picture above? I must agree I like the slightly darker colour at the bottom not the top. However I would go a lighter grey not as dark as you have shown on the photo?