Love domino, but the proportions here are creating an uncomfortable blocky-ness to it. Definitely paint your fascias and barge boards in the eave colour. I think by highlighting this overshadowed proportion will help draw your eye to the architectural outline, rather than the infill colour. Don't paint your window trims light, as they will only highlight the contrast and make the domini look darker and less complimentary. White windows with dark boards for example are better suited to wider trims, like architraves or timber framed windows, yours are a slim aluminium? And they should blend seamlessly into the cladding. I would however, repaint the protruding section,right in front of your entry, perhaps the stairwell, both on ground floor, and top level, so the entire elevation that sticks out is perhaps a lighter grey, mid range colour like urban grey. It will refocus the attention to the entry, drawing your eyes upward and the domino will simply help to minimise the heaviness upstairs, by almost. Disappearing. Domino is a strong architectural colour, it works to define or delete areas of elevation quite well. go with your gut instinct, just re- paint your front focus, and the domino will do its job. But it shouldn't be the element that steals the show, in this case, it doing so is causing doubt.

Lightening the mortar will look great and keep those lovely bricks as the feature of the room. Eventually a few other ways to brighten the room could be: lighter coat of paint on the walls & a tall indoor plant or wall art in place of book shelves (if you have another spot for the shelves that is). Gorgeous room - look fwd to seeing the before/after pics when you colour mortar. :)

Miss Lucy, we are looking at SM / SMH. Flooring will be a warm oak (not too warm) and furnishings tbc but probably a soft grey. How do you find the paint works in your house. What sort of colour scheme re kitchen Cabinets, benchtop, furnishing fixtures etc . ... Id rather have the other work done and then decide on colour but need to get colour to cabinet maker ASAP ... sigh Who knew so many whites. Kitchen is north facing . Living and Master south facing so just makes things harder!

As a former renter, this was the exact property I would usually rent. Good functional condition, not my style but who cares? I never even inspected the all white and engineered benchtop places as a few visits usually revealed the renovations to be somewhat shabby, the places to be incredibly small and not good value for money at all. I always rented outdated properties as I typically got more space and better terms than places where landlords were desperately trying to recoup renovation costs. You're going to demolish the place so why spend any money on it? Changing out the flooring and even painting the cupboards and swapping out appliances will cost you thousands to get done and then what? Are you really going to reap x2 x3 times that expense in one years rent? I doubt it. First of all, I would have the place appraised for rental return in it's current state. And then appraised for rental return if it were tweaked. You will most likely find that any renovation will take years to recover the costs and actually make anymore than renting it out as is. For reference I was a long term tenant in all the places I rented, no I didn't leave rubbish around anywhere or have burnt out cars in my driveway. I left each property scrupulously clean, even having the existing curtains or blinds professionally cleaned and carpets professionally cleaned on exit. I just preferred value for money in rentals because I was saving to own my own home. Good tenants don't necessarily need renovated places to rent. Tenants are always constrained by their income, they can't afford to spend over 30% of it on rent alone no matter how nice. We have lives to live too.