Your welcome cottonhoney. I wouldn't render the steps - they're in keeping with the brickwork of the house and leave it to the new owners to decide what they want to do there - if your doing some sprucing to sell the place, the idea is to get the maximum amount of money at sale time for minimal outlay and work now. Put your time, money and effort into what's instantly going to catch buyers eyes (and any inspectors that they commission during the sales process such as building and pest) - think about upgrading the outdoor lights (ensure that they're on when you've got open house inspections in wet/overcast days - it'll give a welcome glow) and that your guttering is in good nick. Invest in a couple of nice chairs and a small table on the verandah that you'll be happy to take with you (or if you've got friends you can borrow this stuff from all the better or head down to St Vinnies and see what you can get cheap and do up - and don't overlook colourful outdoor cushions) . Making your home look like its lived in and cared for will do a lot for buyers - first impressions arent going to be about the stairs unless they look/feel unsafe - get them to picture their lives in your home - small pops of colour, a building that's well maintained, good smells coming from the kitchen (bake a cake/bread or brew fresh coffee or boil some water with a few slices of orange and a broken up stick of cinnamon for a few hours before the inspections to start to get smells going through your home will bring you just as much bang for buck as rendering.

thank you bigreader. I will look into the fettucine one. I love the limelights but we always have problem with the bug that has the little white sacs. We have lost so many. We spray with white oil but they always win :( I agree, they would look lovely there.

If you mean the green tinge on the edge of the glass , I assume that was done to tie in with the tiles . Personally , I would have tried to bring in some green tiles in the shower too -- either as a frieze a metre up the wall ; or probably on the '90 degree' parts of the inset boxes . But overall it has colour and class , the darker timber suits the tiles , the overall effect is great IMO -- this bathroom ( pics above ) could be any mid range new build or hotel room in any established country -- no colour , no personality , and speaking of old -- look at the floor tiles !

I've come across numerous articles over the years when doing history research, such as this one from 1960 about what the government was considering to remediate the problems. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/137118587 Interestingly I just found an article from 1995 which was more encouraging about the houses. "While much derided as cold and unattractive, these houses can often be picked up for very low purchase prices and because of their all-concrete construction, have great potential to make excellent passive solar houses as long as the basic orientation is reasonable and the external wall is clad and insulated to overcome the night-time heat loss problem." https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130549712 I think you'd need some specialised architectural advice about how to proceed?