Many thanks gerogiegirl123, LouieT & oskuee. I really appreciate your thoughts. We have delayed a bit due to some indoor renovations but I have started painting out the brown rafters & uprights with Ricochet (fairly light grey with hint of earthy green) and the brown sliding doors with vanilla quake (pale grey) & that has lightened things up without heading too far away from the earthy 1970's vibe. Thanks for the photo ideas. I am keen for a united floor that looks great & is durable but that isn't just one boring expanse of the same material. Perhaps some lighting and a raised planter box in one section that could double as seating would help? Also interesting was the comment on the almost Japanese feel. I stumbled across a Japanese plant in a nursery (cephalotaxus harringtonia fastigiata) that may work as a replacement for the tree ferns which are driving me mad with the spores that settle on everything. We have plenty of indoor projects to entertain us and the ideas for the courtyard are slowly evolving. Thanks again.

Hi marisalyons6. You certainly do have a (fabulous) blank canvas to work with. If I may - starting with that pink wall, someone had already suggested painting it a dark colour. I agree. Great and easy place to start. A deep grey or a Prussian or Oxford blue. Prussian would be my go. On this wall I would hang 2 or 3 "living wall pockets" or some "plants ape vertical" to add a wonderful touch of nature. The garage door has to go, sorry. Either replace with some folding wooden doors to match the stairs and inner doors, or if this is out of your price range simply paint it the same colour as the back wall. If the garage is not in use, it becomes your perfect storage and work area. Maybe even use it as a guest room if you make it over. I'd also be inclined to pull up that fake grass. Sorry, but yuk! Again, depending on your budget add either a shallow floating deck or better still (cause I love stone) is to have a beautiful river stone floor laid. The "drop" from the top to bbq area concerns me, especially if you're having friends over for drinks. Add a tapered stair for both safety and to conserve some space on the bottom there. The angle of closure doesn't really matter, and in fact you may find the greater this angle (from a narrow bottom step to the top step being as wide as the upper area) using a lovely chrome and wire hand rail, will really bring the spaces together and won't really take too much space away from the bottom bbq area. Again, to bring the lot together either floating wooden decking/floor or the stones. Just some thoughts I hope you enjoy reading, and more so enjoy the project. I'd love to get my mitts on it, but I'm a bit far north. Best of luck, and please post updates. Would love to see what you end up with.

Thanks for the ideas - I realise that only looking at flooring as the 'link' between inside/outside is limiting. We will have a brick boundary fence that will connect to our inside brick (but don't want brick pavers, too small and busy for our small space). We will also have a timber pergola that links to our beams/doors/flooring. So perhaps it's not essential that the pavers 'match' the flooring. I do like Travertine, and certainly large pavers are the idea. Also that pic that Swaneee posted - I would never have thought of that as 'slabs of cement', but it looks nice - where do you get that kind of thing, and what sort of cost? PS: I never said twin boys, it's one boy and one girl - but just the same in terms of pebbles being out!

siri - re boundary construction it of course depends upon the specific context - the issue in this case is the site fall and being on the high side there could be potential issues of building heights from the NGL on the neighbour's side....my comment was also in respect to considering a terrace structure above a close to boundary structure and complexity that would be thrown up with screening and structural offsets etc.....and this is sometimes worth pursuing where space is tight, however I'm anticipating here there is a fair bit of room to move and I'm guessing (an educated guess based on limited contextual information provided ) that a more cost effective/simpler option on a number of levels will be to (a) keep things off the northern boundary and (b) minimise renovation scope and consider a strategic rear extension that focuses on master bedroom zone and cleaning up the main living zone - if the majority of the existing spaces are retain structurally and limit renovation to cosmetic upgrades then the budget will stretch a lot further but net result is a more valuable property - and a more cost-effective value adding proposal that on paper is more likely to be accepted for finance.........this is always a integrated numbers game/exercise We're working on a job at the moment that we crunched numbers on various options & scope/configurations, but the two "shortlisted" of them were very similar - one slightly more expanded and pushing out to boundaries, the other more tightly disciplined, simpler and deliberately keeping building extension off boundaries. Whilst both of the shortlisted proposals essentially accommodated/covered the client's requirements outcomes, we estimated approx $100K accumulative difference one way or the other........