Whatever you do never plant a gum! They have no place in suburban areas! The sooner the council realises that these trees kill people the better! We have had two gum trees fall on the back of our house now, one in 2012 and one in 2014. We are so lucky that myself, my husband, three children, three dogs, five Guinea pigs, two parrots and one bearded dragon were not injured. It's just a miracle not once but twice! I still don't know how we escaped unharmed. The gums do not have a stable root system and they grow very shallow, they get to the point where they just fall over. And the scary thing is they fall silently. They are not called 'Widow Makers' in the bush for no reason. I like the Tuckeroo tree, not sure of scientific name. They grow with a straight trunk and keep their foliage in a straight and symmetrical line along the bottom and grow hiding their branches. Essentially they look like a large mushroom. They are green all year too. I think they get to about 6 metre or ten if they have to reach for the sun.

Location is everything, I do love my house though but I often think if it wasn't where it is would I still love it as much and find its flaws quirky..and the answer is no, but it is where it is and it is where I want to be..so love, love, love

I love that firepit Planted Passion. legendaryflame Im in lower Blue Mountains so not proper heights for rhododendrons. I guess my vision is to have some more shade in summer, spots of colour for bees and birds, a haven to come home to. We would love all of the things you have mentioned. This is our home for the next 20 years, so we have time to work at our own pace, im not sure what the priority should be. id love 1 or 2 maples sitting either side of some lovely stairs going down the middle of where the pigface is. im not sure if maples are tough enough.

We've eaten in the dining room or outside for the past 20 years. When the children were younger, we had the kitchen table angled off the end of a kitchen bench with just enough space for the whole family to eat at it, and we only used the dining room when we had guests. I found that saved a lot of work. I now hate that we have to set the dining room table for just the two of us. I've tried using stools at the servery (and I use those for the grandchildren when they visit) but my husband refuses to sit at the servery, so we plan to renovate the kitchen and re-shape it with a standard-height table on the end of the servery. We are doing away with the existing dining room to make the living room larger, and security-screening a large covered outdoor area to make a combined dining and outdoor kitchen. Since there's only two of us now, we don't see the need for an indoor dining room. If we have guests, we always eat outside. The area is well sheltered and will be partly enclosed. If it's cold, we can set up a folding table next to the kitchen table to extend the indoor eating space. The kitchen table will seat 5 anyway, so it would be rare to want to eat inside and need the extra seating.