It is all relative to the entire property, the house and the yard. Is this a part of the pedestrian circulation or a seating area? Are there utilities adjacent, is it in the front yard and viewed by neighbors, or part of your private space. Is it viewed from the dining/living rooms or just from the bedrooms. Will it be used by tricycles or just feet (no golf shoes please). In my experience, (don't you hate it when someone starts off a sentence in which he offers advice with that phrase), the mondo grass is too large for any pedestrian pavement. There are a large variety of more prostrate plants you can walk on at your garden center, I expect. Some can be walked on daily, and others less often. Some are evergreen, some have attractive flowers, some are into more gray or smoky colors than just green. You can mix them up, just as you do with groundcovers in your plant beds. Enjoy!

Hi Aletla, If your apartment is part of a strata make sure that you get their permission before painting anything (best ask then fall foul of them as many courtyards are deemed as common property for exclusive use meaning that the Strata has the last word). If you get permission, I'd be tempted to lean towards a mid gray the same colour as the exterior building so that you're able to blur the lines between vertical and horizontal areas and make the area look bigger. You could think about putting in modular decking that will change the look of your courtyard that can be pulled up and that can be stained to any colour you pick. You would have to ask your strata but if you let them know it's modular and can be pulled up when you leave they should be OK with that as long as it cant be seen easily from outside the property boundaries. Regarding putting up shade - strata will not have any problem if you invest in a large outdoor umbrella as long as you make sure that it doesn't become a hazard during high winds/storms - you wont have to ask them. You can put up outdoor awnings but you'll need to get permission, supply all the engineering specs and your Strata may have restrictions regarding colour and style and may require you to: provide a structural engineers report on the impact, indemnify the building and put the awning on your insurance (a lot of work) and if necessary pay for a change of by-law. If you decide that you cant/don't want to change the colour of your outdoor flooring and as beige and grays are really popular, you could always tie the two together more with outdoor cushions for your seating that feature both of the colours. If you can get a high pressure hose and remove dirt and flaking paint to see exactly what the condition of the tiles are, you could ask your strata to pay for their reconditioning (if you offer to paint them and give them the colour and say you're happy to pay for that then they'll probably say "OK" to avoid costs to the strata as they're responsible for the external parts of your building - remember you only own the airspace of your apartment).

Definitely agree with Amber Tiles above. Natural stone will require continuous sealing over their lifetime but it is an easy process and well worth it. The efflorescence are unfortunately unavoidable if the salt is in your paver/concrete. Get on to the sealer straight away and it actually prevents it from coming out all over the place. Are you concreting in the pavers? There is different trains of thought on efflorescence. You can wait for it to come out or you can seal it straight up. If you wait you will have to acid wash them down and let them dry prior to sealing. You may end up doing this anyway. Efflorescence take elbow grease to get off. 1 part hydrochloric acid to 10 parts water usually, with a scrubbing brush. As it's acid make sure you follow the instructions to clean stone down. I had to increase the acid proportion 1/5 to get the efflorescence off. *** It can etch the paver so trial it first. If you have a heated gurney wash it down using that. Tip: get the acid off straight away and dont do it in full sun. The acid if left to dry can stain your limestone a rust colour. Do a meter at a time. Use a good penetrating sealer and make sure you keep the name for future sake. Depending on the look you like get the appropriate sealer ie natural, wet look etc. Again, trial it first to see if its what you like. As for fence, monument is an awesome colour. Will bring the look of space in. Will be a big job. Are you doing this? Monument is a Colorbond colour. Nearly all brands of paint do it but each brand has a slightly different pigment base. If you do go this way, see if you can find out what brand your builders used and use the appropriate outdoor wood fence monument paint so the base pigment is the same. I hope this helped. Anneke

I saw these today and they seem to match well with our wall bricks and roof colour and well priced too. Now I think I'll consider retaining wall options and compare to brick. https://tilemarket.com.au/product/trevi-grey-external-300x300/ Edit: definitely going with brick I think