My 2c worth... I wouldn't worry about trying to match your interior with your exterior colours... I say think long term, chances are you may be able to afford and want to change the exterior in 5-6 years, and then what, cream/beige again?... don't get me wrong, cream/beige is still in, but in the right tones (none of that yellowish colour)... and I agree with NOT painting the windows cream imo... from your kitchen photo, it looks like you're moving towards a more contemporary look inside... and if the cornices and skirtings will be white then my suggestion for the interior walls would be a warm light grey, e.g. Dulux Lexicon Half

Cost is not necessarily a big issue as some would expect. The cost's may not be that much different, many say it's more but forget to say by how much....... Some 'standard' but exceptional quality aluminium window and door systems are way more expensive than timber. Some other aluminium systems are quite poor in every aspect, apart from the glazing itself. Not really comparing apples with apples as the quality varies considerably and is quite complicated with so many manufacturers all offering various products at various thermal performance levels. Even some well known brands can be quite poor performing..... requiring double glazing where a comparably priced product but better quality only needs single..... Buyer beware! Window systems are becoming more of a priority during design than ever before. I'd shop around and get costings first rather than giving them boot just yet in particular if you really love them. Maintenance is really just painting (every 5 years?) or oiling the timber. Just keeping everything cleaned goes a long way to lowering the workload. Also being brick, that has reduced your workload again allowing some extra time to look after and admire the timber which you'll be looking at everyday when inside or out.

Hi Melanie yes this lovely brick colour does cause some grief for homeowners when wanting to update colour scheme without rendering.... !!!First of all I would recommend you keep the downpipes blended with the bricks rather than highlight them. Secondly I agree that charcoal grey would be two harsh against your brick colour so maybe look at a three tone colour scheme to breakdown the harshness of a dark colour against the light bricks. For example, dark on gutters and possibly on some smaller trims and mid tone on fascia and the vertical timbers.... obviously the 3rd colour is the brick colour...

DanMac86......it depends on where you live as to how often you would need to paint. I’m expecting maybe 7-8 years. To be honest we cheated so we didn’t have to paint the whole house. We virtually only painted the front of the hours and a couple of metres up the side. You would need to pick your point to stop like a gate. If we didn’t have water views I would have put white shutters on the windows. I just picked that outside colour to fade away the primrose. The other option is to just paint the external frames of the windows which most painters will do. This then gives you the wider options for an external colour. We just didn’t because it’s on the beach and saltwater etc. Good luck! Cass :)