Something like silver birch trees don't take up too much room but will provide some height and interest. Personally I pick out natives, after asking local garden centres for those which are natural to my area. I've used black mondo grass across the front of my walls with purple fountain grass behind it. The fountain grass really takes the summer heat, doesn't need much water and self-seeds. It's grown slightly taller than me after a few years. I have, what I call a 'survival of the fittest' garden. Over the years, I've experimented with all sorts of plants. Eventually, only those that survive with little help, and almost no extraneous watering, get to stay. One of the key things I did when planting out my garden was to dig down into the soil and lay a mat of used, natural-blend carpet underlay (not the more synthetic types used these days). Just ask someone getting rid of their old carpet- it's easy to come across. Above the carpet underlay I added water crystals, then put the soil back on top. After the gardens have been established, I haven't need to get the hose out since. I do have lots of succulents around the place, some native plants and ornamental grasses. I hope this helps.

There should be a heritage assessment on the building. Can usually be found with council and/or state heritage council/organisation. You should certainly check this carefully as well as heritage requirements placed on the building. You could also contact the state Professional Historian Assoc for advice and access to a heritage consultant. I used to work as a Historian/heritage consultant - there is lots of advice and help available but you need to seek it out. Please, please take the time to do this properly! Any photos? I'd love to see them :)

Thanks everyone so much for your suggestions. The general consensus seems to be that we should work on the garden, which we agree with and this is actually what we are in the process of doing. Love bcdc602 suggestion of adding silver leaf plants and grasses. We recently planted two lilly pillies either side of the front window which will grow quite tall and cover those solid brown sections of wall. We are also removing the blue awnings over the coming weeks. Interesting suggestion by telperien to paint the window frames white. Will give that some thought. Thanks again!

Thank you so much everyone for taking the time to respond. Your first photo siriuskey is the colour scheme I'd love to go with so good to hear that you'd think it would match with the blonde brick. I also like the shale grey roof idea butterflyroof and you're right that you don't see much of the roof at all (mainly when looking out the upstairs bedrooms). The olive green is definitely another possibility to look at oklouise and I've made a note to use 'mid-century' in search terms. Definitely plan to pressure clean bricks and a bit relieved to hear that leaving them is the better option. I'm still finding it hard to imagine a darker grey cladding like monument with the blonde brick debluc but it's certainly been suggested a few times so I'll keep searching for inspiration. Thanks again :) (attached is a photo of a house near us that I like and that has a brownish tinge to the cladding that would hopefully work with our bricks as it seems to work with their sandstone - maybe dune colourbond?)