Agree about the paving stones - a mistake to be repaired & pulling them up & allowing someone on eBay to reuse them where they may match, sounds good. However, don't agree that the bricks are a mistake. Personally, I love textured bricks as you can pick out a colour from them to do trims & in 15 years, change the colours & refresh & still go well with the brick colours. I think yours are particularly nice. Removing shutters - great. If you can, take the opportunuty to take off the ornate screens on doors & windows & replace them with the very simple looking security screens. Renewing the roofing material to something that lets in more light is also a good idea. If it's not feasible to do at this time, it can always be planned in steps, but it's good to know ahead what the plan is/will be. Re colour choices. I would suggest not going with the current fashion completely. Remember when everything in every suburb was "mission brown"? Everything that has that colour is immediately dated. Best of luck, and enjoy

I really like colorbonds wallaby... they have some contrasting colours listed below... this might give a dark enough look without being too dark. however would you consider changing roof and trims first and then see how you feel about the brickwork? It might be all you need to do for an updated look. I'd maybe do roof and gutters same colour and then down pipes in a colour similar to bricks so not to stand out..., garage doors maybe the woodland grey?

Teal works really well with dark chocolate brown and beige (greeny blue teals with deep brown leather sofas or tables and caramel walls pop and yet are homely and comfortable) so a rug underneath the table and sofa to delineate that space with teal in it or all teal (I would go for a pattern as you have very neutral pieces the one from Kathy above with caramel and beige is perfect I think) could work -ditto curtains and cushions. Given the neutral pieces you could add pops of another colour depending on the teal tones you use. Also lighter turquoise tones that sort of layer with teal - its deeper cousin.... a turquoise ceramic (or other objects) with a toning teal one ( teal and turquoise can vary on the blue-green spectrum) and a lovely caramel coloured piece ( things work well together in 3's I find) all of varying heights shapes and some texture on at least 1 - would look great somewhere. Burnt orange (a more subtle tone than hot orange) can be a great and more adventurous addition as can khaki - just keep them subtle and mix it up. I have a great market bought cushion made from an old woollen tartan type blanket of aqua /turquoise, a light khaki and burnt orange with a caramel leather cross on it that looks so good on my dark brown leather sofa (sorry no photo on me).

It's just that the carpet doesn't sit nicely with the wall colour. You need some accent colour in there so your chair is fine but I would add or replace some of the cushions on the lounge. The artwork is over your head so bring that down to eye level and I would look for a new colour for the wall as that is the easiest to change. Hopefully you don't live in a too warm climate as the carpet is a warm colour and the toning the wall will add to the warmth. I realise that grey is very popular at present so my other suggestion would be a huge grey mat to cover a much larger part of the existing carpet.