Thanks for these fabulous comments! After reading them all we think we will definitely leave the red brick and replace the red wood with monument. We will add eaves across the front and will get a price on roof restoration with paint to match monument compared to reroofing in monument. Adding a double skillion carport to the front is a great idea too. We will definitely replace concrete with new as its old and cracked. The drive will have to curve in due to the water metre location right next to the letter box and a cost of over $2000 to move it. The garden definitely needs an upgrade. We have done a little bit out the front, not a great photo but I've attached a more recent one, we are thinking we will leave the bigger trees in this photos and add kangaroo paws through out. Front has been neglected a bit due to other renovations out the back. Nearly time to attack the front! Thanks again, we really appreciate all your thoughts! I'll post some photos once we get underway. I've added some of what we did out the back with the original 70's look we had. Been fun and hard work. All the work was done by ourselves and our sons.

Hi Ingagriffin, There are a couple of tips I want to put forward for you to have a think about. Firstly are you painting the exterior of your house? If not get a sample of the roof colour you are thinking and check it against the other colours on the outside of your house. A green may clash with the red brick. Firstly are you painting the exterior of your house? I would get a sample of the roof colour you are thinking and check it against the other colours on the outside of your house. Try and get as big of a sample you can, maybe paint it onto a large sheet of ply and place it against a wall and stand back to where you took the photo's. A green may clash with the red brick if it is staying. Secondly think about choosing a colour that will help you control the temperatures inside your home. If you are in a cooler climate choose a darker colour as it will absorb the heat, but if you are in a warmer colour choose something lighter as it will reflect it. Hope that helps!

depends on the type of tiles and climate but our old concrete tiles lasted almost 50 years and had been repointed and painted in the last 15 years but ongoing problems with waterproofing convinced us to replace the old tiles with Colorbond steel roofing, fascias and gutters...(we also vacuum cleaned the roof space and installed new ceiling insulation, replaced all the old electrical wiring and added a power point and light inside the roof for future inspections) not very glamorous but the $150 we made from recylcing the old wiring was a nice surprise after all the hard work and expense!

Thanks for the advice team. So the house is block work on a cement slab, but when we did our renovating in the bathroom and had to cut through and re-lay the floor in the very small bathroom we noticed that the slab was incredibly thin and had no reinforcing. The walls have some cracks however we did have the building inspected when we bought it and thought we had a solid shell to start with. (Its brick and cement we said - what can go wrong?!) Our house is not in the flood zone. There is an asbestos ceiling which has also complicated matters a little - everyone who has quoted on the job has vowed not to disturb it - but I am not sure when you are walking around up there and pulling the original roof off if this is actually possible. The roof is a flat cliplock roof with no crawl space at all, so the ceiling is on battens that are attached to the rafters. The block of land is 822 sqm and will be worth about $130 000 if the house was demolished. (Demolition is set to cost around $30 000- due to asbestos etc) We have spoken to an architect who has told us that it may be possible to reuse our kitchen, the solar set up and some windows, but if we try to force the project to reuse all of our windows and doors it could end up being counter productive. So if it happens to fit we might reuse. I just spoke to a real estate who are telling me that in our area a small new house (3 bedroom) will not reach the $300 000 value point - so it may be impossible to reach the right formula to allow the bank to lend for a rebuild-