If mortar is receding best to repoint before proceeding with other alterations to the brick. Whitewashing brick could light look v interesting, but you might experiment first. Sample w/a small patch where it won't be so noticeable if you find you don't like it. Lots of YouTube videos about it. The blog bigreader mentioned is a great one as well.

New front door - seen any you like yet? Landscaping always changes the overall look for the better. Your plans sounds fun and exciting!

Thanks for all the ideas. I think as annb1997 said repointing the brick would be my first thought too, and perhaps dying or staining the brick. Porch and door need to go absolutely!

Geo, you mentioned widening the driveway. So, will it take up some of the grassed area we see in your photo? And how will it affect your view out from inside the house, and the view of your house from street?

annb1997 the driveway is so narrow, we will be making it slightly wider by less than a metre, so that we can open the car door on the fence side without hitting the fence! It will take up some grassed area, but I am a big fan of grass so we will be maintaining as much as we can. That carport will be replaced too, and will tie in with the new verandah/porch at the front.

Personally, I wouldn't paint the brickwork, I'm not convinced it looks very good. The semi-circular window strikes me as art deco. A crisp white render would look great in my opinion.

Necessity drives change! Having to squeeze out of a barely open door not my idea of fun either! :)

Just for perspective this is a close up of the brick. Repoint with cream or basalt colour? Or beyond repair?

consider replacing the carport roof with a gable sloping back and front and continued across the front with the option to add a garage and side door

be careful of drastic changes nothing looks worse and lowers reselling prices than 2 attached houses trying to out do each other to be different. Avoid a dark roof since in summer it skyrockets your air con costs

sunacol they are already different (and has been since they were built), the other is rendered cream and looks like a spainsh style dwelling. I agree with nothing too drastic, and have decided on not changing roof, leaning towards repairing and restoring the brickwork. Adding colour into the new verandah posts and carport gable.

I like many of the ideas suggested above but would not paint or render the brick work or roof tiles. Re-point if necessary but are sure that all needs to be done. The photo suggests someone has done a bad job of patching already. I like the orange tree idea, a new front door, and maybe oklouise's plan. Repaint the gables and trim to give it a different look and add some stunning artwork to the blank brick wall to break that up. A little more landscaping would also help complete the picture.

Grey stain the bricks, charcoal the roof. Would look great with the window. Couple of big pots with taller plants either side of the window. The brick dates the house.

Scottishus actually had that window quoted up for an arch plantation shutters. While it took a while for me to warm to the arch in general, it actually looks stunning from the inside, and the rest of the main windows are arched so we have decided to keep the arches. I love the idea of black planters and white flowers. Am sold on black/charcoal white/cream in addition to the red brick and roof for colours now.

Hoping the repointing of the brick can lift it to this sort of look.

Geo, sounds like your selected colour scheme will lift the look of your home considerably. Please share photos as you go along, would love to see how the transformation progresses. Will you resurface or paint your drive? I wonder how the front entry porch would look either painted or tiled. Best wishes!

Its actually a good base IMO , but where to start to tie it all in ? Waterblast all the concrete drive and pathway ( might need a chemical clean -- I use a product designed for car workshops -- it foams and smaells terrible and all the oil etc lifts ) . Then do a narrow garden across the front of the pathway up to door to soften the look , or maybe tile or that coloured concrete made to look like faux tiling -- relatively cheap .

Then pick a colour -- any bright colour . Mask the curved window glass , and paint it ( I assume it is aluminium ? ) -- sunbright yellow or citrus orange or kermit green . Do the door the same . See how the black screen door looks over the door -- probably paint it your chosen colour , but it may look okay in black . Then redo the whiote eves in white , but do the scotias , the gutters and the carport front in your chosen colour .

Then redo ( repoint ) the mortar in white or beige as per the pictures . Classy , to offset the brightness of the rest .

But then , I'm a bright colours guy .

Oh , I should add -- IF you think that will all be too bright , then leave the curved window as it is , with black joinery , and do the front door in black too , not the white . With the bright gutters and carport and scotia , that should be enough , and add the redone white or cream mortar , it will not be as 'in your face' , but still fresh and colourful .

To me the greatest problem here is that the narrow carport looks oddly proportioned alongside the house. The carport gable competes with the house gables instead of complementing them. I also suspect there would be a bit of a problem with the carport roof sloping back towards the house collecting a lot of leaves in that space under the house eaves. I would rebuild the carport roof as a flat roof and extend it forward a full car-length in front of the house, wrapping round the corner over part of the front wall by about 1 m with a widened driveway. It wouldn't be wide enough for 2 cars but gives better car access under cover. The existing one would then just be a covered drive-through to the backyard. You could lay big (600x600) pavers in the driveway and entry terrace, maybe charcoal or sand coloured.

I would suggest bagging the brickwork, then paint it white. That way you still see a slight brick texture on the walls for more character at lower cost than rendering.

The roof looks like glazed terra-cotta tiles of quite good quality - it would be a mistake to paint over them.

Paint all the fascias, barges and posts a neutral dark grey or charcoal. The same tone as your window framing looks a good one to match.

Replace the front door with a clear finish timber door with 4 or 5 wide glass panels in the height.

Hi Kim sounding more and more like what I picture I now have in mind re: the porch and feature wall. I cannot seem to see the picture? Did you attach it in comments?

Also only access to the property is via the driveway gates! So the door path will have to be jagged.

In the "revamped" picture, the garage door and front door don't need panelling, just simple to express a more contemporary feel, but I was trying to convey colours...

OK I think this is the direction

have to say that the flat roof extended carport is much better structurally, will be easier to weatherproof, can have simple steel roofing with lazerlite panels for lighting, should be cheaper to build, creates a natural sheltered porch area and looks so much more stylish without the fussy gable and the footpath should be part of the widened driveway not a separate path creating two narrow lawns

Flat roof carport

that's much better but if the new roof slopes towards the back and front with a ridge across the middle (see the plan i posted last Tuesday) then rain water drains away from the house but not towards your neighbour (and leaves and possums don't move into the nook created under the eaves), the front roof line will be horizontal and have the effect of broadening the horizontal lines and look more like a garage that's part of the house could hopefully include a roller door and the driveway should curve as it reaches the house to be the same curve as the way that you would walk but much better than splitting the front lawn into two sections

Geo, too many gables! The house itself has got enough already - the 2 on the photo plus one that you can't see to the right. Better to have a horizontal line in the carport roof as oklouise suggests continuing as a front porch roof through to the front door. Those smaller gables: the existing carport gable, or the suggested entry porch gable will always end up looking like they don't belong.

If you want to make the house hotter, then painting the roof charcoal will certainly achieve that. Repointing the brickwork is the most sensible from a maintenance perspective. Once you render and paint, then you have to keep painting (and it's likely to be out of fashion sooner or later). Try to keep passive cooling in mind (i.e. light colours & permeable landscaping) with any of your renovations, and I think it always pays to try and embrace and compliment the original architecture and be unique, rather than trying to look like the latest project home. In my opinion the arch window is actually quite cool, and the excellent mock-ups provided by Geo Toria are along the right track.

Thanks yes I agree, charcoal and greys aren't the answer to everything and will date eventually date. I am looking for longevity. Getting excited about repointing the bricks and seeing how much that will give a 'face lift' to the front facade. Have decided that the roof will stay as it is, perhaps a clean is all.

Progress photo- bricks repointed this week. Still waiting for mortar to dry and needs a pressure clean.

what a fabulous transformation...so much better makes the dark trim around the windows and gables look excellent and so much better than render congratulations

Thanks! We certainly have much more work to do but off to a decent start.

And a great start you have made...

Hi G T,

Loving the progress, you definitely made a great choice there. And you can always use a natural feature to bring a bit more colour featuring into the space. Check out some examples on our profile!

Richard