Your house is going to blend in very well with it's surrounds once the timber has silvered off, if you choose to use colours like Colorbond Woodland Grey, Dulux "Pavings Stone" (left hand side of colour swatch in the image far below) and/or Dulux "Grey Mountain". Other darker colours that will work well in this setting include Dulux "Cambridge Hall" and Dulux "Nomadji" (mentioned before). These greys don't necessarily blend in with the fresh timber but look fantastic as the timber ages and the building is seen as a whole (see image far below). "Paving Stone" is a versatile medium, warm grey that looks really good as a render. It also works well as a neutral internal wall colour in rooms with lots of natural light. In the following image, Dulux "Grey Mountain" was used near the timber work and "Woodland Grey" on the garage walls to help the garage door become less noticeable. Remember that colours generally appear lighter than the sample when applied to external walls and darker when applied to internal walls.

Hi Andrew At Bodo, our motto for exterior colour schemes is Keep It Simple! with a maximum of 3 colours, including your roof, windows etc. If you break this rule, the colour scheme becomes complicated and fussy, and may make your house appear smaller, as introducing differing colour in differing sections, confuses the eye line. Dont make the same mistake, by making "for now"decisions. Think of the future :) We recommend keeping everything in Colorbond Bushland. We have attached an example of how this could look below. 1. Rendered Rear Retainers 2. Existing front retainers 3. Fencing (existing) 4. Full House repaint (this is where the future comes in!) This scheme will work beautifully with your white aluminium joinery, and feel seamless. It will be ok with your classic cream patio and roof. This colour scheme wont be one bit boring! just stylish and classic. Not to mention an increased sale ability of your home. Then you can bring in some timberwork, pots in a colour that you love, outdoor furniture etc or maybe even a wall garden on the rear fence line. If you really want to take the guesswork out of which colours to use right throughout your home, inside and out - jump on and have a look at the concept that Bodo recommends for you: You can purchase and instantly download a full shopping list of paint, materials and products to bring your look together! http://bodoboards.com.au/collections/paint-concept/products/australian-bush-paint-concept Good luck!

Great to hear that you have decided not to paint the brickwork. Can I offer my opinion - I'd suggest painting the garage door and surrounding frame and the adjacent beam and column (currently white) in a dark charcoal/brown to match the ground floor brickwork try Dulux Namandji or Mali. I would redo the retaining wall with large boulders in a more freestyle layout than the current straight line and take up some of the concrete drive near the retaining wall to create a garden on the lower level, curved to still provide access to all of the undercroft unless you wish to enclose part of it with a large full height window. I'd love to see the wrought iron balustrade painted black. My home in the mid sixties had salmon coloured bricks, white window frames and fabulous turquoise gutters! The downpipes were painted to match the bricks thankfully - turquoise might have been a bit over the top! Good luck with your project, would love to see your progress. W

I would say it is more beige than grey. It has been quite some time since I have looked at a sample not online though. I like to look at the dulux colour atlas to see where the 'white/neutral' sits in relation to stronger colours. For example the white duck/oyster linen suggested sit in the green toned region. I like white duck for our home as we have woodland grey colourbond and I feel it is a charcoal with a green under tone. Based on your description of what you are after beige Royal sounds like a good choice. Fingers crossed sample pot helps you finalise selection against your charcoal roof colour and lighting.