As your house is a lovely grey I would consider plants which harmonise with that shade. So consider a range of grey leafed plants such as olive trees (these look great at night as the leaves have a silver backing), wattles, feijoa, euphorbia, lambs ears - an interesting textured ground cover, as is snow in summer. Then a striking deciduous coloured tree or large shrub such as a maple with red leaves, smoke bush, or crepe myrtle. There is no need to build a fence unless you really want significant privacy, shrubs do provide adequate separation. As the home is tall and quite imposing I would also plant three pencil pines neat the front of the building, these will soften the edges of the building and help it relate to the garden. Most grey leaved plants are very hardy. wind may prove more of an issue than sun or soil, I recommend that you look for plants at are labeled 'suitable for seaside locations'.

Our house is similar, but we are empty nesters and down sized about 4 years ago, our needs would be a bit different to a growing family, we are currently in the throes of having two smaller rooms made into one area to further open up a previous renovation to give us a bigger open space..we also have an ensuite and a combined laundry / second laundry space. The good thing is that being a brick veneer house the reconfiguring is relatively easy with modern technology and big beams. As above try and have a big open space, we have been out of our home for a month now and still a way to go, add living away from home to your budget or stay with family. I will try and post the plan but here are a couple of journey pics ..the last photo was before trying to show how the two rooms decided the space making the living room very small and a bit dark...the aim of this project is to have space for a bigger gathering than about 4 people before overcrowded. Light is really important, nice big windows essential, the darkness of the living I thought I could live with, but it did get me down, I a, looking forward to having a much lighter space

Given the wall behind that sofa is going (did I read that right?), I'd not replace with anything other than some more photos on the wall perhaps....just for the interim. Oh gosh- I'm sorry about the rug. I'd be looking to pull a colour from the adjoining dining room- the lovely linen/neutral colour from the chairs would look good, a natural sisal, woven grass-type (West Elm has some on sale). Could the new Ikea rug go under the dining table?, to take colour pallet across the dining room. In terms of a coffee table- round or oval, glass, finely detailed legs. Something that almost disappears. Add a couple of linen/neutral cushion to the grey sofas, a neutral throw. This would really lighten the whole look up.

My other thought was to move the protea print across to above console but not sure how it would look next to other print. Also within the dining family room I already have 2 prints. I did try a small mirror but when the console is positioned up against the end wall it mainly reflects kitchen.