I'd go with his choice, because even if it wasn't 'my' style, I'd rather feel like he's taking an interest and equally invested in our home together. Plus, if I'm being completely honest, I think his taste is probably better than mine. ;) He rarely has an opinion on anything house-related, so when he puts his foot down, I go along with it: and on each occasion, it's been exactly the right decision. Example: I wanted the whole house painted out in ecru and antique white because it looks awesome with oak floors and I'm kind of a minimalist. Hubby insisted on painting the lounge room in yellow. YELLOW. I thought he'd lost his mind... but I went with it, because I get my way 99.9% of the time, so why quibble about the 0.1%? He insisted that 'in Winter, you'll be glad we have this warm, cozy colour'. And you know what? Every Winter, I love that room. It's an odd duck compared to the rest of the house, but damned if it doesn't actually work surprisingly well. It'd definitely be too much to take as a house-wide theme - but contained as it is, it's pretty great.

I'm not a neutral vote here - having been in the glass block business myself since 1985. It seems like they are much maligned these days but we are seeing growth with projects like glass block showers, windows and walls. There have been advances in products (like colored and frosted blocks, thinner glass blocks and etched blocks many people are not aware of. These advances can and do create a new look. With that being said - glass blocks do provide a look that some people love ...and others do not. I will include some pictures below of some recent jobs to show some of the capabilities of this product. Let me know if you like them or not. We are working to show you can have more unique designs with the product.

Thanks everyone so much for your suggestions. The general consensus seems to be that we should work on the garden, which we agree with and this is actually what we are in the process of doing. Love bcdc602 suggestion of adding silver leaf plants and grasses. We recently planted two lilly pillies either side of the front window which will grow quite tall and cover those solid brown sections of wall. We are also removing the blue awnings over the coming weeks. Interesting suggestion by telperien to paint the window frames white. Will give that some thought. Thanks again!

I really loved this brick when we found it and I still do, but I do have some comments about it. Unfortunately my design brief for a "fireplace hearth" in my farmhouse for my firebox turned out much bigger than expected, but that's another story. As far as the San Selma smoked cloudy silver brick is concerned the brick layer didn't like it much. It was a bit crumbly for him. There are even a couple of cracks already inside the brick hearth. We will have to be careful when securing our mantle piece to it. I don't know that I would do a whole house in this brick. As far as the look of the brick I love it. Its earthy, and suited my farmhouse profile inside and out. It does matter what colour the grout it. It really matters. I wasn't too happy with the grout choice by the bricklayer and should have taken more care to think about it. It's darker than I wanted. Take the time to work out what grout looks best. The same as you would pick a paint colour. We also struggled to choose a colorbond roof colour for where the outside of the brick was seen. We chose Windspray. Doesn't match perfectly as windspray is more yellow/green undertones....(something we are learning as we go along) but it's only a small area seen and hopefully we will find a paint to blend it all together.