Paint your trims similar to roller door , landscaping will make a huge difference, you can add more hard surfaces like large pavers to front door , this cuts down on excess lawn area, adding retainer planter boxes could look fabulous, you can now get them with water tanks underneath to save water, pick plants that are tolerant to your area, mass planting of a particular plant that you love adds a stylish look, just keeping your front looking green adds wonders for the house and your soul.

Sasha, so you have an image of the building envelope you can use? How big is it? As it's a rural block, so you have a bit of leeway trying to orientate your home correctly? I'm assuming that by 'west facing', you mean the living areas must face west? That is the long sides of the home will have west & east? If this is the case I'd recommend the bedrooms face east (& south). As you really don't want western facing bedrooms, as they can get extremely hot on summer evenings, just before you go to bed. In this case it's better to have the living areas to the west (better than bedrooms anyway), & north if possible. As northern living areas will be lighter, & warmer in winter. I would definitely consider a western verandah to shade western living areas. Possibly with western deciduous climbers to offer shade in summer, allowing light in winter. Planting larger trees to shade the home from the west of possible. If, by 'west facing', if you mean a western frontage, this can be ideal for passive solar design. With the long sides of the home facing north (living areas) & south (bedrooms). But this is a more urban setup for a western frontage. I guess in a rural setting the home usually faces the frontage, ie. you already a wide home, not a narrow home. If this is the reason the home will face west - ie. not because of a limited building envelope, but so it faces the driveway - I would certainly reconsider this approach, orientating the home (& living areas to the north). oklouise has tried to link an extremely useful website, but for the link wrong I think. It's the Your Home website. A government website about building sustainable energy efficient homes, https://www.yourhome.gov.au/ I'd recommend reading it all. But start with passive design & orientation, to get your head around orientating your home correctly if it's possible. Then read up on design for climate, to see what's appropriate in your climate (if you're inland you probably want to have higher levels of internal thermal mass). Then continue to read the rest. There's extremely useful information in there.

I have a relatively small but very well designed house of 160M2 on a block of 1000M2. We get lots of northern light in all the right places. Garden views and connection from every room and plenty of borrowed views. Outdoors we have space for produce gardens, fruit trees, outdoor patio and BBQ area, a fire pit, play space and a native garden. We also have a large, private courtyard off the master bedroom and a small one off the en-suite bathroom. And utility spaces to the south (washing line, hot water, outdoor compressors for air con, garden sheds etc). Internally we have 3 bedrooms, a study and open plan kitchen/dining/kitchen plus small activity area for the kids. None of the rooms, other than the activity area are poky. Because it is well designed there is no wasted space, and it flows really well, accomodating two adults and 2 teens while providing a good balance between connection and privacy. Ample ceiling heights, 2.4m high windows and sight lines that connect with the outdoors means it feels spacious despite its relatively compact size. It’s such a joy to live in this house. It feels like the goldilocks house. Not too big, not too small. Just right.

gorgeous location ..consider wide grassed ramps to criss cross the slope diagonally from top to bottom, 1.5m+ plus wide paths will allow for easy mowing and two people to walk side by side...Tube stock is so much better for big areas needing multiple plants and you'll get better results quicker than the more expensive bigger plants ...use mass plantings of the same species like Correas and Westringeas... we had great success stabilizing slopes with a variety of Casuarinas suitable for the local area and fast growing wattles were good to create quick windbreaks while other trees and shrubs became established..(the wattles are short lived and gaps left when they go are filled in by other maturing plants) buying multiple tube stock we were able to economise with deals that included the plants, labour for planting and tree guards for orders of hundreds ..digging trenches (as apposed to single holes) and planting closer together, adding drip irrigation, mulching heavily and using tree guards for shelter and to prevent drying out and/or fences to keep out kangaroos will also help... keep the areas close to the house free of shrubs and garden beds and include wide mown paths as snakes are usually happier to stay in the rockeries and shrubs, don't feed pets outside to attract mice and snakes and, given a suitable area, a dam is always a bonus to create a destination for walking around the garden and giving wildlife their own space and, as a welcome surprise, we found that bulbs and irises introduced some colour in Spring and Autumn and propagation from a few parents plants quickly expanded into mass plantings..happy gardeniing