i would invest in long term comfort and convenience and also raise the top shelf to create space for three levels of hanging space on one side, tall adjustable shelves or drawers with only enough space above the top shelf for suitcases and/or boxes of seasonal storage .. you need to design the space to suite the size and shape of what you need to store and a handyperson or carpenter could build in some of the diy wardrobe components like Multistore to help manage the space better or consider having a wardrobe company custom make the whole space to make life easier

Don't paint the ceiling and don't rush into extending until you have lived in the house for at least 12 months so that you understand how it works with the seasons and the extremes of temperatures. Landscaping is always after building work - as most tradesmen don't respect your plants. One of my clients said that they should be called treadsmen after her garden was trodden down! Look carefully at your lighting options, especially wall sconces and uplights to make the most of the beautiful timber ceiling. Once painted it can never be re-instated back to a timber ceiling easily. While this is your new home you are not going to live their forever. If you paint your ceiling the next owners will curse you, and wonder why you vandalised such a beautiful and expensive feature. If after 12 months of living with it you still hate it then consider a subtle lined finish, which will work with the original architecture of your home, but won't conceal the beautiful grain and character completely. Best of luck with your settling in process and learning to love the beautiful character of your new home, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls and Dr Retro Virtual Visits

Vetiver Monto is your friend. Not only is it fragrant and useful for basket weaving but it is also used for erosion control. Vetiver has incredibly deep roots that make it useful for this purpose. Monto is a cultivar that cannot set seed and escape into the wild, since vetiver is not native. You can get this plant from many wholesale nurseries in bulk as it's used for environmental remediation work. The native version is lomandra, which again can be purchased in bulk from wholesalers that deal with environmental remediation work. I believe a lovely clumping grass like that will look beautiful and quite naturalistic in that setting. It will also make a feature of those boulders. You can then plant Grass tree's on the ridge which will be an amazing backdrop to your yard. Lomandra Vetiver Plantings will undoubtedly be the cheapest option. Lomandra and vertiver are both fast growing. Mattress gabions are another option. These are wire baskets filled with large rocks. Used most often on earth cuts on the side of highways. Most landscaping gabions are rectangular in shape. But mattress type are used roadside. This is a large flat, wire basket than spans over a cut filled with large rock. Once completed it looks quite good but it will not be cheap. The advantage is that it is instantaneous. These ones are quite fancy obviously used to make a water feature. But mattress gabions are good for creating an appealing and uniform look.

If you are worried about invasive roots you might want to get rid of the magnolia in your front lawn. These little gem magnolia's might be dwarves for their genus but their genus is a massive tree way too large for a suburban yard at maturity. A lot of people don't realise how large they will get because they are slow growing. The tropical garden look is all about large sized leaves and vivid colour. So a mix of coloured leaf plants and greenery with over sized leaves works best. A rhapis palm is a good screening palm as well as having architectural appeal since it's globular in shape. Looks best in a feature pot and one each side of your portico would look great. For hedging I can't urge you NOT to use bamboo enough. I purchased a house where a bamboo has been hedged on 2 sides. I hate it for these reasons. The particular variety I have cannot be clipped to keep it at a specific height. The entire thing keeps growing skyward until it set seeds and then dies back. Giving me a hedge that looks okay for around 6 months of the year and looks like dead grass for the other 6 months. Clumping bamboos are NOT non invasive. They will take over your yard. They just do it by the clumps getting larger over time and spreading outwards in concentric fashion instead of sending out runners linearly. They are high maintenance if you want them to look lush. You have to get into the clump and constantly cut out the dying culms otherwise you get a yellowed and dead looking section in your hedge. They are extremely messy constantly dropping leaves. I've tried mulching the continual fall but the leaves actually clog a mulcher and can't be recycled easily. Getting rid of a clump is nigh on impossible once established. I tried digging one of mine out. The rhizomes are like concrete and cannot be easily broken up with any kind of tool. I would need to hire a bobcat and dig them out to get rid of them. They have to actually be tied up into clumps with string, otherwise they fall over and look like weeds. The rhapis palm above is very bamboo like but unlike bamboo it isn't a grass so it will grow perennially without the massive die off of bamboo for many years to come. Most people don't realise that because bamboo is a grass it's lifecycle is very short. Each culm will live only 1-2yrs then die. The clump renews itself by sending up new shoots which results in an ever increasing clump size and a lot of dead poles in the clump. Bamboo is wonderful stuff in a plantation where the culms are continually harvested and clumps thinned out. They are a massive amount of work in a garden though.