Start by spending a portion of your budget on the various dream feature items that are relocatable and can be used in your final design anyway. e.g. Buy the firepit you really want - it can become the focal point of your future garden. Test it outside in your backyard for a few months. Are heaps of mozzies annoying you while you're sitting outside around the firepit? If so, then you'll know that you're going to need a gazebo with flyscreens as well as privacy curtains so you can really enjoy lying outside in your hammock year round. The hammock is another relocatable part of your design. First, lie outside in your backyard on a swag or a rug for a few hours. Is it too windy? Is there road noise? Keep experimenting until you've found the perfect location for the hammock. Then buy an inexpensive hammock and suspend it from a couple of sturdy RL4 poles. If it's working, then this is the place where you should build your future patio, that's going to shelter your hammock. Keep testing inexpensive versions of your other ideas out. Trial tea candles or a string of inexpensive white Christmas lights as garden lighting. Do they create the feel you want or do lights just attract moths or unwanted insects? What about relocatable solar garden lights? Or a portable floodlight from Bunnings? Where's the ideal place for your garden table and chairs? Test it out with inexpensive camping chairs - or chairs you already own for a few months to be sure. Then invest in the perfect outdoor table and chairs. Same with the water feature. Start with a wine barrel with a waterlily or a second hand pond off Gumtree. Can you hear the trickling water in the garden or do other noises crowd it out? Keep in mind big goldfish need deep water and space to swim. To help you in your choice of plants,look around your immediate neighbourhood. What purple, blue and scented plants are thriving in your immediate area? Who has the best garden in your street in your opinion - and why do you think that? Do you always see a particular neighbour passionately working outside in their garden? That's the person you should strike up a conversation with to get advise about suitable plants for your immediate area. Chances are they will not only give you heaps of free advise but they will probably give you plants and cuttings as well. Markets are another source of perennial plants that grow well in the local area. Plant these smaller plants into large plastic pots and garden bags and allow them to grow for a year or so. Consider herbs as filler plants - many are highly scented, can be used in cooking and often have interesting foliage e.g. choc mint, fennel, rosemary etc. After you've been using your backyard for at least a year and you've experienced all of the seasons, then invest in your big ticket items like your gazebo. Buy or build a structure that's truly practical for your local microclimate - incorporate glass, windbreak fencing, shadecloth, mozzie mesh or whatever you need to make your hammock shelter ultra comfortable. Build this structure where you've tested it and know it will work - not where a stranger who designs gardens thinks it should go. Spend the remaining money on the things you know you need and want - the stones, plants, irrigation, a birdbath, etc

Hi siriuskey. Not sure how to place the furniture yet. Still trying to work it out.. I am selling my dining table and chairs. My new chairs just arrived today. I bought some hooks to put my mirror up.I am going to order those prints shortly. Also trying to find a round dining table I like. Getting there slowly : Thanks for asking. Thank you Julie. Very kind of you. :) Thank you legendaryflame :)

You will need a bath with three or four tile flanges to match the one in the first photo. It has to do with complying with the building regulations for waterproofing and protecting the timber framing that is under the tiles. If the edge of the bath where it meets the tiles is not properly protected from water seeping through then concealed wet rot could start, and eventually everything will need to be ripped out, and built again. Sometimes even the timber floor joists under the bath rot out and need to be replaced. So I would do your research and co-ordinate carefully with your builder to ensure that the details are correctly built. Some builders will not go to the trouble of getting it right as they don't care if your bath falls through a rotten floor in ten years time. Quite often your choices in the bathroom should also take into account the long term functionality of the bathroom, rather than just the aesthetics. Best of luck with your research, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls/Dr Retro Virtual Visits.

Hi, I’m very late to this conversation so I apologise for butting in. I refer only to your console table in this pic and you said it looks bulky. I think the issue is the vase and the candlesticks are too similar in height so they add bulk and not enough contrast. I would remove the candlesticks altogether and place the vase offset in front of the picture with the small dish in front again. The picture would be even better if you changed the frame to a white or black with a white matt surrounding the picture, similar to the frame below. Also the lamp casts a yellow light which would be better if it was white. Either it’s the globe or the shade. If the shade, change to an off white or very soft grey. That’s my two cents worth anyway. Hope it helps 😏