Hi Jaimia, I tend to agree with 12sally12 sentiments. Celebrate the house and it's foibles (boxiness, entry, colour, balcony treatment). However it's great to adapt a home to make it yours - just making the right decisions is the hard part! The extent of change depends on your budget and your tolerance for inconvenience. I've listed a few ideas that vary from 'nice to have' to significant structural (and cost) changes. These will affect the colour scheme, and therefore the way it will appear overall. Roof – dark colours appear heavier and more dominant. Your home looks to be built in the 70's, it's likely due for a new roof soon. Consider a fresh new zinc or white colorbond roof. Upgrade the gutters and downpipes at the same time. Balcony – remove the clutter (replace handrails), and extend the balcony beyond the face of the main facade. This will give the effect of elongating the front elevation of your home. The detail of the new handrail extending along the continuous balcony frontage should in turn provide a fresh new look (more contemporary). Arches – these could remain, or go (depending on your desire to keep the quirkiness). These are likely to be aesthetic brickwork only - but check with a structural engineer if these can be removed. Entrance – there are two parts to this: The first aspect is to do with the appliance from the street frontage. Prioritise making the front door the most welcoming part of your home. This can be done with a pathway from the front of the site, with garden areas and great planting to accentuate the entrance to your home. The other aspect of the entrance is how entrance 'reads' from the outside of your home. This depends a little on your location (and climate). As a guide I'd suggest revising the entry wall, including the door and windows proportions to 'open up' this part of the facade to the street. This should be designed in the context of those iras listed above, as well as benign conscious of security and protection from sun loading. I hope this helps Jaimia, (Keep in mind many of the aspects listed above will require structural design asa minimum!) Cathi

For the street appeal I’d get rid of some of the trees - at least trim them so you can see more of the front of the house. Then look to paint in a tone-on-tone set of colours with the weather board and brick in contrasting depths of colour. Greys, blues, creaming grey-beiges look modern and fresh. You could also choose a strong contrasting colour like dark red or bright green for your door to make entrance more obvious. For the extra room, agree that converting the garage would be most cost effective. Then spend a little money getting a carport designed to create visual interest for the front of the house. Good luck!

I have not read all of the above. It must be tempting to render and paint the fireplace but if it is decided to work with it then maybe you can find your colour palette in the bricks. The new grey carpet will give you a fresh neutral but grey can be very cold. you might need a bit of warmth in the others colors chosen for walls or soft furnishings. If you extend the tile base in front of the fireplace that will give another opportunity to introduce more impact with the tiles. There are always lots of gorgeous tile options. I am loving some of the Moroccan looking styles.

so relieved you don't want to spoil a great looking brick home with more render but is there a view from upstairs? when funds allow extending the deck/verandah across the front of the garage would add extra upstairs outdoor space and modify the look of the garage doors and consider painting garage doors and rendered wall in the darkest cement colour (greenish) grey with white eaves and fascias with black gutters and simply pressure wash the driveway to retain the natural concrete colour and add climbing plants to fall down the side of the retaining wall