I have just cleared out an area under the house - a small room at the back of the garage that connects to the laundry/come storage room on the other side - a bit hard to explain the layout, but it works perfectly now as a second office/study area that I am using to gather and sort literature for further study. It has a large filing cabinet, desk, sorting table and lots of shelving for pre-sorting piles of literature which I have accumulated so effortlessly over the years! It comes with window views out to the garden and lovely water glimpses (if I open the garage door) and is lovely and cool in summer. While it is well organised and tidy, I have deliberately left it fairly rustic (read 'man cave' like) as I don't want to feel like I need to be 'cleaning and tidying' while I am there. I have a stack of classical and choral music that I play while down there ... in between listening to the cricket in summer, of course! Some great names in here re what to call it .... perhaps my 'She Nook' or 'the Reading Room'

Hi Mona, First of all what a stunning house. My house paint is extremely similar to this one.I am almost sure there are three shades of the same colour. If you saw these shades at different times of the day you would see what I mean.Now here is the exciting part for me they all come from the base colour of green. If you look closely at the trims ( real word escapes me ) they are telling you this. I painted my rendered house 19 years ago and the only thing I have to do is wash it down every couple of years, I am in Sydney. By the way the paint has a lifetime guarantee. Unfortunately the paint was not allowed into Oz at the time so I cannot tell you how I got it for obvious reasons. I hope things have changed for the customers benefit but the other manufacturers did not want it for obvious reasons. the name of the paint is KEIM and it is german of course. I do not regret using it for a second and if I was to build again I would use it at the drop of a hat. I hope you find it and consider using it. I'm sure you will not find it advertised if the situation is the same. Please keep us posted as I am also curious. Kind regards, Miriam

Comfortable, practical, relaxed and definitely unpretentious.

I'm quite happy for my home to have 'wow' factor if it's me thinking 'wow, I love that!'. If 'wow factor' is wanting others to be 'wowed' when they walk through your door then you're probably getting caught up in the wrong factor. What we go 'wow' about in our own homes is likely to vary from person to person - for me, its about the beautiful natural light in my home, for someone else it might be the pebble shower recess they laid by hand, or their garden in spring. There are probably also home features which tend to generate approval across the board, things like soaring ceilings or bespoke features, a beautiful fireplace or amazing view come to mind here.