Kate, are you able to post a picture of the internal bathroom that you say is too sterile. I also am having an internal bathroom and trying to decide tile heights. I have been given two different sets of advice on what to do. Feature tile is above a vanity with a round mirror skewed To left of vanity. My bathroom is only 1.55m deep. Tiles will be vertically stacked on feature wall using vanilla Brickart tile. Tile shop says to take feature tile to wall height of 2.7m and wrap it around walls just section where vanity is and then wall height in shower and no other tiles on wall. Tiger says to ceiling will be too much. Feature tile is creamy pale grey above timber vanity. It is always easier to decide what looks good for someone else as compared to self.

It depends on what colours you are brave enough to use. The tile colour you have chosen will match with a lot of colours. There are so mosaics in white too if you don’t want colour. Beaumont’s tiles have 27% off all tiles at moment. I noticed that they have a smaller subway in Carrara look but would probably enable you to use cool and warm accessories in bathroom.

Classic 1970's build. You can tone down the bricks by painting the trim in a contrast. Gutters, railings, windows all painted in a nice cool contrast colour normally does well with these hot, dark brick colours. I notice you have aluminium windows but these homes look much nicer with timber windows and doors. Actually these homes can look quite good once done up and there is nothing particularly ugly about it's overall dimensions or shape, it's just the colour scheme is out of date. It helps if you re-roof in a contemporary colorbond too. The joy of these homes is that the layout and room sizes are usually very good and work well with modern living.

Thank you for all the references, all those images are very useful. I've updated the plan to include the directions. The views would be towards my backyard which slopes down gently towards the north side, at about 5-10 degrees I would say. The balcony is an open space, not enclosed, but has privacy screens on both sides. I live in Sydney so the climate is generally quite warm. I've also played around with a few more concepts, rearranging the Study, ensuite and Walk in wardrobe. This makes use of the hallway in a more dynamic way, allowing it to be a bigger study if the pocket door is closed, or a thoroughfare out to the balcony when the pocket doors are open. However, I don't want to ruin the flow of the house for the sake of using every last square meter as there is enough space, I don't want to make everything feel cramped by getting rid of the hallway. For the purpose of imagining a different space, I've removed the stairs for the moment. Let me know what your thoughts are.