I have miles of decking at two houses. All timber when put in the Australian sun will suffer. When building our beach house we decided to go for Spotted Gum and let it grey. Why fight it? We applied Cutek, and will on a regular basis. At our main house we have lots of Merabu or Quilla. Will not grey the same, and leaches lots of red stain. Cheap, but would not use again. What ever you use, use a good quality oil that seeps deep into the wood not a traditional stain/or top finishing product.

Your question to an outside kennel, it will need to be tough. A GSD can chew almost anything , I think Canberra weather is way too cold to have Manny as an outside dog. Buy a extra large crate and keep him inside. Crate train your pup, they will learn to toilet train quicker there is a lot of info out there to google. GSD's need to be part of the family or there can be behavioural issues. Are you renting? is this the reason for the kennel outside?

Sketchup is a great program especially as you can download a free version. Only problem I had with it is you design in 3D which can be converted to a 2 D floor plan, Oklouise and my old program does the opposite and works in 2d, you can switch between 2D & 3D. "3D home Architect" which is no longer producing but you can still pick up online, very easy to use, I paid AU$25 with manual and disc. Sketchup has great online tuition but I would prefer face to face and can't find that in my area but maybe you will manage with the online, it would be well worth it as you can import any plans into it where as 3DHA comes with a very old library which you can no longer update and can't import other plans, I think?

we also like the look of the back to wall shower grate and have not been able to find cheaper and longer sizes are much more expensive but we have one shower with the grate against the wall and another shower with a shorter shower grate across a doorway and despite preferring the look of the grate along the wall the smaller one at the outside of the shower is more efficient, cheaper and much easier to clean