I'd go with his choice, because even if it wasn't 'my' style, I'd rather feel like he's taking an interest and equally invested in our home together. Plus, if I'm being completely honest, I think his taste is probably better than mine. ;) He rarely has an opinion on anything house-related, so when he puts his foot down, I go along with it: and on each occasion, it's been exactly the right decision. Example: I wanted the whole house painted out in ecru and antique white because it looks awesome with oak floors and I'm kind of a minimalist. Hubby insisted on painting the lounge room in yellow. YELLOW. I thought he'd lost his mind... but I went with it, because I get my way 99.9% of the time, so why quibble about the 0.1%? He insisted that 'in Winter, you'll be glad we have this warm, cozy colour'. And you know what? Every Winter, I love that room. It's an odd duck compared to the rest of the house, but damned if it doesn't actually work surprisingly well. It'd definitely be too much to take as a house-wide theme - but contained as it is, it's pretty great.

My first instinct was tile exactly because of how labor intensive this would be but then I began looking at all the color variations. I would think tiles would have more consistent coloring so this could definitely be timber. It seems too "imperfect" to be man-made material. As someone else said, "tricky."

Loving these hilarious stories ... makes mine seem tame. My flatmate and I had a spare room and kindly offered it to a friend. She moved in and all was going quite well (except the cartoons every morning, the late night fry ups and the various articles of clothing left lying ALL over the house). One evening when 'friend' was out, we two had a few friends over for drinks and a movie. Everyone was being polite and trying not to mention the smell that became increasingly offensive as the night wore on. Half way through the movie it was no longer tolerable ... "What the hell is that smell .. sorry girls, but I think you have a dead animal in here somewhere". So six of us went searching for about half an hour ... it was a pair of 'friends' shoes left pushed under the couch. The smell, up close, was worse than BAD ... no words! I decided to just throw the shoes into 'friends' bedroom but .. when I opened the bedroom door .. the full force of her many pairs of smelly shoes hit me and I almost passed out. The smell lingered in the living room for days later. We confronted 'friend' about the shoe problem and from that point her shoes had to be stored outside on the veranda, away from all doors or windows so the smell could never be allowed to permiate the indoors again. 'Friends' response was "how dare you open my bedroom door". All this led to us lying ... told her the lease was up, planned moving day, she moved, we stayed, and for the remainder of the lease we lied about where we lived. All that deceipt over smelly shoes.

When I first wrote in August 2017 we got a lot of great suggestions and comments. At the time we had accepted the limitations of the block (easements, tree, solar access etc). It is now one year later and I can tell you we found a way to move the garage to the south-west corner. This allowed us to move Beds 2 and 3 and the bathroom to the northern side. Pantry and laundry between garage and kitchen/living/dining. I think it was all of the comments and suggestions that encouraged us to look at it again from different angles, rather than just accepting the limitations. Thanks to everyone for their generosity! The solution involved working around a lovely tree (it is nice, just in the wrong spot). It is still in the way (council said we couldn't remove it) but we've opted for a long, curving driveway that starts on the other side of the block and weaves its way around the treeline to the garage entry. Not ideal, because a large portion of the front setback will now be a hard surface, instead of a garden. But if there is one thing that designing teaches you - its all about compromises. Thanks everyone. MB Design & Drafting Shara C Nik Star girlguides oklouise siriuskey genkii saragraham76 Andy Pat brizcs Mel N 3D Home Concepts suancol Caro