I would start with making a decision on the carport first. Start by talking to the council as you may not be able to do a double carport (and the single carport at your neighbours looks like a tight squeeze!) Also as Missmel said you should probably also make a decision whether to paint or not early on. If you are going to go with carport, paint, new awning and possibly porch windows you are getting into a whole new look so I would start talking a professional about the best way to design it. As an alternative to the porch enclosure could you get the front windows double glazed to reduce noise? If it was my place I think I would only be changing the awning, paint the fences, landscape, and maybe do a single carport if its really needed (plus the tiling etc that you mentioned). Some new fretwork might be nice too. To me the main thing to change is the bullnose, as you said its not original and it looks heavy and dominating. You will have to post some pics when done I will be really interested to see how this all turns out.

Thanks everyone, yes I love the look of old shearing sheds, which is the rustic look I'd ideally like to achieve, however the house design is a bit more modern - it is a long rectangular shape like a shed but the roof is curved at the top (like the Glen Murcutt house in Kempsey) instead of the traditional pointed gable. We're actually thinking of using the Ritech product for the roofing instead of Colorbond, as it has a high bushfire rating and comes in Colorbond colours. We like the darker grey roof because it doesn't stand out too much in the bush landscape and therefore 'anchors' the house. So as much as I love rusty gal, I think we will have to leave it to the outsheds (our current cottage 'the shack' is clad in the old galvanised roofing, which we replaced with a Windspray colorbond roof). It looks great because it's already rustic. I'd also like to use it as a feature inside the house (e.g. behind a woodstove) but don't have enough to clad the new house. The Dune colour is a good match with the creamy grey trunks of the Brittle gums, which is why I thought of using that. I also read somewhere that it's the best match with traditional gal (which I've tested and tend to agree with, although it doesn't have the rustic colour variation). Dune is also a good tonal contrast with the darker bricks and timber, so I'll probably go with that for the cladding as we don't really want a light roof, despite better reflection properties. I'm hoping having the high roof inside (to 4.8m at highest point of the curve) and good insulation will mean a darker roof is okay. My only real concern now is that I can't get standard aluminium windows in the colour Dune (they come in Shale or Woodland grey). I might be able to have them made in non-standard colours, but it would cost a lot more. Hence I'm thinking Woodland grey for the window frames, but am not sure if this would make it look too busy (i.e. with the bricks, timber and lighter cladding).

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

as you don't expect to spend long periods of time in the laundry my suggestions has the window for the workshop (with ventilation ducts and Solar skylights for the enclosed rooms) and, depending on how you want to use the 3m counter i've placed the washer and dryer against the garage wall with the quieter cabinet dryer opposite and there's a walk in linen cabinet instead of the tall storage in the bathroom with plenty of storage space in the vanities for bath towels