Paint it to match other walls or contrast colour as feature wall. Have painted some ugly brickwork around a fire place in my home using an acrylic gloss. The colour is full strength lexicon white, like the woodwork in my home, the walls are satin finish half strength lexicon white. I am really pleased with the subtle feature of the glossy painted brick wall.

Do you have the list now from the builder of ALL the things they want to approve at the meeting? If not, get it - take a week off work, delay your meeting and research like mad! You need to see everything in real life, not a picture, if possible - so go to the company's stockists - and see what other options are available. (Your builder won't accept too many ideas from stockists that aren't his own. I held out for a bath with an armrests and a headrest - but pick your own battles!) Look at every room on Houzz - laundries, lounges, mudrooms (especially since you're in the country), kitchens, bedrooms, study/home office - and check it against your list. You will be asked to decide on things you never knew existed - bullnose (rounded) or flat edges on your kitchen benches, for example? Cornices, architraves, doorstops for goodness stake (for some reason, our builder went with silver doorstops - we went with gold). My experience is that just about every default option a builder puts in for you is wrong . . . go armed with your own pictures, brand names and numbers. (Yes, I want the IZ450, not IJ320.) If the builder has some display homes, make sure you look at all of them (top of the range to bottom of the range) for ideas. For a country house, maybe consider half-panelling on the walls in the kitchen and maybe dining and lounge rooms, or some ceiling roses (yes, you can still get them) to give an old-style feel to the room (and you'll need rounded cornices if you go for the ceiling rose). Honestly, this is the most exhausting, draining and stressful part (well, apart from signing the cheques). But the effort you put in now will be well rewarded. And I think Hamptons and French Provincial style are mostly white or white-ish? So Barbara's colour recommendations are spot on. PS Have you asked for hidden drawers behind the kickbacks in the kitchen?

Soo exciting getting your own designed home. By way like design and woul suggest you vent rangehood/ canopy to outside and maybe your garage not wide enough to park two cars Also white is "blinding" in heat so if garage is west facing go basalt plus white stands out so you'll need light coloured bricks so garage door don't become feature Ask brick suppliers for addresses of people who built with bricks you like or their colour consultant to come up with 2 brick choices wch would suit your colour scheme. Boral has online visualiser as do colorbond and I went to brick showroom wch stocked boral Australia and they gave me addresses and then edpoje with boral cc who fir no chatge emailed me two colour scenarios fit two types bricks liked ie 4 scenarios really helpfully

Hi Liana / Louise The home was a single storey and was done approx 9 years ago. It still looks the same as the day it was installed and there are no cracks. It also meant timing was shorter as we went from slab down to lock up in approx 4 weeks (ie roof on, windows in, cladding etc) RE maintenance, a pressure wash every 18 months or so depending on location is all it needs. If you want to keep it looking new, you could re-coat it every 10 years. I do not paint over texture coat but you certainly can do that. RE thermal performance, the entire system far exceeds brick. A standard double brick cavity wall R value is around R 0.5 from memory. The Hebel allows for an R2.0 batt in the stud work which takes you to a total of around R3.0, or approx 6 times greater than brick without the thermal mass. We also found that unlike brick, the walls didn't radiate heat into the house at night and aircon wasn't often needed ( I like it cool at night) As I said previously, the methodology is important. For example, during the design of the house the stud framing capacity needs to take into account the fact that the Hebel is being used. The panel size (height) needs to be selected and laid out taking into account both the set down in the slab (exterior course is lower than internal) and the height to the eaves + 50mm. I always go a longer panel so that I don't have joins everywhere rather than patching short ends Control joints need to be properly spaced (these are the gaps in the panels at long intervals to allow for movement that are caulked) Positioning items such as window in increments of 300mm from each other eliminates extra joins and pieces. In relation to cracks, the use of a textured acrylic such as Acratex means it is an elastic (movable) finish and if it is properly installed you should have no issues. I have seen people just render and paint the exterior and as this isn't flexible enough it will likely crack. I would not do it this way and do not ever recommend a render. Texture coating is the more expensive finish but is far and away the most durable in this case. As an aside, upmarket homes are almost always texture coated here in WA. I would suggest you simply take your plans to your local CSR Hebel supplier and work with them. They will plan the panel layout for the job with you or the builder can do it with them. The supplier will also point out changes that can be made to your advantage ie panel sizes, joint locations in effect all the things I have mentioned above they will do. There is also a web site available called Hebel Matters that is a blog style and you can get lots of info from that. RE the foam, we had experience with that in Melbourne when we lived there and I am not a fan of it for anything other than a second storey. As I said at the outset, if you set it up properly and finish it in a quality texture, you will not regret doing it for the advantages you gain in thermal performance. Cheers