I think this is the perfect tone next to the brick. If you see it near a light colour, in contrast it may appear that way to some, but seeing it complete has a different impression. I think it looks modern and sophisticated. I would continue to complete the porch and reserve an opinion until then. Paint as much of the rendered base also to get the full effect. Regardless it will be painted so it's worth doing, you will be repainting soon anyway. I don't agree lightening th ecolour, it will look wushu washy next to the boldness of the brick. Your rendered brick has so much feature, this grey will accent that. Paint the rest and live with it for your husband to see. Don't stop at that square. Once you've done that, only then reconsider it. Too many people stop when they start, because they're having a reaction to change, an adjustment has to be made visually, and different is not bad. Light is comfortable, but I can't count the many of period homes that professional specifiers apply this too. How many architecturally renovated homes do you see cream? One more colour I will suggest along these lines, but not better, just slightly lighter is murky water. And last case, dune. Get all three, I would bet on your husband liking dune, which proves my theory, but dont settle on the dullest colour. It won't do the facade favors. Rather it will look ho hum. Render flattens the facade, removes character, so I think it more important than before tonuse these tones to effect to compensate the loss of character. First look at it, I smiled, that's it, keep going. Hard to trust me not knowing me, but many have to success. I have been a dulux colour finalist and are recognized for my colour specifying. Please just see it out, then you can make an informed decision, one where you've had time to adjust to a change.

Restore the facade. Don't render as you'll loose the fabulous brickwork. Just re-point it. Do maintenance on the roof as needed. I'd pressure clean then see what it comes up like. If it's still a bit ordinary then paint it. I would do a bit of investigating on other original colour schemes before choosing charcoal, even though I admit the charcoal does look really good! By the way we render as we don't want to pay brickies to really use their craft so we buy cheap bricks and render. Render does look fine when used as a feature rather than a whole facade. Don't compete with neighbours make your house more desirable by keeping its character. I would however consider spending some good money on the landscaping. There are some superb gardens on these wonderful homes around the inner suburbs of Melbourne for example and would work great with yours.

Hi, as a first option we suggest to lay a lovely tiled floor (there is quite a lot of bricks in your entrance) and paint the door and the soffit+fascia in a bold colour. Whilst there is no doubt demolishing the glass bricks will increase the amount of light, you could also flow with the glass bricks and for a low cost install a small spot light inside the porch to light up the back of the glass brick to great evening effect. Other options to consider would be a skylight to the porch roof (there are many styles) and to the extreme replacing the entry door and glass bricks.

Just to confirm I have taken the great ideas presented here as advice only and have no intention to do some dodgy diy reno's. With the exception of a couple of quirky exposed timbers as you can see in my pictures there are no other exposed beams. As you can also see from the pictures there is a large roof space on the right (east) side of the house but the ceilings themselves are flat with a slight dip on the north wall. Based on my own personal experiences I would have to agree with Two's Company that there is a tendency towards rendered brick in WA (although there are still many exposed brick houses in my suburb) while double enclosed double garages are also highly desirable. I would also agree that toilets within the main bathroom and non traditional laundries may be considered unusual by many (but not all). Ensuites with toilets however are still very common. Also due to the nature of our work we would prefer the laundry separated from food/kitchen area. For a 4x2 house it is only around 155m2 excluding carport/alfresco which makes the rooms feel quite cramped, hence the desire to open up the family room. However, as Two's Company suggests we will need to first get a builder/eng in to check load bearing walls etc as this will undoubtedly affect what we can achieve within our budget. Having said that I still excited by many of your ideas and with luck hopefully can work some of them into the budget. Cheers all :)