Sorry to dampen your ideas about changing your home but I think it is a beautiful home, in no need of any changes at all, in my opinion! It is a picture perfect home with a lovely low maintenence garden and beautifully presented. I would not have bought the home personally, if I wanted to make the amount of external changes as you are thinking of, perhaps instead, use this home as a stepping stone and buy something already more like what you are dreaming of owning or accept the beautiful home you already have, again in my opinion of course!!

I have one of those Monika and I would venture to say that you wouldn't be able to cut it flat because with everything around everywhere having the waved top it would look really odd I think, and I doubt whether you would be able to paint it at least until the development is well over or you could find the developers all over you, along with residents who like yourselves have signed to agree to the covenants. A lot of people enter into these developments because there is a better chance of people looking after their properties however I will say that I am the only owner occupied in my part of the street, and I am forever weeding everyone else's garden, picking up the rubbish blown from the sea breeze on new builders not looking after their rubbish and the renters chucking empty beer bottles where they have sat on the steps drinking and throw the bottles into the garden and I actually water the rental alongside me as our gardens join, as yours probably does, and they refuse to water it. I want my place to look nice and if left to these renters it would look like homeless shelters. I think the tall pots and something like the black bamboo could look really good :)

1. have a nice chat with your neighbour about the water from their yard as we're all required to keep our own water in our own yards ...overflow from their tanks should be able to be redirected with a simple hose into storm water..next step ask council for advice 2. anywhere that has recently had a stump ground or has matted old roots will probably eventually sink as underground roots rot away..but can take a long time so in the meantime some more raised beds could look great and cover up a lot of problems more of the steel trough would be good or try making one long raised garden bed with edges about 10cms away from the fence ..pieces of 30cms treated pine to match your edges or scraps of corrugated iron should be OK but not against the fence ..bang steel spikes into the ground or old bricks on either side to hold them in place and then read up on "dig free garden beds" to make a raised garden bed for veges or big strappy plants...many plants will happily live in only about 30cms of soil on top of concrete footpath so forget the tangled roots and occasional flood and make new raised beds on top

Hello .. why not grey but not too dark. A neighbour paint their fence (beside a 70's but lovely yellow brick home) a dark grey. I wondered if it might be a little too dark even tho that appears to be the trend. I have too, a 70's yellow brick home and deciding what shade of grey I might paint the paling fence in a courtyard area. I think maroon (trim) and grey would work nicely and it's surprising what a new appearance does for the surroundings. I'm often amazed.