Hi Jaimia, I tend to agree with 12sally12 sentiments. Celebrate the house and it's foibles (boxiness, entry, colour, balcony treatment). However it's great to adapt a home to make it yours - just making the right decisions is the hard part! The extent of change depends on your budget and your tolerance for inconvenience. I've listed a few ideas that vary from 'nice to have' to significant structural (and cost) changes. These will affect the colour scheme, and therefore the way it will appear overall. Roof – dark colours appear heavier and more dominant. Your home looks to be built in the 70's, it's likely due for a new roof soon. Consider a fresh new zinc or white colorbond roof. Upgrade the gutters and downpipes at the same time. Balcony – remove the clutter (replace handrails), and extend the balcony beyond the face of the main facade. This will give the effect of elongating the front elevation of your home. The detail of the new handrail extending along the continuous balcony frontage should in turn provide a fresh new look (more contemporary). Arches – these could remain, or go (depending on your desire to keep the quirkiness). These are likely to be aesthetic brickwork only - but check with a structural engineer if these can be removed. Entrance – there are two parts to this: The first aspect is to do with the appliance from the street frontage. Prioritise making the front door the most welcoming part of your home. This can be done with a pathway from the front of the site, with garden areas and great planting to accentuate the entrance to your home. The other aspect of the entrance is how entrance 'reads' from the outside of your home. This depends a little on your location (and climate). As a guide I'd suggest revising the entry wall, including the door and windows proportions to 'open up' this part of the facade to the street. This should be designed in the context of those iras listed above, as well as benign conscious of security and protection from sun loading. I hope this helps Jaimia, (Keep in mind many of the aspects listed above will require structural design asa minimum!) Cathi

Hi Louise, hope you are settled in your house now, it looks lovely. Having lived in a house with a west facing living area I'm sorry to say your rooms will get very hot over summer and even if you install air conditioning you will still need to minimise the sun and heat coming into the house to save on electricity. Stopping the sun reaching your rooms is the ideal but outdoor blinds can look ugly so ultimately it comes down to looks -v- comfort. Thermal blinds or curtains will help keep the sun and heat out considerably but they do darken a room as well. Fans will help with air circulation but you do need cross ventilation to help the house cool itself especially if you get breezes off the water. I think your bedroom would be enhanced by a covered deck to add some character to the house too and this would certainly help with the sun in that room. Another tip is the colours you use in these rooms will help improve the look and feel of the room, I found soft blues or aquas made a huge difference with a lot of white for freshness. Neutral colours for some reason just did nothing and made the rooms look and feel hotter.

guttering can be added easily and could be an opportunity to dig some drainage trenches under the lawn to disperse the water to avoid puddles if all downpipes can't be be fed into proper stormwater pipes... have a plumber check all the guttering and downpipes and recommend a plan of action to cope with heavy rain ....i would paint all the cladding and posts white, gutters black and paint downpipes to match the surface they're attached to and leave all the brick unpainted....for a tropical climate i would not attempt to have small neat plants in gravel that will need constant weeding to look good... it would be better to have pavers bedded directly into mowable grass without little garden beds and i don't understand the two rectangular garden beds...what do you want to grow in them? consider much bigger areas of tropical palms and clumping bamboo underplanted with big strappy ground covers to shade the garden areas and screen unpleasant views and consider enclosing the portico with lattice and climbing plants to screen hot sun and make a more private sitting area

Thanks Kate. I like what you've done to break up some of that ugly cream and and to get some contrast happening. The height on the tree is another interesting way to screen out the window. I wonder if some other lust modern plantings might work the same way (just sans the screens?) Bringing several elements with the same colour in also sounds like a great plan. Do you think charcoal or black would work as well as blue? I like the front door idea Rosemary. When I visit next I might have a measure and think about what size might work. I had wanted to keep the screen door, but I'm guessing Id have to rethink that, as I think it would swing out and hit the post at the door. The roof is not at all clean, its actually a pretty dirty colour, which is why we're thinking a pressure spray might be a good idea, especially given that the roof needs to be repointed in places. The landscapers sounds like a good idea if we have the budget for it. Potsy, I definitely get what you're saying. I agree that there is no saving that cream coloured roof. At some stage we'd love to get it painted, but at the moment we have the bulk of our money being spent inside. I also like the idea of the grasses and flaxes/ modern planting (as bigreader also suggested) I like the idea of painting the windows, but wonder if the job lasts? Ive seen a few jobs that look terrible after a few years as the colour fades or chips away. Do you have any experience with that? We may throw more $$$ at it depending on how long we end up living there. Julie, I think Im also the fan of a lush plant up too! I will have a think about it. Thanks for all of your ideas guys!