Oskuee the illusion of a window is a good idea! Bigreader I can't believe I have forgotten about the chimney, we hadn't even considered this! I think my hubby and you are all right that the idea of rendering the whole front is a no go! Mel N thank you, I have never known what to search for, 'transitional' has come up with a few things that I like I think I'll be on the computer all night now haha!! Oklouise we don't sit on the front balcony as we have a back balcony that's bigger and a nicer surrounding. The stairs are definitely not comfortable, we had considered having the stairs how you have done it in the picture (which by the way is amazing, I'm a visual person so this has really helped). I do really like this idea, what would you do to make it more entry like? Another driveway maybe? I've added another picture (excuse all the mess out the front). Thanks again for all the replies this is really helpful!!

Jessica Craig, I thought you might like to know this. When my daughter was a baby and I took her for swimming lessons, I met another wonderful Mum Wendy and her daughter, Sophie. Sophie's father had recently passed away and so Wendy was trying to adjust to the hand that fate had dealt her. They had not long purchased their house too. We have remained very close all these years and I can report that both Soph and Wendy are a force to be reckoned with. Sophie (now 15) is a talented singer, is doing well at school and has oodles of personality. Wendy is studying online and working towards fulfilling her dream of one day writing a children's book. The house has been renovated and is a very warm and welcoming home. It has not always been an easy road as single mum for Wendy, but it continues to get richer as the years move by. I hope that in some of your harder moments, this may bring some small level of comfort to you.

Thank you all so much for your feedback & Idea's. The biggest struggle I have is trying to find a similar style home that has been updated to get some ideas. We didn't buy the home because we love its look, we bought it because we wanted to get into the property market & thought with some love we can make it suit more of our style. Does anyone know what style of house we have? I know above a beachcomber house is mentioned & while very similar it's not exactly the same. I've always thought this style of house to be like a pizza hut house as from the back its got the same sort of shape and similar roof. There are afew houses in my area with the same style home but non have been updated. totally agree with fixing the garden & love the photo suggestions. Below is a pic of the back of our house before we painted the window trims white.

With a North facing house the sun makes the front of house quite hot but only on those few days a year when it is over 40 with no sea breeze and I love the heat so ceiling fans work for me. The back of the house is much cooler and the winds generally come from the ocean side but can be from all directions at times as we know. On the west side of the house it is only app 1m to the fence line and so the option of having the garage on that side isn't viable. Sorry I am not up on terminology so when I said the set back was 7 odd metres that is the current set back from the front of my house to the road. The council requires 3m for house and 4.5 for garages. I have been looking more at mid century modern design and I don't really like it so I am looking at ways of changing up the bland facade to disguise the fairly flat roof line. With those in the know could I add a front porch and somehow blend the roof line into my current one to look more like this style? I realise it means saving more to afford it so on top of my current budget. I am just not sure how the roof line of the porch would look at the back end (how it would attach to my roof and look from the side and back) I wouldn't want it to look like it was just stuck on at the front. Would I carry that through to back of house so end up with a witches hat roof or is there a better way you can see this working. Once again thank you for all of your input I can't tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time to help me :)