Here is the old house..lower cedar undergoing clean and is now all oiled. Window trims on right painted in dune. Ok. So had heart attack yesterday. Roof painter came out. I am at work. He and my son decided to ‘colormatch’ my already woodland grey painted posts and decide ....yes it’s armour grey....I had told both days earlier woodland grey...now have an armour grey roof which is same as windspray...don’t know whether to laugh or cry..more cry actually. Heart was set on woodland grey and dune trims. But I did really like your windspray..so confused now what to do....any help would be appreciated.

Thank you so much everyone for taking the time to respond. Your first photo siriuskey is the colour scheme I'd love to go with so good to hear that you'd think it would match with the blonde brick. I also like the shale grey roof idea butterflyroof and you're right that you don't see much of the roof at all (mainly when looking out the upstairs bedrooms). The olive green is definitely another possibility to look at oklouise and I've made a note to use 'mid-century' in search terms. Definitely plan to pressure clean bricks and a bit relieved to hear that leaving them is the better option. I'm still finding it hard to imagine a darker grey cladding like monument with the blonde brick debluc but it's certainly been suggested a few times so I'll keep searching for inspiration. Thanks again :) (attached is a photo of a house near us that I like and that has a brownish tinge to the cladding that would hopefully work with our bricks as it seems to work with their sandstone - maybe dune colourbond?)

Hi Dr Retro, Thank you. I really appreciate the input and the time you've taken to explanation your point of view. I really do want to get an understanding of where the issues lie in this design. So I hope you'll forgive me digging a little deeper. I don't quite follow why you think the design would require a 6m lintel. Yes, it does require a 6m track, but the track can simply be attached to the wall. The weight of the door need not be supported by the top track. It could be supported from below. The whole point of putting the configuration on the outside of the wall is to minimize the need to make structural changes to the building. There currently is no capacity to install a 6m wide external sliding door/window unit. Likewise I don't follow why the door should be any draftier than any other external sliding doors. The cavity is on the outside of the wall, so draft is not going to get in via the cavity. Other sliding doors of the unit type have the same draft problems this configuration would and solve it by using an overlapping flange at the front end of the fixed door and the back end of the slider. The same could be applied here, where we treat the wall as the fixed door.The point at which the doors engage each other has also be solved for other door configurations. It is just a matter of having a loose tongue and groove configuration. Again this is exactly the same as a unit providing center opening sliding doors. Finally the same sliding mechanisms are used in other sliding door configurations, so I don't see why that should be any draftier here either.

One of my recent projects was a glass and brick contemporary extension that was built as a separate pavilion and linked with a small glazed link to an existing Victorian weatherboard home. The break between new structure and old structure worked well for different floor levels and roof structure. My clients were thrilled with the result. https://www.houzz.com.au/projects/1093664/modern-addition-to-victorian-home Here is a photo from the glazed link showing the lightwell space between the old weatherboard structure and the new brick structure. A consistant colour scheme ties the two halves together visually. If you are at the early stages of thinking about an extension it is too early to try and visualise it. Once you have provided a brief and defined a budget to your designer it is their job to resolve an appropriate design solution, present it to you, and communicate the design intent, with enough drawings so that you can visualise it. There is no point in trying to visualise expensive glazed white bricks for your extension, when your budget dictates painted, lightweight cladding! Best of luck, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls