Lovely print. I had a peacock feather print and I had a colour called glacier Grey behind. Think it was Wattyl . Again like your other walls it is a greenish grey but darker. I also had my prints on a charcoal wall..loved that too. As you said the picture ties in with the chairs and now it's not necessary to add more matching colours. I'd buy a couple of sample pots and paint large pieces of cardboard. With the other walls I would consider painting them in whisper white (Dulux) a very universal colour that ties in nicely with all colours.

@ alchemy, I can see you've put allot of effort into your beautiful yard and pool and whist I agree that you will probably regret a deciduous tree, irrespective of it losing most of its leaves in a short period, it would be allot of work clearing that debris from your pool but I agree that you need to complete your yard with greenery. I think the ficafolia suggested by bigreader could look stunning but I have one in my yard (no pool) and the gumnuts this little tree of mine drops must be seen to be believed albeit they dont blow. A palm of course is one of the best trees due to its lack of debris and the tropical look it provides is always a winner, however, getting one fairly established would be the way as they don't grow super fast but the expense of such a tree could be quite prohibitive. I would seriously listen to advice offered by people with an outdoor pool as experience is the best teacher, so you must decide just how much work you want to give yourself over and above the normal workload simply having an outdoor pool and I'd strongly consider the suggestion Mel N offered of putting up a sun shade or sail initially and see how that works for you. Best of luck. Cheers, Barbara

Hi Anne, there are some good suggestions above, in addition the question I always ask is "where is north"!! This should be a consideration too, and it's a little hard to tell how this open plan room connects to the rest of the house - is it the door at the end of the lounge, and are those solid walls at that end? (You might want to consider taking the windows further into the corner of the lounge, to ensure you can see the view from your couch/lounge chairs etc). I am quite curious about what "view" it is! Ocean? Mountain? Although a kitchen-sink window is always great, because you tend to spend more time socialising and meal-prepping around the large island, we would suggest trying to have the island face the view, or if side-on to the view, that it isn't obstructed by other benches. With your room only 6.5m wide, if you rotated through 90degrees and placed the kitchen on the long wall and leaving the pantry/wet room 'behind' the kitchen as in the current arrangement this might potentially block the flow of circulation through to the rest of the house. You could consider leaving the kitchen as-is but moving the kitchen sink bench to the other side and making this a 'tall things' zone (fridges etc) and moving the sink to where the fridge was, and moving pantry entry to the same side as wet-entry. The reason I suggest this is because when you are cooking intensely, you want to minimise circulation routes through a kitchen, so people can come and go and access the fridge (and the wine!) without interrupting the cooking. Of course it is only access to the pantry, so this might be fine too however if you did move the pantry entry to the other end this would create a protected cooking zone at the 'view' end. Ultimately, there is the opportunity to fully glaze the view whether the island is side-on or facing the view - exactly like the kitchen image posted above! (But insert your view into the picture!) As a side note, some builders only complain about sliding doors because they are harder to install and problematic to fix if the architraves need to be removed and replastering done (compared with simply rehanging a swing door!) For a good builder it should simply not be an issue and will significantly improve your access to the space, we always do sliding doors into pantries! Also ditto about the width of the pantry, 1.8m would allow a 600mm bench space on one side for appliances to be kept out, normal depth drawers under and shelves over, and a wall of 300mm wide shelves the other side, this will genuinely feel like a 'big' pantry. And finally - a suggestion to NOT put an oven in the pantry if 4doz bottles of wine are in there! Even if you are not cellaring long term wine likes a nice stable (and cool) temperature for storage. Good Luck Anne!

It depends on the trees really and how much root disturbance they will suffer while building. Certainly plant trees that are away from the house now. perhaps if you want fruit trees plan an orchard away from the house site and plant it now as it can take 5 years before you get some fruit. You could have faster trees closer to the house and plant later. But you can buy advanced trees. Perhaps start by integrating the landscape design into the house design phase and see what you come up with? Depends what trees you like. I think designing the garden and house together can really help you figure out these sorts of things and decide what to do when. I have planted birch trees that grow fast from bare root saplings that I mail ordered. I payed $5 each, they are now less than a year later the size that would have cost $100 each. so it also depends on budget and savings. I have also planted garden around the house that is... shall we say temporary, that is they can handle being uprooted and moved later. things like bulbs and tropicals like ginger and tumeric and canna. even the jasmine. some plants can handle being cut back and trashed and will just come back, we demolished a set of stairs on top of the garden and its all come back. I have a lot of foliage plants grown from cutting, stuff that spreads and divides. they don't mind being disturbed and in fact thrive being occasionally dug up and divided. As the reno unfolds the garden can evolve. I have a lot of bromeliads and shallow rooted plants like frangipani that can be moved too. You can also bury trees in large grow bags or pots so they are flush with the ground but can be moved as needed.