I was just thinking.... looking at the photos. A 100 to 150mm wide trim piece of timber or compressed fibre cement to each windo surround would add definition and enhance the window more. adding a shadow relief to the flat profile ofthe windows and boards.tbe trim piece should be about 18mm to 25mm deep to give the best result to the windows... just an idea . it's why brick veneer looks 'right' the windows are recessed and break the line of the cladding plane...

Thank you so much, Julie. I thought you would be interested in the end result, given how much encouragement and advice you so generously gave me. :-) I do love it. It has made such a difference and I think (fingers crossed) the landscaping will give it the finishing touch. We are reroofing the pergola, so will post photos when that is completed. The gazebo looks great after its facelift, too.

Don't suppose the roses are iceberg?, I can just see your dogs scaring the life out of the poor fish. My same farmer Friend had his roof spray painted on a similar period house to yours, and it was a perfect no problems, I think that there good and bad and ugly trades that do these roofs, I know a neighbour was not happy with the quality of his and had to be redone and then another managed to get a really dodging one going around doing roofs and driveways that were total rubbish. A good job removes and resets all the ridge line tiles repairs adjusts and replaces tiles where needed. and remember to keep too many people from walking around on your tiled roof as this can add to more cracked brittle tiles. Re painted down pipes I wouldn't worry at the moment, a house nearby has just had roof painted mid gray and walls rendered a very soft pale beige/sandstone colour. Windows doors eaves, barge boards, down pipes are all white and the gutter is the same as the roof colour, simple, it's hard to match paint colour with brick work so I think I would be going with unpainted white the same as the neighbours I just mentioned, they won't get scratched that way and your down pipes aren't terribly visible from the front. A farm house bedroom for you x, Ticking,linen,timber, black and metal and a blue wall like your fireplace

Just as a tip, those dark colours in your light brick arent' grey, they are a deep purple/brown also known as Burnt Umber. The midtone colour in that brick is also a purple brown in a natural mineral, in artists land that colour is called Indian Red, other similar hues are perylene maroon and piemontite. I'm an artist so very used to seeing different colours and their undertones. Colours that will go with that will be blacks that are actually red or purple based. So NOT monument which is a blue based charcoal. Blacks come in many different tones and it's important to match the undertone to your brick for colour harmony. Blacks which are complementary or blue based will stand out more but may not go as well. Which is why the grey blind seems uninspiring, it's a blue based grey. I'll name some colours in the Taubmans brand. I didn't pick Dulux because it has an abyssmal colour selection atm. Phantom Myst and Fable would both be good blacks to use on your home. Ruby Rose and Redwood and Russet stone would all go with the brick colours. Unless you train your eye to see hues and undertones it's very difficult to spot them which is why a colour consultants have a job. If you're interested learning colour mixing is fascinating there are even hues like red-blues which sounds paradoxical but ultramarine is actually a red based blue' A hack for creating colour palettes super easy. If you have Photoshop you can show it a photo and it will automatically create a perfectly co-ordinated colour palette for you of 6 or so colours which are exact matches to the colours in the photos. Any photo at all, and it will spit out pantone colour codes for you that you can take to paint shop and have them mix up. It picks up some dark, mid and light tones and you can have it create monochromatic, complementary, split coplementary etc palettes that work beautifully.