Your house is lovely but your inspiration pics are beautiful, if you are after coastal then go with it, so lucky hubby is a brickie , love the use of blonde timber, stone cladding and of course coastal landscaping

Render isn't much different in tone to the brick , so won't achieve much IMO . In fact , if you look at photo there are shadows and shading -- you'll get those on render too . The timber is nice too , and that entrance with the high focal point works too .

The roof colour isn't all that coastal , but its not bad either .

So what does that leave ? What isn't all that coastal ? Ummmm -- yep , the garden ! The path leading to the front door -- do a taller garden on the left hand side -- conifers and flaxes and stones and grasses . Maybe another palm , in the middle of the lawn ( the one partially seen might even be your neighbours ?

If hubby is a brickie , is he up for your stone front fence ? Similar but different skills , but will save a heap of labour if he can . Or even white bricks -- that , with the battens the same tones as your trim , will tie it all in . In fact , I think all stone would not tie in with the house , unless you add some stone to the house too -- and then you'd ask why ?

And why not do a white life ring somewhere along the battens on the front fence ? If it looks tacky , take it down haha , but worth a try to get more of a coastal vibe ?

Thanks for your insight Julie and Pottsy99. Hubby is pulling gardens out as we speak and I definitely agree about swapping in more coastal plants. He has worked with stone cladding, which is super handy. I was thinking of painting the roof and fascia the same colour as we have to do some repointing anyway. I definitely want to lighten the roof etc. If I match it to the morter colour i think that could work with either the brick or the white rendered finish. Would that work? If I go with the stone cladding next to the garage door (2nd mock up pic), do you think I have the balance right between timber, paint and stone? The fence at the front is a planer box and I can add in some coastal flaxes etc there as well. I would also love to do a light pastel blue front door but I may be going off on a tangent here! Lol

I think the bricks work well and in that light tone go with the feel you are after without the extra cost and time of render. Unlike render you won’t have cracking or fading, saving $$$ and maintenance down the track.

Agree re render, it looks beautiful until there is a problem, that earthquake in Melbourne caused a crack on our internal rendered wall, it is an ongoing maintenance problem, your bricks are lovely and unusual, you could still have coastal with a light roof, plus coastal planting it could look stunning, the balance sounds perfect between the timber, stone, blue door sounds gorgeous.