Breaking up the great solid block of colour a little bit helps to hide it. Next is the choice of what to plant. I'm leaning towards: ficus pumila, climbing fig, which can be pruned to hug the fence tightly, Himalyan blue bamboo, (but might sprout on other side of fence as well, so should have a 60cm deep root guard or be planted in pots) or waterhousia floribunda, weeping lilypilly, which can be pruned to a narrow, non-climbable hedge but 30cm might be about as narrow as possible. I'm just a bit scared the bamboo will move into the neighbours yard too...You also have to be careful to not plant anything with massive roots that could eventually crack your pool, and it has to be tough enough to cope with a bit of chlorine... Then, put in a dip line so you don't have to water such a narrow spot. Good luck, and let us know what you decide.

I love what you've done so far - I would, however, change the light frame to a black one and add matting that is the same colour as the red in your hallway print that will tie your hall way and dining area together in a subtle way as well as making the print bigger - you could take the matt out by upto 15cm (more if you're brave) and the frame width of between 2cm up to 10 (again depending on how brave you are). As it's a rather large wall you can go bigger with the matt and frame as your wall can take it and you've been restrained with the rest of your colour and material pallet. Your plants are lovely but they're lost down on the floor in the corner - if you can boost them up (I've found pots turned upside down work and have also been known to use old pottery sewer pipes painted - they're totally clean of course!) so that they're a feature rather than an afterthought.

Thank you Lizzy, I can see your point. If I had my way, the speakers would go and I would have more discreet. I am not sure what you mean about moving the right hand couch closer. Do you mean move it closer to the right side? The heaters can't be painted however I realise we need to paint the walls. Not sure whether we could just do the same colour down the bottom as what is on top, which would be easy. If it is a complete colour change, that would mean painting the window frames etc, the blinds would have to come down, and it is all too hard. I would like to make the side table more of a focus however that is where my husband sits, so I can't crowd it too much. A new rug is definitely on the list once I get back to work. I would also like to change the coffee table, however it is great storage. I know I need to work on dressing it up a bit. Lizzy, I love your idea of the shelves. Thank you for your inspirational photos. I will look into that. I will also look at changing out the speakers. Thank you so much ladies for your input, I really appreciate it. I find this all very difficult and wish I could just wave a magic want.

Thanks for the advice team. So the house is block work on a cement slab, but when we did our renovating in the bathroom and had to cut through and re-lay the floor in the very small bathroom we noticed that the slab was incredibly thin and had no reinforcing. The walls have some cracks however we did have the building inspected when we bought it and thought we had a solid shell to start with. (Its brick and cement we said - what can go wrong?!) Our house is not in the flood zone. There is an asbestos ceiling which has also complicated matters a little - everyone who has quoted on the job has vowed not to disturb it - but I am not sure when you are walking around up there and pulling the original roof off if this is actually possible. The roof is a flat cliplock roof with no crawl space at all, so the ceiling is on battens that are attached to the rafters. The block of land is 822 sqm and will be worth about $130 000 if the house was demolished. (Demolition is set to cost around $30 000- due to asbestos etc) We have spoken to an architect who has told us that it may be possible to reuse our kitchen, the solar set up and some windows, but if we try to force the project to reuse all of our windows and doors it could end up being counter productive. So if it happens to fit we might reuse. I just spoke to a real estate who are telling me that in our area a small new house (3 bedroom) will not reach the $300 000 value point - so it may be impossible to reach the right formula to allow the bank to lend for a rebuild-