You could look at the overall shades common throughout your wall and try to match a tone close to that. A pale grey or a bit of sepia or salmon would be a pretty safe choice.

Wow looks fantastic great work lovely old building

Hi all, Sorry for the slow replies and thanks for the input so far. From what I've read online a re-inforced besser block wall should be about $600 p/sqm including footings in Sydney (Hornsby shire council area). Given the wall is 1m x 10m it should be let's say $7k including design and DA or am I way off? I'd also need to dispose of the current wall + footings but I could probably give the blocks away. The paved area is about 40sqm. Would it be safe to assume $200 p/sqm for concrete base, paver supply (travertine) and install (coping and surrounds)? So the wall and and paving would cost let's say $16k + fencing + cladding. This isn't too bad considering how much better it would look and the value it would add to the house. I like the flexibility the besser would give - render, cladding etc are all options. I'm not sure how bad it is structurally it just has a couple of spots where I can see the blocks have pulled apart over time. Below are some pictures of the bad spots. Also looking at the Amber website it says the maximum courses is maximum non reinforced wall height of 972mm (6 courses). It looks like my wall is actually 7 courses un-reinforced. The wall and pool was built back in 2003. I definitely think planting in front of the wall would help, as would removing the lights but I'm in two minds about whether to bite the bullet and do it properly or just hide it.

Hi Wendan, we recently got double glazing installed to replace large sliding doors and windows. In some cases some noise is now more noticeable. I queried the installer and he said it happens a bit. The glass changes the type of noise that enters the house due to frequency. For example, I almost never hear our neighbours loud TV any more, but sometimes notice low pitch traffic noise from further away (less ambient noise to dull the hum). There is apparently specific double glazing for noise reduction, which wasn't something we considered when we were retrofitting, but possibly would've been good to know (two points in the house seem to be more affected by this, rather than the whole place). The other thing I'll mention is the frames. After lots of research we decided to get sliding units, essentially replacing like for like style. We had trouble trying to work out why casement style provided better thermal properties, other than being told the seal is better. The main difference now appears to be in the design/manufacture. Casements come as a complete unit, no gaps in the frame. Sliders come in two pieces with windows inserted into the frame in situ. This results in small air gaps between the frame and window due to the need for wiggle room. Annoying that we didn't find this out until after the event, seems like a bit of a flaw. Overall though, the glazing seems better than the almost 30yo bog standard stuff we previously had. Looking forward to summer with low-e glass and hopefully less heat entering the house.