My parents' old house had a wonderful oak front staircase that my six siblings and I used to race up and down, taking them two or three at a time, with only a casual hold on the railing. I don't know how we managed to never slip or fall. Now, the timber backstairs were steep, and had narrow treads and were poorly lit. We NEVER ran up or down them, but held tightly to the railing and hoped to heck we managed to stay upright. As an adult, my previous home had carpeted stairs, which I slipped on (wearing socks) and fell down twice, though thankfully I was closer to the bottom than the top. My current home has timber stairs with three narrow stainless steel runners stood on edge and inset horizontally across the front of each tread (this is supposed to help reduce risk of slips). I doubt I will get over the anxiety of taking another tumble, so I never go down them wearing socks, and if barefoot, I hold onto the railing for dear life and take it nice and slow. So far so good.

Love the metal sheeting, never sen it before. Absolutely, never use lattice, it's a thing of the past, very poorly made with tiny little staples. When the lattice starts to break apart it's impossible to fix easy. I'm facing just such a task on the little home we're living in whilst building a new home. I'm trying to keep everything looking nice but the broken lattice down low around the house looks terrible.

I love the open palings but it needs to suit the house, I also love the picket fence with THAT house.

Definitely agree with Amber Tiles above. Natural stone will require continuous sealing over their lifetime but it is an easy process and well worth it. The efflorescence are unfortunately unavoidable if the salt is in your paver/concrete. Get on to the sealer straight away and it actually prevents it from coming out all over the place. Are you concreting in the pavers? There is different trains of thought on efflorescence. You can wait for it to come out or you can seal it straight up. If you wait you will have to acid wash them down and let them dry prior to sealing. You may end up doing this anyway. Efflorescence take elbow grease to get off. 1 part hydrochloric acid to 10 parts water usually, with a scrubbing brush. As it's acid make sure you follow the instructions to clean stone down. I had to increase the acid proportion 1/5 to get the efflorescence off. *** It can etch the paver so trial it first. If you have a heated gurney wash it down using that. Tip: get the acid off straight away and dont do it in full sun. The acid if left to dry can stain your limestone a rust colour. Do a meter at a time. Use a good penetrating sealer and make sure you keep the name for future sake. Depending on the look you like get the appropriate sealer ie natural, wet look etc. Again, trial it first to see if its what you like. As for fence, monument is an awesome colour. Will bring the look of space in. Will be a big job. Are you doing this? Monument is a Colorbond colour. Nearly all brands of paint do it but each brand has a slightly different pigment base. If you do go this way, see if you can find out what brand your builders used and use the appropriate outdoor wood fence monument paint so the base pigment is the same. I hope this helped. Anneke