Oh C'mon V Richards...every epoch has its treasures. B4 you make a mad run for it stop a while and consider the period and the reasons for the style...it can be extremely enlightening....unless its not the period you want to escape from but from some of the opinions. I spent many years of my youth outside of Australia living surrounded by old ruins in Europe. I forgot what it was like here. When finally I returned to Australia and found myself living in some of the 60s and 70s places..I found much to admire and wonder about. I may not have fallen in love with much of it but there was a certain mistique and a feel that I can still conjure when talking about certain places. Not saying that it was all romantic and pleasant but it conveyed something of the era and the kind of Aussie from those days.

Brittany, you must practise flicking your hair. It's all in the attitude. Aluminium frames can be painted. Rough them up a little after a good washing. Then the paint will adhere better. Use metal paint , ask at the hardware.

what a great house!! make sure all the paint and trim is in excellent condition, what about Colorbond Cove and/or Evening Haze for over the windows and roller door with bright white trim and a startling front door (turquoise?) is the flue being used? remove or clean and paint, move the tv aerial out of sight, remove or replace the awnings with better fitting blinds that fit inside the window frames (Sarlon roller blinds will be more discreet and reasonably priced) remove the old planting near the house and add a mowing strip along the walls, clean the concrete driveway and create a gravelled parking area instead of parking on the grass with just a triangle of generous plants between the drive and parking area, level the lawn closer to the house with a low curved retaining wall made of of railway sleepers and prune back the big shrubs to see the edges of the house, improve the lawn and add planting along the retaining wall or right down to the front fence...Dietes, Grasses, and other architectural plants will look good

I guess all people don't have the same budget with which they can purchase a home so the demands of the people who have less drives the 'cookie cutter' home I guess it is then up to the home owner to stamp their own individuality in both garden and inside the home so that each and everyone who enters said home can express how much they love the owners sense of style, these days if you look about you can take a lot of great ideas and you can buy items that look very similar from a 'cheaper' end shop to achieve a lux look that can also be enhanced by buying a few 'good or lux items to uplift the style. I am lucky to have a bluestone villa on a fair piece of surrounding land which we have lawn and garden which over the years, inside have decorated as well as built on making sure the features are in keeping with the age of the home (over 100 years old) but yet bringing it into the modern comfort we all desire. I say if you want to do design of any kind go for it, don't wonder if, but in saying that make it both lux and affordable and I am sure you will gain many clients, each person has their own ideas that can be incorporated or enhanced. Here in Adelaide there is SO much 3-5 story and more, what I call 'boxes' and even in the inner city area where I live a few streets away the road is being taken over with these ugly monstrosities but I then think that it is so expensive for a lot of people to even own a house that the 'boxes' are driven by the need for housing by those who want to own but can't afford a house. We have many antiques that suit our home but these days people don't want antiques as the homes are so modern, I have added more eclectic pieces with our antiques that suit so it is not all old looking, I love my home and how it looks and no matter what, I think that is all most people aspire to, a home they can be proud of and a place to live a life with family around them. Alisa go find your inner artistic side, I lived my life as an art restorer and LOVED every minute of it, it is feeding the inner soul and gave me so much pleasure as well as pleasing the clients, that never gets old, good luck if you go down that path.