You can get any colour paint you like in any strength - 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 or full - its only a colour, so they will mix it to your request. Have you made yourselves a colour board? if not, you will need to get all your selection colours together and then go to bunnings or a paint shop and get some sample pots of the colours you are debating. (yes it will cost to get sample pots, but seriously you need to do it - and get the varying strengths in the same colour as well). If you are worried about the render colour marking, go the 1/2 strength on the render and 1/4 on the mouldings. Your Wow factor will come with your varying textures - brickwork/render and trims/timber doors, and the wrought iron. I'm guessing you have exterior lighting? some beautiful exterior lights will be the icing on the cake.

HI All....read everything and to me it would appear the main cause is your slab, albeit issues around the slab. A trench is a start, with extra drainage (black round pipe with heaps of holes in it, and loads of scoria). My opinion is that the actual ground is damp and unfortunately concrete is porous, so as long as there's heaps of water around that cannot drain away, the concrete will slurp it up. (I'm no drainage expert) As far as your gib goes, I don't think you have any option but to replace it (then insulate wall by wall as you go.) Here in NZ, I previously worked for a company that did leaky building repairs, and honestly, that black mould is a very real danger to the family's health, so it's got to go. Like others have said, you may get rid of it visually for a period of time, but once you rip the gib off, you may come across other issues. I'd also invest in a dehumdifier and keep that cranked to start getting moisture out of the air, or other options as others have mentioned. Sorry Cathy, ain't no easy fix there..................... Is it possible to have a look into council records to see what the land back in the day was actually used for? That may give you an insight into what the problem could be.

luckily this shouldn't cause any major structural or safety issues and, even if it had been done "correctly" there would still have been some narrow cut tiles across the doorway so why not just add a row of tiles across the whole strip as a textural feature if you have matching tiles or a colourful feature in matching thickness different colour tiles or fill the gap with concrete stained or painted to tone with either the door or the floor or you could try a strip of wood but it may be difficult to cut a long narrow piece of wood thin and strong enough to survive the heavy traffic in a doorway although a piece of quad or scotia timber moulding or the curved edge cut off a piece of MDF skirting might be OK if sealed well...but hope everything else has worked out well for you

We installed a skylight over shower (velux fixed) in a tiny ensuite and I would highly recommend. It looked absolutely amazing and was heavenly to shower under the sky. We only had the house for a year and sold it (about to install another skylight over shower in our new house), so I can't comment on the long term, but no mould problems or condensation drips. I think if anything the sunlight was actually helpful to dry up moisture. We live in Tasmania so I'd doubt condensation dripping would be a problem elsewhere. We had a fan installed not in the cavity with the skylight but just on the ceiling next to it. In the second bathroom we put in a skylight over bath and put an extractor in the skylight cavity as the ceiling was higher. Could not feel a draught- so I think the question of where to put fan really depends on ceiling height. Do the skylight over shower!! You will not regret it. It really takes your bathroom to another level and there are really no maintenance problems if installed properly with custom flashings. I found velux quite repellent of dirt etc, we did not need to clean after a year (one flat roof skylight, one very large sloped) and I have seen velux skylights looking great with no cleaning for 7 years plus.