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You have a great home. Don't paint the fence - natural is always best with this style of home. And once you paint, you have ongoing maintenance. Look at the big trees on the LHS of the photo. These trees are above the height of your home and are helping to frame your home. I would suggest using a tall tree on the RHS behind the fence and if you have room in your rear yard, tall trees here. Then your home will be fully 'framed' from the road. Many will cringe at the suggestion of tall trees. People need to get over this attitude - we need more trees in our gardens and tall trees help with creating microclimates and assisting the hydrological cycle. People also whinge about leaves in the gutters. You will get these from the neighboring trees anyway. Cleaning gutters is part of home maintenance and shouldn't discourage people from growing trees.And there are now numerous gutter protectors that modern homes now have in place. Annuals in pots wont work if its too shady. You could use big pots - and they need to be big due to the scale of your home, and plant strappy plants like Liriope in them. There is a great variety called Emerald Cascade that you could consider. I would use dark grey pots as they are untrendy and will last indefinitely. Another great pot plant is Pittosporum tobira 'Miss Muffet'. Both would look excellent in the big grey pots.

I like all the garden ideas ( it does look a bit sparse and 'rental property' look about it IMO ) , with a low fence along the front , a wooden screen a couple of metres in front of the door , etc , BUT when I looked at the very first photo -- the wider angle one -- the one thing you notice first is the yellow marker post on the left hand side of the driveway fence . So take that as a cue , and paint the garage door a bright colour to stand out -- primary or metallic or trendy , just one that you like , and personally I'd probably change the curtains ( or even dye them ) to the same colour as the garage door . Right now , everything is various derivatives of off-white and red brown earth brick -- needs a decent spot of colour to lift the houses look IMO . Another option would be 'natural' timber blinds , especially if you had them the same shade of stain as the screen and the front fence , but I'd still do the garage door ( and maybe the guttering ) your current favourite colour .

I agree with above, go with shelving that spans the full width (but not necessarily full height if you don't need that much storage - anything you put up will probably affect the usefulness of the ceiling light you have in the nook). Plain white shelves like this would go fine with the other shelf you have