It's a dilemma because you know your stuck with it for years once it's on. We recently painted our cedar exterior. Started by agreeing on a general colour and then buying a series of sample pots. We finally decided on dulux colour bond dune. Amazing in itself as we rarely agree haa. It was a nice mix between beige and grey. We bought the 10 litre tin and went to work. After completing one wall I thought the paint was taking a while to dry as it wasn't getting as dark as the sample. My husband thought it was because of the lighting. I took a piece of wood and painted the sample which we loved and the paint from the 10 litre can together and yes they were a different shade. The hardware store had accidentally mixed the sample pot in double strength. It was all fixed up and we really love the result. So it was Dulux Colourbond Dune. I think it would be perfect with your roof colour.

None of them – too busy, too contrived and really the 'art' feels dismissed and unimportant (and I suspect that that is probably the case – if it were important to you because of beauty or sentiment or genuine interest it wouldn't be relegated to an over-busy wall just to complete some grid or slightly random pattern). I have a lot of paintings, drawings, etchings and photographs around my house but each one is there because it has meaning and adds to my life and aesthetic pleasure. When they have to share a wall I spend time ensuring that each is still able to be seen, appreciated and respected in its own right.

Hi Eric, Great question, that applies to so many people in similar situations ! Typical house alterations & additions scenario with limited budget... What I recommend to my clients in those cases is usually a fixed price lump sum contract to start off with. The way that works best is that we prepare a really good and detailed set of drawings for them, and we try and foresee as many of the potential issues as we can, then we get prices from builders and lock a price in for that scope of work. That's part 1, which gives you a good level of price security. In addition, you then need a considerable contingency sum for the unknowns. Whenever one of those comes up, the builder will price them as 'variations' to the original contract, and we would check and approve (or don't approve them) for our clients. So this is the second part, which pretty much works like a cost-plus. That way you get the best of both worlds. A pure cost-plus I would only ever recommend with a builder that you know and trust really well, and if you are under time pressure. Otherwise most clients would be generally much better off following our usual recommendations as described above... Good luck with it all ! Best Marc

You can make anything happen if you have enough money to throw at it.....so it always comes back to budget and requirements relationships. You can easily pull these walls out, and put supporting structure in - that's easy ....but will the extent of expense be sensible for your property???? If you want solutions that integrate structural remedial properly then you need to be working with a professional designer and aligned structural engineer. You can do supports pushed up into the ceiling, whatever you want, just it will be more expensive the more seamless& snazzy you want because you'll be pulling apart a whole lot of stuff and putting it back together. The issue with these little jobs that involve significant structural changes without achieving additional space is that you sink a lot of money into the building without adding the equivalent value.....there are always options, but Pro's will be best positioned to assist resolving the best balance that makes sense from both a function and cost point of view Hope this helps a bit Cheers PD:)