Be aware that artificial turf can get very hot underfoot. You could lay a narrow old brick or limestone paver path to clothes line for easy access and plant ground covers or low profile herbs (eg.oregano and thyme) to use in cooking. Hardy herbs or flowers such as rosemary, lavender, geraniums against the edges of the space toward the back. Even add some large long troughs of flowers on the retaining wall to pretty up the area. It looks like it could get quite warm there but maybe a jasmine or similar climber to climb up a frame attached to the part of the large wall where there is no clothes line. Good luck, it will be a lovely space I'm sure once you get started.

Spotted Gum is a great hard wearing timber with a Janka rating of 11. This means it is high density timber and won't dent as easily as softer timbers like American Oak. A polyurethane finish is the hardest and most durable timber floor coating and it comes in gloss satin and mat. The lower sheen's are more forgiving if you you have pets and young children. Bamboo is another hard product but only comes in short lengths so you would need to take that look into consideration when selecting. Some clients don't like the look of the short boards and consider it a cheap look. Others prefer the longer floor boards of timber. If you do choose bamboo make sure that you find out the coating used and whether it can be sanded and re coated down the track, as all timber and bamboo floors will need a touch up especially if you have pets. Some bamboo floors can not be sanded due the coating used. Hope this helps. Our website may offer some inspiration. Good Luck http://budgetfloorsanding.com.au/

They might be Baltic Pine? What is the age of the house? You could do a google image search for "Baltic pine floorboards" and "cypress pine floorboards" see what the grain and knots look like- do either match with your boards? Yes, you can make them look more like the white washed photo. We have cypress pine boards and recently had them sanded and refinished with Bona White as we wanted to ensure they had no yellowy or orange tinge and make them look more contemporary. They were very orange from the original oil based varnish. We're very happy with them, although we only had one coat of white and it may not have shown up as well as our sample boards. Two coats would have made them more white. The Bona White system was chosen because it is low VOC water based, so doesn't have a strong odour, compared with solvents. Sample boards, showing two coats of Bona White top section, one coat of Bona White bottom section and a varnished board with no stain. This is on Cypress floorboards.

I’m wanting to get advice on what wood so I can look at inspiration then show them the look we want. They will then commence work the day after we have access.