A nice invasive running bamboo would be the ticket to isolation. Where are you worried about it invading - your neighbor? When it invades your gravel areas, you cut out the running root, big deal. If you built a wall, you would have to maintain that, would you not? I am renting a house that is less than ten feet(3 m) from the highway right-of-way, but about another 20'(about 6 m) from the actual roadway, which is about 5' (150cm) above my first floor. As the road curves, it passes both first and second floor bathroom fulll-size windows, yeh. Bamboo to the rescue! We are saved by the lovely self-sustaining bamboo. No fertilizing, no watering, just an occasional clipping of its toenails, each spring. It doesn't soften the sound of the Harley's though. To keep the bamboo from crawling out of its crib, install a galvanized or aluminum edging that goes down 6-12'(15-30 cm) to contain these babies from escape. And let the neighbor go back to Dungeons & Dragons or Sesame Street for their entertainment.

Gas is for dinosaurs ;) I'd go an all electric house, electric oven, induction cooktop, RC A/C for heating/cooling (they are very energy efficient heaters), electric (or heat pump) hot water, bottle gas for the BBQ. Couple this with a large solar PV system (5kW inverter, 5-6kW panels) & you'll greatly reduce energy bills. Design your roof to accommodate this PV system (not a roof with a million little triangles). If you're around the Central Coast, a well designed house should require little to no active heating/cooling. It's all about getting the orientation right, & letting the sun do it's work, heating your house in winter, & shading it in summer. My parents apartment in Sydney is designed this way. They never turn the heater on, & they use the AC a couple of times a year, for an hour or two in hot summer nights. Designing with orientation in mind is called "passive solar design". More can be found here, http://yourhome.gov.au/passive-design Simply put, it's about locating your living areas to the north, where they will be heated by the sun in winter, & minimising western windows, which overheat a house on summer afternoons. Unfortunately you have a northern frontage, which limits your scope to locate living areas facing north, but I'd still consider locating an additional living space to the north, in lieu of the master bed. I'd at least remove the northern portion of the verandah, as it will eliminate any winter sunshine from entering your home. An appropriate length eave, which admits winter sunshine, while shading summer sun, is a much better idea. With an interesting roofline you could have north facing clerestory windows, which would allow northern sunshine deeper into your house. Your other major concern would be west facing windows. West facing bedroom windows are a particularly bad idea, making bedrooms unbearably hot on summer evenings. So I'd consider flipping the back section of the house, locating the bedrooms on the eastern side. The bathroom would take the brunt of the western sun in summer. As would the rumpus, which is not ideal, but it's better than western bedrooms. Shade any western windows with vertical awnings, trees or use low-e glass. I'd actually consider flipping the whole plan, also locating your living area & verandah in the west. This verandah will then shade your house from harsh afternoon sun. Of course other things must be considered. Views, privacy, access to cooling breezes, whether your outdoor living area will be comfortable to be used on hot summer evenings, just to name a few.

I only have 2.5 acres but have drawn an entire garden plan using the basic paint program on your pc. Start by drawing all the boundaries to scale then add the house and any existing trees or structures driveways etc. Then add a perimeter garden all around the fence lines if that is what you wish. These do not have to follow a straight line but can curve in and out to accommodate larger trees. For the rest of the space I drew a combination of large circles and amoeba like shapes. These represent the lawn areas. Connect all these lawn areas together with pathways at leas 2 metres wide. All the odd shapes left in between the lawn areas then become the gardens. Using the paint program you can then fill up these spaces with a variety of different diameter circles to represent the final size shrubs trees and perennials that you will grow. You now have a complete plan to follow when you begin planting. When you buy a plant, look at its size and height and see where it would fit on your plan taking into consideration whether is will get sun or shade where you position it. This method makes for easy mowing as all your grass areas follow easy curves. It also gives you a garden with many garden 'rooms'. You can adopt different themes for each room eg a white garden, a cottage garden, a tropical look garden etc. Also it is some thing that you can develop over time and easily keep track of on your pc. It also helps to keep a spreadsheet of all your plant purchases that shows their height, width, sun requirement bloom time etc. If this sounds like a lot of work then maybe it is not for you but I love planning my garden this way.

I know Michelle, wrought iron is what we wanted, but the cost is a killer The blade fencing quote is 8.5k, including the gate automation. I should have checked Stratco prices. They have nice/simple designs Hi Kate, the 1st photo looks good, hubby is working on garden bed on both sides of the fence, using our old plants from the same area, but would not be high enough to cover the fence I'm thinking of picking up the design of the window?? but husband said its tacky haha I should have until Monday to decide wether to go ahead with blade fence or change it Husband said if I'm not happy just go and change it - duh! :)