I agree with Diane's ideas! Grey is a nice color. The only thought I had on having a corner sink cabinet, you may not be happy with it in the end. You have a little corner, and the sink may be too small for you in the end along with not having any storage space. If you can't find any curtains that you love, try a cheap roller blind for now. It will give you a visual look and an idea if you want to stay with a curtain or going a bit modern with a patterned blind or even a roman type shade. It could turn the cozy look into a clean modern look. Framed mirrors are expensive. Call a glass company in your area and have them give you a price on mirrors. It might be quite nice to take the mirror down, and replace the wall there with a complete wall mirror to fit, stopping the mirror at the vanity, and continuing the mirror across the vanity between the sink and window. It will make your bathroom feel much bigger, even though you wont be able to see in the mirror over the sink. Close up the vanity doors with new door. Use props first (white poster to cover up the doors) etc. before you buy anything! Stick on tiles are a great idea! They clean nicely and look great. Although I wouldn't go with the wood look. Your bathtub tiles are old fashioned, go with a stick on floor tile that is easy to look at, try to get samples first. Remember Gray is a sleek clean modern color. It is not a cozy country color. If you don't like the grey in the end, maybe a real pale blue or butter yellow (that would be more of the cozy cottage look).

Thanks for the replies! My wife suggested we talk to a local real estate agent, so i think that is a good idea... just that Im not sure how helpful they are likely to be if we arent selling yet :) As for saving for our dream house, I dont disagree, however if doing this up nicely over the next ~5 years or so while we live here nets us some extra in the eventual sale, then that of course will help us as well. Interesting thing happened today actually. I got a knock on the door and one of the older neighbours asked if he could take some lemons from the tree. I of course said yes. Anyway he was telling me he had lived in the street for 40 years. I asked him if the house had always looked like this, and he said no that ~30 years ago the old old owner did a massive renovation and pulled off the timber and put up the bricks and gutted the inside of the house. Interesting stuff!

Are there any rules to follow regarding choosing exterior colours, ie, someone once told me that there should never be more than three colours, regarding the roof, walls and trims. Building a modern monoplane roof house on the coast. Like the idea of either Gull Grey or New Denim Blue for the metal roof. The interior pallette will be whites, inky navy, greys. Drawn towards grey for the weatherboard walls or white, prefer a black door. Although this is a modern house we are trying to inject a bit of modern farmhouse decor inside. Any help appreciated, thanks

We have had a balustrade on our deck rebuilt, as previously it wasn't consented by Council. Our deck is out the front of the house (and on top of our garage) so we opted to continue the weatherboard up from the sides of the garage. We had advice that we have to have a metal parapet capping put on to confirm to building code, and we have, but it's ugly and doesn't go with the rest of the weatherboard style of the house. Has anyone else had to deal with this before? I have seen lots of similar balustrades on decks (that aren't over other structures) with simple wooden capping that looks nice. Just wondering if anyone has a compliant solution that looks nicer. Ours (we needed a building consent) Other peoples (who didn't need a building consent)