With any post war house built in the 50's the connection from in to out is non existent. Depending on where living rooms are located i would take some of the fantastic windows out and replace them with French doors, or bi folding doors and connect the house to the site. The colour scheme from Karen is perfect to lift the kerb appeal and give it a modern twist. With land costing more than houses these days and the fact that you seem to have quite a big block, after looking at paint colours, opening up the living dining kitchen areas to the outside with a roofed area. Even combining a flat roofed carport which will widen the house to the street making it seem a bigger house, can carry the new look with say an enclosed section for garden equipment, to the opposite side to the house, and if you are lucky enough to have that near the living area it can be used as both car cover and outdoor living. I always think a good landscape architect is worth their weight in gold, to give you a landscape plan, to suit the soil type, your skills level and your preference in planting. Divide up the exterior space to provide outdoor rooms under a tree, paths that lead to some special spot for kids, maybe even a veggie patch with a chock run, and make sure that you use the entire yard, front and back by enclosing part of the front yard in fencing which suits the style of the house, while providing some planting to the street. If allowed a gate structure to blend in with the house, a dedicated pathway with planting each side to the front door, fantastic fencing and consider natural materials like a hand laid stone fence with timber or powder-coated aluminium inserts, to give this house an entry, not sure where the front door is now, so that is not a good look. Gardens always enhance a house, they are never a wasted effort, and if you are not gardeners, make sure the landscape architect knows that and he will be able to select low maintenance plants. All the paint in the world will not give the desired effort that the garden will do to that paint work.

It looks great ! As the house is lighter and darker greys , I'd add a white gloss painted 'rail' around the top -- hard to tell appropriate sizes from the photos , but probably pine 150-200mm wide and 60mm tall . Easiest would be to simply nail it to the posts and top rails , but if you added some spacers ( cut some 100 x 50 pine into 100mm lengths , then stain them the same dark grey fence colour , nail to the posts and probably every 'halfway' too , it would really 'lift' it more ? IMO that would really tie it all in with the house , and look classy , for maybe $2k tops .

If vertically fits perfectly then I would probably do that. As it's a feature wall and the others are in a standard subway pattern I'm sure it would still look good, as, in my opinion, the less cuts and grout in a shower situation the better.

What are the other colours in the room ( curtains , bed spread , rug , any art , etc ? ) , and are you happy with them ? Are you quieter people , or more outgoing ? Theres so many different things you could do , but you'd want to get the overall room looking consistent . The floors , as they are , look nice ; the handles are 1990's generic , and like you , I'd change , but even things like the other wall look a bit plain from the bit I can see . You may have art on that wall , but just what I can see i'd add a small picture there , and go to a hardware shop and look at handles and buy what YOU want , not what someone here says , or what a salesperson says is hot right now . If you are thinking similar to me , as far as gold half circle handles , if you mean those ones maybe 200 x 100 and 30mm 'wide' curves -- they need to make a circle IMO , so they'd only work properly where there are 2 close to each other , up the 'middle' . Also , they feel more like what you'd have in a bank , or maybe a 3 1/2 star hotel . Just my thoughts . Oh , and they also feel a similar age / era as the ones there ! As far as colours , you could do a feature colour , or bold wallpaper , or leave it as it is ( if it's in okay condition ) . But just what I can see , I'd do the skirting and frames in a sharper white -- it looks like one bit has been done like that , but its not consistent . So a bit of a non-answer , but on the info and photo , I wouldn't even want to guess what you should do .