To answer your question I would paint the body of the house blue, all trim white, and then the "fringe" which I think ties into your porch decking, I would paint it the gray. It is a good "grounding" color for your home. Sherwin Williams has a cool web tool. Take a pic of your house and load it onto their site. You can "color" away on your house. When I painted my house for the first time, I did not want the garage door to stick out, wanted it to blend into the house. Everyone said it would look weird, needed to be painted the same as the trim. Used the Sherwin Williams site and realized want I visioned looked good. I have neighbors of dubious design skills! Ha! Ha!

Well balancing out material and costs labour costs is one thing but 2 story is quite a bit cheaper to build ; far less foundation and roofing area. It also simplifies the plumbing and of course is far more energy effective as downstairs heating will also contribute to upstairs heating. PROs can develop on this. And as Curt points out, modular is a very fast and cost effective solution which can allow you to put your pennies into better quality. Be very careful to select a known and competent professional if you go this way though, i don't know about NZ but europe abounds with cowboys ; low costers are to be strictly avoided.

Well that is one rule that begs to be broken! I think a matte silver roof would look good....not weird at all. I don't think the house below looks "weird."

Hi Rachael, Your asymmetrical house form is a very strong visual element and sits very well in this bold and rugged landscape. On the other side of the house from the entry door, the windows and doors are grouped and aligned to create a secondary relationship between them, which pleases the eye and works within the strong form. On the side with the entrance door, this doesn't happen. The scattered size and positioning of the woodstore, windows and doors do not work together to lead the eye to any particular place, nor do they relate to the form of the house. As a starting point, something to draw the eye to the entrance to invite people in will create a secondary focus. Because the house is a very strong form, you want to work with it or complement it, not try to create something that tries to outdo it. You also want something large enough to provide shelter both to keep people from the weather and to make it seem visually welcoming. You have a few materials already in this building, timber and stone, that you can use that will provide a contrast to the corrugate wall but will also make connections with the other parts of the building, and make the shelter become part of the whole rather than look like an afterthought. I would look at creating a porch form with enough visual strength to draw the eye and also try to tie in a few other elements to reduce the scattered look.