Tess, I hope I'm not too late with the following advice. Don't ever paint brick. Your house is a simple design, exterior wise. Paint wont fix it. What's missing is a designed garden. Even the simplest brick house can look like an inviting, lived in home when it has a structured garden surrounding it. For less than the price of paint, invest in a landscaper to design a garden that will soften and greatly enhance your homes street appeal ...and add many $ in value. Painted brick detracts from value and has to be repainted periodically, defeating the purpose of brick, which is, no maintenance. Besides, your house, painted white or cream as has been suggested here, would stand out in the street like a proverbial sore thumb. Trust me, landscape, starting at the street boundary and leave the bricks alone. Good luck.

Oh I have not even touched the surface of fabrics that are available and beautiful. But, best to qualify further if you are recovering or buying new chairs before we get too excited or caught up in the beauty of the products. I love fabrics and the chemistry and technology that goes into modern day fabrics would astound most people. I'm not even talking about the residential fabrics like the Robert Allen collection I showed you. I'm talking about the fabrics for the hospitality and medical care industry. Now if you are interested in MODERN look fabrics I would send you to Maharam to look at their 20th Century Modern collection. Some of those are the real deal by Eames and Girard. Anyway, when you get further along in your plans then I can give better input.

Hello people, Question time again. Im trying to match indoor and outdoor colour to my project around the living and pool area. I have 10 Meters of space to work with which includes 5 meters width of the living area. If i break the colours indoor v's outdoor it will make my area look smaller, more confined ? If i use polished concrete inside and try and match the colour outside, the surface will get hot. Soooooo... I have added some photos here. I went and purchased a box of man made granit tiles 80x 80cm. Keeping the shiny for the inside and tried "honing" the surface of the other tile as a test so i could use it outside and keeping the surface of the 'honed tile" slightly textured to ensure not so slippery and matching the inside colour. After coating this honed tile it has gone slightly darker which is ok. What im wanting to know, is this ok to do ? will there be any down the line effects of the tile if its outside in a wet area ? it maybe only wet for 3 months of the year for a few hours at a time. My challenge here is price V's product / Styling / practacality -Timber is too expensive for outdoor application / requires maintenance -Marble expensive -Natural stone expensive also if anyone has any solutions / kmowledge / advice it its ok to hone an indoor tile and add a protective coating for the outside. this would be much appreciated. Thanks Houzz'ers! Justin :)

Excuse my duh-ness but i'm having difficulty trying to follow whats going on here. Are these two photos an exact replica of your house and pool ? If not a hasty sketch with dimensions could help a lot. By kitchen wall do you mean the wall behind the bar ? And where is the pool wall ? Are you considering the covered area as being "inside" ? Sorry for all those questions lol Sometimes when you have a design problem you need to turn it inside out or on it's head. If you can't beat it maybe embrace it by making a feature of it : i.e. contrast by having the lightest colored pool surround and a great blue or tile inside and under the overhang, something that will echo the water color ? If you have a great covered area as in photo you'll most likely be spending a lot of time there and it could be soothing to be able to sometimes retire into a darker inside. In my book, 10M isn't small and also contrasting two floor colors doesn't necessarily make a space seem smaller and confined and may in fact even open it up. Could it be that you've thought yourself into a box here ? Sometimes one needs to give it all a good shake up and see how it resettles.