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.

Thanks for all the great ideas everyone and sorry I didn't explain the polycarbonate a bit better :) This is along the lines of what we'll be using... http://www.psp.co.nz/building-brands/corrugated-sheeting/suntuf-polycarbonate The area is an absolute sun trap and we're hoping to use it as an extension to our living space, especially on rainy days! I've just sent my husband out to get a few pots of different stains for is to try - darkest brown (cedar) and a lighter brown (rustic oak) both by Cabots + the black we already have. Hopefully we can decide between one of those! I probably should have mentioned we will have black aluminium pool fencing running along the top of the second retaining wall - so the real question is do we keep everything black (pool fencing, horizontal fence, retaining walls and pergola) or do we go with a dark (or even light) brown for the pergola and retaining walls.... We just keep going around in circles at the moment. Decisions, decisions! Thanks again :)

It sounds like you've been through quite the rollercoaster with your building project! That's really frustrating to hear, especially when you had a vision that you were attached to. Construction dilemmas can be a lot to handle, and I can only imagine how the stress might have piled up over time. If you're feeling stressed (and who wouldn't be in a situation like this?), you might want to consider working off some of that tension. Since you're into home design and creating beautiful spaces, you might appreciate the aesthetic and functionality at Hitsona's fitness studio. Sometimes a little self-care and a change of scenery can inspire new ideas for other areas in life, including home design.

Hey all, I am getting a timber pergola installed in my backyard. It is a flat pergola with roofs. Here are the details of the project :- 1) Flat roof timber pergola. 2) Merbau hardwood decking- most likely in red color 3) Black/brown bamboo fencing 4) Natural grass lawns 5) Red brick exterior 6) Paperback/dark cream color roofing on the pergola matching the windows and the fascia. 7) Concreting done next to decking . Doubts :- 1) Now my first confusion is whether to paint the pergola in dark grey /charcoal completing the exterior or black/dark brown complementing the fence. I don't want to go all cream as the roof is cream too. Neither do I wanna paint it red as I feel it will be all too red (bricks and deck ). Please help me select the color. Should I paint it all one color or have pillars painted separately ? 2) Please help me pick a color for the concrete paint to blend in with the whole exterior. I am thinking either cream ( wall color ) , light orange or charcoal grey. Attached are the pics. Last one is off the internet on how the decking would look. Any inputs are appreciated. Thanks much