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!

We just stained our section fences with Wattle Ebony from Mitre 10. Was looking for a charcoal color too, not much flexibility in color options with stains from the shelves at store. We sprayed on, rather than brushing. Is cost a concern? One of our to be neighbours was doing there fences at the same time with paint, he said he used nearly 100L of paint for 2 coats, we used nearly 50L in 2 costs - had similar amount of fences. I've included photo of it after the 2 coats

We have a 900x900 shower and it's plenty big enough. Neither of your proposed layouts looks that great, to be perfectly honest, sorry! In the first layout, you could improve it quite a lot by swapping the toilet and vanity (centre the toilet under the window on the bottom right of the picture if possible), and having the shower door on the other wall (beside the door). Then, you could have a towel rail on the wall beside the door (i.e. behind the door when it's open), which would be accessible from the shower but hidden when the door was open. An 800x1200 shower might be a good size for your space. You'd have to choose a toilet that doesn't protrude too far, plus a narrow vanity. With that layout, you could have a long but narrow wall-hung vanity, with a big mirror covering the wall between the windows, which would make the room feel bigger and would give a good amount of storage. Also, you may find this helpful: http://www.houseplanshelper.com/small-bathroom-floor-plans.html?utm_content=buffer4aa20&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Unfortunately it is also a requirement in the CCC District plan restricting ones fence height being over 1.8m. There are also stipulations about visibility of no more than 50% through the fencing so most home owners opt for the cheap solid timber fence. It is rather frustrating when we design these beautiful homes and the client has no regard for landscaping and the house is subsequently 'blocked from view.' Perhaps a little more client education would go along way for us to push some great landscaping designs and make more of a house on a section.