Minimal Maintenance Frontage

I'll start with the front of our house. I designed the front garden but we had trades do most of the work as hubby works away and knew he would have lots of work to do in our backyard. For those who don't live in WA you'll notice the land here is like a giant sandpit. Except in hills as you may have seen on House Rules - lots of rock!

This is how our front garden looked when we got the keys to our house.

I drew a design on paper to scale with a pencil & ruler (traditional way haha). We then found a bricklayer to start work just after the new year. Next we had the render done, then the render painted. We planted all the plants ourselves and then had artificial grass laid. We chose artificial so we could put more time/energy into our backyard. This also ment we didn't have to worry about damaging the render when cutting the edges of the grass. We originally planned to have the artificial grass on the verge also (below the footpath) but changed our minds. Hubby and I paved the verge, which gives our guests extra parking. Paving the verge does require council approval. Luckily our approval came few days AFTER we laid the pavers.

My letterbox is huge, I wanted something different but mainly I want to be able to have a big stainless steel address plate. For privacy reasons I have deleted my street name but I have the full street name where 'Lime & Mortar' is placed. The extra part becomes a good seat when watching the kids at the front.

We plan to have all the aggregate pavers sealed in gloss & add a merbau deck to the portico :)

Here is how my house looks today!

ETA 28.11.14: Updated photo showing facade colours nicely with no shadows

Click image to enlarge

Roof: Colorbond 'Surfmist'
Light Render: Solver 'Dawn Grey'
Dark Render: Colorbond 'Woodland Grey'
Front Door: Merbau wood stained Intergrain 'Merbau'
Garage Door: Centurion 'Jarrah'

Next we step inside my giant front door....