I have a sister who is still living in a mudbrick home that her husband built 32 years ago, brick by brick. It's as beautiful now as it was then. It stands high on a hill and cops unbelievable wind and wild weather, but is as solid as a rock (well, it IS a rock in a way) and the internal temperature...

We were Qlders buying in NSW. We put finance and building & pest inspection clauses in our contract. It's a buyer's market - you can put whatever clauses you want. But with those more complicated ones just go to a lawyer. You can call 3-4 and ask for their charges. Make sure that before you put ...

. I will try to use a rubber mallet and a piece of wood to get my tiles back where they should be and check where the batons are before deciding if I need to pass the job on to a roofer. Thanks for your help. Be careful trying to do the work yourself. We had a tile roof problem and the long guarant...

I can't really recommend colours because my own taste is a bit wilder than yours (I'm into strong colours) but would just like to make a comment. Why do so many houses paint downpipes as if it's a feature? Gutters - yes - it kind of frames a house - but downpipes? When we painted our downpipes the s...

We were warned that it was bad as well but apart from a couple of weeks last summer it is ok. At the height of summer after all the rains there were mozzies early in the morning and around sunset - but a bit of aerogard held them off. I was surprised at how few there were and wondered if the local c...

Wow. That's quite a list there. Is she a qualified architect? Does she belong to any professional organisation to which you can go to for help? What a mess.

offshore, impressive. Now I have some alternatives to cement render. Does anyone know any other rendering materials? There a coating of stone-like material that is just "blown" onto the house. Not sure of the details. In America it's called Stonecoat.

Wow - good job.

Ah ok. Reason I asked is that we just had our place done with acrylic render. Overall it was about 30% more than standard cement render, but the architect was strongly in favour based on the fact that it is more flexible and water repellent. Our place is about 80 years old, so the brick growth and ...

Like Ren123 I get all my ideas from Houzz;com which is an American site. They make it really easy to store your ideas in folders they call ideasbooks. If you search for front door photos there are over 76000!

You will find hundreds of art deco gate styles here. http://www.houzz.com/art-deco-gates

We lived with floor heating for 20 years in the USA which we called radiant heating - water pumping through copper pipes embedded in the concrete slab. How I miss it - it was the best form of heating we have ever experienced. We had an auto timer which put it on at 4 am to 7 am and then 4 pm to 7 pm...

I voted for the Spanish Hacienda because I love courtyards. But a Moroccan style courtyard house or a siheyuan (Chinese style courtyard house) or Iranian style or any courtyard is good. Courtyard just means an enclosed space where you can see daylight above - in contemporary architecture there is a ...

Really enjoying watching your journey.

It's like that in any industry where you're contracting and the work is scarce. You need to remember these professions need to pay for the time they're not working as much as when they are. There's a good reasons long contracts bill out at lower rates to short ones, so you might always pay $500 for...

If this helps we also have to either get serious repairs or a new roof. Our quote is $3500 to repair concrete tiles with no guarantee that another leak will spring up. Or $12 500 to re-roof without removing the existing battens... or $15 000 to have a completely new roof. (still concrete tiles). Thi...

Yes - I would hire an interior decorator in a heartbeat if they didn't set themselves up as being so costly. The shop assistant at our local hardware store has a colour consultancy on the side but it works out to be about $100 hour and she has a 4.5 hour minimum. Wha...? I'll pay someone for experti...

I have no problem going with what I want, the problem is that the professionals wont even really contribute to suggesting what works when you lean that way. They're so set on neutrals that they would virtually stop offering opinions that allowed leaning towards a brighter home, so then you truly ar...

Coastal Rural Traders in Ourimbah is where I got ours. It had to be ordered. 4362 1301. They also have molasses (15 Ltr for $19) and bulk supplies of legume seeds for green manure.