Just looking through some of the tips to cover a garden wall. Can anyone help with this? We live in Spain - long hot summers and very dry. We have a 100 meter retaining wall which is sloping from 2 meters to about 5 meters end to end. We live on a hillside and this wall is behind us mostly below ground level and there is a road behind it. The wall is concrete bricks covered with a white paint and suffers really badly from efflorescence. Its incredibly ugly and paint lasts about 2 months before it comes off. The only solution I can think of is to stone clad it - quite expensive and lots of work. I like the idea of planting climbing plants from the other side to grow up and over the wall and hang down our side but worry about the possibility of the plants taking over(100 meters is a lot to maintain) also a bit worried about the reference to dangerous spiders. At this stage any advice would be gratefully received... Thanks in advance.

jejvtr: I like the first link you showed, but the second one did not work. You are right the columns look similar. Perhaps you should leave them afterall, they are growing on me. It has a certain delicacy with the arched roof and you may change you mind also once the trim is painted different than the house color. Which is probably another reason my vote is for a non-white base color--to accentuate your lovely trimwork. I'm glad you are looking at other homes similar to yours for inspiration. When we were remodeling last year, I always kept a digital camera in my car and I would snap pics of features/colors/etc of houses I liked--usually while picking up or dropping off my kids from school or sports practices. I would try to drive a bit in the residential areas. Then when we were finalizing paint, I had my paint swatches with me and I would go up to houses which I liked and compare paint swatches. Once you and your DH find an inspiration pic I think this is helpful to narrow down to an actual color. You will always see things we don't, like lighting and how it works from various angles. What does DH think? Still white/red?

I live in the South where painted brick is very common, and I love it. However, I don't think your brick is ugly at all! Maybe it's the effects of the sun fading it, or whatever, but it actually looks quite nice to me. My concern about painting your brick would be the amount of sun you say your house gets, as it would likely cause your paint to fade unevenly. Also, as someone mentioned previously, painting your brick would just create a different huge block of color to look at, and won't necessarily help to reduce the impression of size. If I were you, I would give my shutters and trim a fresh paint job; Charleston Green shutters and door with a warm white trim would go great with that color brick. Replace the brass door knocker and handle with some something less bright (even antiqued brass would look better). I also like the idea of the planter boxes for the upper windows to add a little softness and to visually break up the facade a bit. You will never achieve a cottage look with your home, as its overall design is inherently more formal, but I think these few smaller changes will go a long way towards helping it feel more cozy and warm and reduce the impression of size. Once you have your house spruced up, deal with the problems of the retaining wall separately. I agree that a painted retaining wall would not look good at all. I like the idea of a stacked stone or similar material.

DNA, regarding making your laundry larger, a question that occurs to me is what would that allow you to do there that would be worth the cost to you? Where would you be folding your clothes as it is now? Where if it were 2' longer? I don't see you ironing in there in either case, or would you if it were larger? Regarding a screened porch, that's a very site- and lifestyle-specific question. Also climate. Not off the north side of the house in almost any climate because it'd be too cold and gloomy much of the year. Important to remember, by the way, that the north exterior of a building in almost all climates is not inviting and people tend to avoid it. Since most people in this country don't use front yards for enjoyment, and people are drawn to comfortably sunny areas, having the back yard to the south and front to the north works well. However, how much do you hope to use that front porch? In any case, sunshine will be blocked on the front of the house by the porch, no matter how oriented, making sunshine into the rooms at the back especially precious, and whereever you put a screened porch on the back would make the adjacent room a shadowy interior space. Inviting much of the time anyway, but where's your bright sunny spot to relax in? Screened porches are wonderful, though, and if it were my home, and ignoring critical but unspecified site and neighborhood factors, the two places I'd like it would be off the master bedroom wall in back, with doors somehow from the living room and from the bedroom (how about sleeping out there in summer or just sitting and listening to the crickets before bed?) OR at the end of the front porch with inside access created from the entry (do you really need that big closet? :). I can see spending long hours there enjoying the views out across our graciously sized front garden and neighborhood. Maybe not so much if our neighbors' boat and trailer are parked 10 feet away, though. A third possibility depending on site, views, space, and whether my cars could be kept from view might be off the kitchen side. A very attractive corridor inviting people out from from the center of the house and the kitchen could be created there with some thought. On the right site, that could be ideal, taking advantage of whatever views/assets there were, or could be created, on that neglected side and making the house feel very large. The patio's easy. I'd have it right where I could stroll out the kitchen in the morning with a cup of coffee. If that were the north side, I'd put some attractive plantings by the house to admire and shape the view from inside (with birdbath?) and set the actual sitting area in the sunshine a bit farther out. Hope my fancies spark some of your own.