The Nothing AreaThe Nothing Area

We have an area outside our house that I would coin for a better phrase, “A Nothing Area”.  At the moment this is the only way you can enter the house is by walking up the steps beside the house to enter from the back. When we win the lottery, our plan is to put another door in the front of the house making it the only entry point.  But for now, until our lucky numbers are drawn I need to put on my creative cap to generate some fresh ideas. Our goal for “the nothing area” is to transform this space, so it becomes a beautiful and welcoming entry point.

So let me walk you through some of the positives of this nothing area first.  Due to the positioning of the house, we do get fantastic afternoon sun.  Funny enough I had to wait all week for it to stop raining so I could take this photo.  As you can see it’s a pretty gloomy overcast day, but hopefully you can imagine sun rays flooding down over the hill?

The area is also very sheltered from the southerly gales and flying sea salt.  
Our pot plants are really loving it here.

However, there are a few eyesores that we need to overcome such as the massive concrete retaining wall.  It used to be lime green, but Paul has stripped it back so it is all ready for me to paint.  Guess what I’lll be doing over the Xmas holidays?

We also have some very interesting 1940’s Art Deco tile arrangement on the floor.  When I step out of the door in the morning, it’s almost a case of wanting to put on some dark sunglasses to shield my eyes from the multitude of colours.  I am very sure this tile layout was very hip in the day, but it just doesn’t shriek cool cats or French Farmhouse to us.

Here is how we are going to transform this nothing area into a something area! 

By hiding the ugly white retaining wall with a feature plant wall.  

Or perhaps just painting the wall a clean white and doing a simple but effective wall design? 

Placing some lush, green plants in the corner. 

New grey/blue pavers are going to go down, but as of yet I still haven’t managed to find the perfect fit.

We are also planning on putting a sink just outside our laundry door.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have the space to fit in the laundry room.  

Just so the outdoor sink is not the first focal point when you come up the steps we are going to cover it up with some trendy cedar fence paneling. If there is room, I would also love to place a potting table in here.

With this craggy area we would like to add a very small tool shed with of course a sliding barn door.

On a totally different note, we have already started experimenting with the window colour in this area.  Due to the strangulation of our budget there is only room to do a minor refresh to the outside of the house.  Our ideal scenario would have included replacing the windows with iron windows like this.

Iron windows are pricey and are definitely not made for coastal conditions as the sea salt can rust them out.  For now we are going to settle for a painting the windows and trim black while replacing the windows with double glazing.  Here we have used just a straight black colour from Resene.

On this test window there are a few variations of grey paint.  We thought a grey colour would be less harsh, however, it doesn’t seem to make the white paint pop quite the same.  What do you all think?  I would love to know your thoughts on this one.