Thanks to all for your comments and ideas-much appreciated. I've attached a photo of the front of the house which unfortunately is the best I have as it is obscured by the scaffolding and tin roof we now have up for the roof renovations. I like the idea of a canopy although I'm conscious of not putting a porch on a porch so it would need to be quite shallow (thanks for the pic minnie101). Centring the door makes sense although the internal door follows the same line as the external door and I like the idea of sidelights which would by and large do away with any noticeable brickwork stitching. We are having an oak frame garden room extension on the other end of the house and thought an oak porch canopy with a truss in the gable would compliment nicely - either on posts or perhaps preferably braced against the outside wall of the porch.The porch is single cavity with no insulation - architect has suggested demolishing and rebuilding anew but this seems a bit drastic not to mention costly. It's a tricky decision as the entrance to a house carries a lot of weight in terms of aesthetics but spend the least amount of time in compared to other rooms which could use the budget.

Thank you Gina for the advice! I think it does have good lines - glad you think so too! I don't think our budget will extend to rendering the whole front of the house unfortunately. We will definitely be getting a new front door - and we are reluctant to paint the garage doors so will match the front door with them I think. I should have said the upstairs window will become a Juliet balcony. The cladding on the top dark area is the same as under the front window. We were thinking of replacing the cladding with more contemporary grey horizontal cladding but we're still left with the problem then of what to do with the brickwork ?!

Yes I really didn't like the tv in the bay window, since we've got a bay window I'd like to make use of it, I think it's a lovely feature to have in the house. The hallway effect idea is perfect as well, I did think about a sofa but thought it would look a bit too "there" however with the console table, I think the focus would be off of the sofa plonked there! Thank you! We'd love to be able to do all the rooms in one hit but we're going to have to space them out, all of our money went on our deposit (it's expensive being a first time buyer) we also have no furniture, but if we can plan out what we want for the overall home that should help a little. It's certainly exciting!

@ Jonathan: The stencil idea is brilliant, do you think using black colour on whites and white colour on black tiles can work as well? Also I like the flour plans , the room layout is a bit different in real life but I'm not sure what's the best way to explain the layout as I don't have more pics before next week now. What software are you using for the floor plans? looks neat. I tried a few now but they all need payment to export and then I'd rather know which is the best to use first. The garden screen looks good too even tho I'm still leaning more towards your original idea of bamboo screens. After reading all the suggestions here I'm definitely reconsidering the flooring and focusing more on the furniture and decor. And since we're likely stuck with black and white I'll start experimenting with the grays and other soft dark colours to see which combintion works out the best, and will try maybe get a few reds in there tactfully as J suggested @J: I love the diy idea for the banquette and most probably will try to do that myself, paired with a few A quality cushions to hide the imperfections hah. I don't have much experience with building stuff but after a few mistakes I'll get there. And thanks for sharing the pics , although I'm more of a minimalistic guy but I can see how adding a few extra bits and bobs can help take away the focus from where we don't want people to focus. I'll have a look at some decent size plants as well.