I am currently involved in a project where we have buried the offending structure partially in a raised timber bed and planted a range of groundcover shrubs around the access - including: Pachysandra terminalis, Cotoneaster dammeri, Cornus canadensis to name a few. Good Luck!

I will try and take a photo but not until next week as I am working away at the moment. I could ask my husband! Hi AR I just wanted to say we planted a bay tree hedge in our front garden in our old house to stop people looking into our basement because the kids played down there but we were never really happy with it. It did the job but it never really looked plush and healthy but we were on a very busy road. But I do agree it did look different to all the yew hedges or laurel which are used abundantly as hedges. We have planted 3 portuguese laurel in our current back garden. We are trying to create a screen. They haven't grown big enough yet to create a hedge but I do like them because the leaves are smaller than an english laurel so you don't get lots of big leaves cut in half if you take a hedge trimmer to it. They are a lovely dark green and the stems on the fresh growth are also slightly red which is attractive. One of them (don't know why only one) also has tendrils of white flowers in a cigar shape which is also pretty. Not sure if you would still get the flowers if it was trimmed every year into a hedge. The Laurel are planted at a low level which I hope in time will just grow taller than the fence. We have then planted 2 metres in front of them on a higher level 5 photinia trees (lollypop shape but 10 ft tall) which hopefully should grow together and prevent neighbours seeing us from their top windows. I think it might take 3 years yet. We were thinking of pleaching but I decided to let them grow naturally. It's created a layer effect which is quite pretty. I will take a photo of that when I get home.

I would not combine a white or off white render with white windows. One makes the other look 'off' as they don't match. I think you can combine with any shade of grey and have a different colour front door. You can also, go outside the 'Grey' box that we're all in currently. Buff, or any neutral colour will look nice with a white render. Usually I would also say that the window colour is dictated to predominantly by the roof colour, as grey with a red roof tile, doesn't look nice. Grey with grey roof tiles is lovely for instance. Can you post a picture of the house? It's a lot easier to suggest things with visuals of the look of the place.

Wow @rinked! Thank you very very much for taking the time to shaffle the furnitures around for me. That's great!!! :) Really really appreciate it!! I do hope I won't lose the cosy feeling of the living room to be honest but I really feel I lack space to move around right now. From time to time, we also use the place to host any guests over with an airbed or use it to put laundry to dry so space is really vital to us. The sofa is actually orange, see photo below, and I don't really like the colour so I was thinking to buy a sofa cover to dress it up. I have heard designers advise to use light colours for the couch so not sure if I should pick a beige or a light pattern like the ones below. And I was also thinking of a rug as well so I guess the best thing is to first buy the sofa cover and then move to the rug to match everything. You can find the pictures of the different cupboards below: I do know and understand that this is far from ideal... But when I bought everything I was just in a hurry to do so since we didn't have ANY storage within the place. I do want to repaint them at some point but not sure this can be done within the house and we don't have a garden or so. Looking forward to your answers people!!! Your help is valuable and greatly appreciated!!! Really praise google for finding you!!! :D