Hi there,potentially a great project.You have a superb blank canvas from which to create a landscape. Freshscaped will be able to assist you,I am sure. Meanwhile,if you seek inspiration.....have a look on my website under Portfolio sections; Landscaping and Poolhouses. A recently completed job in Kent where we added woodland,a stream,wild meadow, an eco office,and a superb Marston & Langinger orangery type building. I would be more than happy to put forward some ideas that Freshscaped could develop, or indeed assist with any Interior Renovations you may be doing also. I am based in Surrey,and work in London & the home counties. Best of luck,and do drop me a line if I can be of any inspiration to you. www.bellawhiteleyinteriors.co.uk

I'm no expert but I wouldn't know why a flat rooved porch couldn't look nice. To my eye the gable roof looks a little out of place but I quite like the 60s /70s design of your house. Yes, it can certainly do with an upgrade but hopefully your architect will be able to do so sympathetically. In the the end it's you who needs to be pleased though. :)

Hi Emma Yes - I see what you mean. I think one of the main reasons the garden doesn't work is that it is very open and empty. This means that you see all of it in one go. There is no story, or journeys, focal points or mystery within it. When you sit on your new patio you see an ugly trampoline and fence and a large (if magnificent) Wendy House. The plain area of lawn also shows up how the patio takes up half the depth of the garden - again making the scale feel wrong and the 'green garden area' look small. I think what you need to do is break up the space somewhat and put planting going across into the middle - runninig along the edge of the patio. People often worry that this will make the space feel smaller, but in fact because it means you can't see everything at once the space feels larger and more interesting. The planting coming across into the more central areas of the garden then also acts as screening for the ugly features. Other suggestions would be to turn the Wendy house through 90 degrees, so it is less directly looking at you, deep planting beds around the edges and coming into the more central garden space and lots of climbers on the fences. As regards being over looked - conifers are really horrible screening trees. They get very big and are very solid dark green, so feel very oppressive. A more open canopy deciduous tree with say spring blossom and good autumn foliage colour would be much better. Flowering cherry Prunus Okame is a good example. Your neighbours would likely love it. Finally can I suggest that you watch 'Your Garden Made Perfect' on BBC I-player. It is different to the normal garden programmes in that is discusses the design concepts behind the garden improvements. All of them are great, but you may find the 1st and 2nd ones particularly useful on views, focal points and structure. Good luck!

Thanks for the comments and suggestions. Definitely want to keep the two doors- we have a beautifully tiled floor and are in the process of renovating the hallway, so that it is the main guest entrance through the original door. The new door leads into a bootroom for coats, muddy dogs and boots, with the far end as a laundry area and is therefore definitely not an entrance I would want visitors using. If we remove the old porch we will then have to repair the render on the front of the house, which we would prefer not to do. I am very open to using and paying for design services- we have used an interior designer for the inside of the house, but she is currently away on holiday and booked out for a while and we have quite a tight and unexpected deadline with the builder if we want this done this year and before winter. This is the bootroom entrance (bench not yet painted and room clearly not yet finished from a styling perspective ) so you can see that it is not a suitable main entrance. Main hallway is plastered but waiting to be painted / decorated along with stairs and landing.