Your house is great. That low key nestled-into-nature look is perfect for the house. I could see a pergola adding a horizontal line to the garage...keeping it modern and darker, not white. No white trim. Although emphasized front entries are logical and common, that shaded and protected front entry is also perfect for the style of house. You could maybe out a pergola over that as well, that's an addition I've seen around here to this style of house. Anything that contributes to that protected feeling for the front door. Large lanterns, contemporary style, and this is a house that could take big modern house numbers as well. I also love the suggestion of beefing up the front pathway. This post was edited by robotropolis on Fri, Oct 3, 14 at 23:07

thanks everyone for helping me figure this out! so i accidently posted one pic twice oops! :) the pic of the small building is in our back yard, it's my studio, which i love, love the colors the trim everthing! i really love the whole back yard.. tropical landscaping, i love the stone gray colored patio and light gray deck... we spend all summer outside entertaining so i want the house to reflect that too... so i want to keep the house similar in feel, only two neighbors have dark brown houses... we need to keep the trim white b/c of the gutters. and i would like to add some architectural details that will reflect the dutch colonial aspect without breaking the bank! thanks so much!!!

Budget and building codes permitting, you could recreate your entry. You might ... Remove the first floor roof from above the front stoop -- everything from the brick to the garage. Create a new forward facing gable roof over that area beginning at the ridge of the upstairs -- at least at that height or even above it -- and extending the roof of that forward facing gable to a point at least twelve feet in front of the downstairs exterior wall. About six feet of this will be your new front entry foyer with your front door moved to the new exterior wall facing the road. The rest will be your new front porch. Alternately, you could extend the forward facing gable roof only six or eight feet beyond the front exterior of your home to create your new entry foyer and then add a shed roof with two hip corners for your new front porch. You'll be enlarging the upstairs room on the left by extending the floor of that upstairs room into the vaulted ceiling space above your new porch; then you can move the original window to that new upstairs exterior wall of your forward facing gable. What front door and front porch post style you use will help define/redefine you home. You could also add an arbor across your garage that coordinates with the posts you use for your new porch.

A craftsman home is much more stylish to begin with than a split level ranch. Good landscaping can always improve upon what's there, but it can't always cover every architectural deficiency. Here, the right half of the house is going to be hard to deal with and probably require hiding quite a bit with foliage.