Lighter colours advance, darker colours retreat. I would retreat the garage. The focus of attention should be the entrance.

Minor point, but always drives me nuts: scrap the fake shutters, unless they can be made wide enough to look like they could cover the windows.

Do a line drawing of the elevation. Then make copies and experiment with coloured pencils or crayons.

The garage definitely sticks out the most in that photo. It sort of dwarfs the other side of the house. If cost isn't an issue, I'd go with all stone. I think it would look neat on that house.

I agree with Worthy about the shutters. They don't look good, especially on the double window - why would you have one have of a pair of shutters on each window?!

I think would be a lot classier to do stone around the foundation of the house, rather than to have one exterior wall clad in stone (as in this photo).

If it were my house I would go with all clapboard siding, a stone foundation skirt, a metal roof on the porch, and I'd re-work the windows to accommodate real shutters. I'd also upgrade the windows if I could, but that's more a matter of budget than taste.

The scale of the garage does dominate the front elevation - I'm assuming that's unavoidable to get the interior layout and size you want. Is this house on slab? Is that why the garage looks so big?

Have you tried posting on the Home Decorating forum. There are some folks over there that are whizzes with photoshop and may be able to give you some idea of what the house would look like with various exteriors.

Anybody else find the attempt at Palladian windows odd-looking?

Is that front porch deep enough to use? You might have to have higher ceilings to permit enough slope over a deeper area.

I dislike all those roof angles and valleys (leak and leaf attractions). Sometimes 'simple' looks better and provides more liveable interior space.

The home pictured is probably a corner lot, so the vehicles have access via the other street. If the entrance were at the front, the elevation would be more conventional, with a hip roof and windows or dormer above. So the focus would return to the entrance.

Before you worry about cladding, get the design and elevation the way you want. Your designer/architect should be able to give you ideas on what mix would work well.

It's times like these I really miss mightyanvil.

Amy

The person who built this house actually bumped the garage out 2 feet to the side (when looking at the house) so that may be why it looks wide. We are not doing this at all, instead we brought the garage out 3 feet toward the street.

We are going to use board batten shutters that WILL be wide enough to cover the windows (well, to look like they could) No shutters on the porch windows... Should we scrap the shutters all together? Now that you say that, they will look silly on the window to the left of the foyer, since it's also a double...

The whole front stone is not an option = too much $$$

We have considered stone around the foundation... http://picasaweb.google.com/jlanrowilkes

Those are pics of our ACTUAL house that is currently being built...

We did upgrade the windows, using all ANderson 400 series and we aren't using those half circle things anywhere, our windows will just be rectangular everywhere except the foyer one will be slightly rounded...

WORTHY - i love the idea based on the photo you posted, but unfortunately we are already under construction so we are somewhat limited on what we can do now.

Here is another photo of a house similar to ours, let me know what you think of this one:

{{gwi:1514402}}

Now, that's in proportion. But is that still a garage to the side?

Much better windows! I like the longer gutter returns, too. Too late to cut down on the many roof-lines? I don't see that this house *needs* stone anywhere on it.

How about bringing the eave (is that what it's called?) all the way across the garage front to break up the expanse of the garage some?

Worthy, I love the home you posted above, especially the colors!

liptonjl,
Where did you get your plans, I love your house. Have you considered brick?
Magoo

Thanks for the suggestions, I am taking notes, please keep them coming! We would have liked to bring the 'eave' of the garage all the way across, but then we wouldn't be able to do the window there (or it would be a tiny window)

Our plans are from Frank Betz - the MacGregor :)