If you are going to the trouble of adding 8" overhangs, is there anyway you can add a peaked porch over the front door too? It's always nice to offer shelter to guests. Then you can have some porch posts to make the trim more important. You can add a pendant light fixture, maybe wooden benches on either side....it opens up lots of possibilities. And if you really want to do it, then add some dog house dormers to the roof above too.

{{!gwi}}

On our house, we matched the gutter color to the soffit and trim color so they "disappeared".

I like Annie's idea. I don't know how much money you are willing to spend to get it done right, but if it were me, as I have a university with an architecture school nearby, I would be willing to call the school and ask for some starving student who would do it for $100 plus his supplies and time to draw me up a plan.

They need the experience and many of them are willing to do it but no one asks and many just don't have the money to buy the supplies without a stipend of some kind. They come from varied backgrounds where brains and talent are in large supply but money is nowhere to be found.

Is it the angle of the photo or does the pitch of the roof on the front seem shallow for a cape style house?

jirpel, do you have a second story? A shed dormer in the back?

I completely agree with Annie above, that was pretty much what I was thinking when I read the thread. The cost of a new roof and gutters with cantilevered out overhangs will be in the 20K range, adding the dormers over each front window will be about another 10% and add space upstairs for future remodel.

The value of the house as it is should be taken into account before you do anything, though. In neighborhoods with lots of 1940's homes, there sometimes is a shortage of larger homes for growing families and anything you can do to make the home larger and maintain character has a payback on resale.

In the house I posted above, they don't have deep overhangs, so maybe you can skip them and do the porch instead....I think it would add more value and curb appeal....

Thanks for the ideas. We actually were going to do a front porch as suggested. Have the plans and got the building permit. However, had to scale back the plans as some of the money we set aside went towards our kitchen renovation. I figure we can add the porch at a later time but the overhangs need to be done with the roof. And with the roof now developing a small leak we could not wait.

Yes the roof has a shallow pitched roof for a cape 6:12 but with the high knee wall on the second floor we have enough roof for 2 bedrooms on the second floor with a shed dormer on the back.