Interiors and exteriors are inextricably linked together--what happens in one impacts the other, and vice-versa. Thus to improve the exterior, your must also improve the interior.

Applying some mascara to the exterior isn't going to change the basic massing, proportions or scale. The front of your house is dominated by two garage doors and two smaller windows which you don't want to change. There's not much left to work with, is there?

I'm sorry to say your draftsman is not very experienced with design.

Thanks Virgil. I agree that we can't change the basic layout (and frankly I'm in love with the inside so I'm not willing to budge much with that unless budget wasn't an issue) but I guess I was thinking of dormers, columns on the porch, an extension on the porch roof for a more "grand entrance" or perhaps something else that I might have overlooked.

Are you totally in love with your floor plan? To the point where you're not willing to look at it further?

Raise the ceiling height and allow the window heads to be hight=r than the front door head. The overhead garage doors should have horizontal panels of a similar height. It would help if the wide door was divided into two parts. The hypnotic effect of little rectangles on the garage doors makes them the most dominant elements when they should be the least dominant elements. Don't attach a gable roof to a hipped roof especially if the eaves don't align. Iron out the kink in the roof ridge. When you pair windows leave a space between them. Add some mullions in the upper sash. Make the small windows larger or make them the same size as the upper sash of the larger windows. In other words, allow the seemingly unrelated random elements to relate to each other in a logical and proportional way.

Mr. Carter is correct; you can't do much with the outside without affecting the inside.

But there are a few things you could consider:

• I am no pro. But I would investigate putting the additional gables over the living space, not over the garage -- essentially the reverse of what you have now. It's enough that the garage doors take up about 40% of the front elevation; why let the roofline emphasize their presence?

• Depending on the material, it may be possible to paint the garage doors a color that does not contrast so severely with the rest of the house (as it does in this drawing). Some of the paint manufacturers offer Web sites which let you see what your house would look like with different colors; might be worth playing with combinations of siding and trim color to see which you like and which minimize the dominance of the garage doors without making the front of the house a monochromatic slab.

• I would be leery of adding more textures (shakes above a garage, etc.). It's not a painted-lady Victorian; it's a contemporary house. You don't want the house to look needlessly busy.

• That said, there are things you could do with color or structures or plantings to make the front door/window area stand out more as the entrance to the house. Think of it as makeup for your house -- draw attention to the good stuff and try to conceal the not-so-good.

• You could enlarge the smaller windows if you wanted to. Window coverings or glass block could take care of what you don't want passersby to see. Even in a pantry.

Just my $.02...

Thanks for the above suggestions. We have discussed raising the front windows/ceiling height, we're waiting on bids to come back to see where we are budget wise, but we're pretty confident that we're doing 10' ceilings which will allow for this. The single overhead door is taller for access for a boat/pontoon so unfortunately I can't reduce the height of that one, however it's possible if we raise the ceiling height that we could just increase the height of the double door which I feel would make it a little more aesthetically pleasing.

Steve O - I appreciate the feedback and have been bouncing your ideas with the husband. Gable to hipped, I need to go research this as I'm not even sure what they mean. We did ask him to change the roof line of the garage as we didn't care for it, maybe that was a mistake? he had it extending straight accross the garage, it made the garage look massive and really overpowered the house.

Amber - We did try to make the kitchen in the front of the house work, unfortunatley the husband will be working out of the pantry (we're extending the pantry another 3 ft to the porch so his "office" will be 6x10) and he will more than likely be working out of it for several years. He works primarily from home so a window is a must. While walking past the stove isn't necessarily ideal, we've been to several parde of homes where they do this (though typically it's to get to the master) and we haven't minded it. Unfortunatley with trying to stay within our square footage (around 2000) this was the best we could come up with and still be able to have our wants (additional family room in the back)

Are you totally in love with your floor plan? To the point where you're not willing to look at it further?

CPA - there is a lot of wants that we need to fit into this house and keep it around 2000 sq feet (large family room in back (in addition to the main livingroom), split bedroom design, open concept in main area along with an office for my husband to work out of). We do have a bigger lot this time which is helpful so I'm not maxed as far as width. We've gone to several parade of homes in local cities the past year or two and originally we thought we were going to have to be around 2200 sq ft.. We just don't want that big of a home for several reasons so I was thrilled when this worked out as far as being slightly over 2000 (we're at 2031). We wanted a large garage with extra deep on the one side, so finding a floor plan that allowed all of these items was crucial, unfortunately the outside is just not quite what I had in mind however I'm not willing to increase the budget much either so I was hoping for some budget friendly changes that would make it more curb appealing. Here's our floor plan, the only thing I'm changing as of now is bumping the pantry out into the porch another 2.5 or so feet since my husband will be using this as his office for several years until we finish the basement.

Have you considered working with a person of design talent or an architect? (Your draftsman obviously is not a person of design talent for many reasons).

CPA - I hadn't (bc of the budget thing) but I'm beginning to think it would be a wise investment given everyones feedback...

Can you turn on your messaging?

CPA - I think I sent a message, please let me know if not.

Got it and returned it. :)

can garages be turned and switched to side load?

Brian - I don't believe so, partly because we need an extra long space (35 minimum and that would be with four stalls).