This was a great thread and detroitnate did a great job. If it were my house, before I did any planting I would have widened those steps and the walkway. Every picture in the series I focus on those tiny little steps and want to rip them out and redo. I've read that the main walkway leading up to a house should be wide enough for two people to comfortable walk side by side, that rule of thumb seems just about right to me. You want people to be invited into your house with the walkway, not forced into a single file line.

If you are just going to be putting the house on the market, then I would be very cautious about making any significant changes to the exterior. I can pretty much guarantee that what you think are improvements and updates will not be the same as the potential new owners have in mind and they will rip it all out to make it their own. And unless you are prepared to put in a fully designed and professionally installed landscape, you are not going to realize any sort of decent return on your investment. IOW, the money you put in to redoing the exterior you will not realize back as an increased sale price. Focus your attention on the interior. The best and least expensive route is just a thorough clean up of all the outside areas - mowing, edging, weeding, any pruning requirements and fresh layer of mulch (non-dyed mulch!!) Everything must look very clean and tidy and well-maintained. You can warm things up a bit and make it look more welcoming and appealing with a couple of seasonally planted containers on the porch and steps, a new door mat and some decor on the porch - a couple of chairs or bench and side table, a small area rug and maybe some art piece or something to hang off that broad expanse of empty siding. Make it look used, not forgotten.

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.

Thanks so much for all the comments! They have been great at helping me think of options I had not considered at all. You all are great to share your thoughts and ideas! I've been trying to get more pictures in better light, which has been challenging. I am also posting a few pics of the side and back of the house. There are shadows in the pics, but they seem unavoidable. The brick is interesting - depending on the light, it can look quite different Sometimes it takes on a pinkish hue, while other times it is more terra cotta and other times more brownish in color. And the brick is darker closer to the ground and lighter higher up. Based on your great ideas, I am now leaning towards a conservative approach and considering changing the paint colors only for now and see how that works (and still replace the roof, which is a necessity). I realize that if painting and making other changes doesn't turn out the way I would like, I can always go back and reconsider more major approaches like painting the brick and/or enlarging windows. I had been riding around town, looking for houses with painted brick, trying to get ideas. I'm including here a picture of a house I saw and liked. While it is a far different (and more attractive!) style than mine, I noticed that its' color isn't too different from our brick. That has lead me to consider the possibility of painting the area between the windows to be almond, matching the windows, and also to use the almond color in all areas that are currently painted the color that was trying to match the brick. And then use black for the trim where I currently have teal If I were to just change paint colors (and not paint brick or change windows), I am thinking of something like the picture below. I would really like to have more of the accent color on the front of the house. I originally felt I couldn't have shutters because of the window placement, but now I am wondering if it is a possibility after all. I would love to hear your thoughts on possibly adding some shutters after all. Sorry that the colors aren't great, but I was trying to best be able to try on some various Sherwin William colors. I'm including one more picture - this one before we took down the foundation shrubs a few days ago. We anticipate having a new substantial foundation planting, just not as straight across as this was and not as overgrown. We will have a variety of different plant types and different plant heights also. I realize that the plants will make a big difference. We do plan to remove the vines currently growing on trellises on the house, once we get the new planting done. Left them up just for now. I really appreciate the suggestion to move the planters down (getting rid of all our big shrubs makes things look very different!) And I like the idea of adding a flower box on the areas to the side of the entrance, but they would only look good here for about half the year, I'm afraid. That did get me thinking about the possibility of having a rectangular accent piece of scrollwork in those areas instead. I would appreciate any thoughts you have about these possible paint colors (without painting the brick, at least for now) as well as possibly adding shutters. Also possibly adding scrollwork pieces on the two sides of the entrance. Again, thanks so much for all of your great input! It is so much help to me!