The only shutters on the front of your home which fit properly are the garage windows. All the others do not fit properly and exacerbate the fact the windows are not lined up. tTake them off and paint the front door the dark gray.

Hello Judy! Sorry, I believe the reason the shutters look off is because of the way the photo was taken! I was to the side of the house a bit....I can take a new photo if you'd like! I never even thought about it when I was taking the picture!

It isn't the camera! The shutters look off because they are not suitable for double windows. Black windows would take you in the modern farmhouse direction.

http://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/residential-architecture-101-shutters/

Beefier posts and railing would improve the top heavy look of the house.You may actually be able to do without the railing if code doesn't require it. Continue pulling out the clumpy hedges and redo the landscaping to be open, airy and more natural. Try to avoid straight lines and rows of marching plants.

I disagree with the shutter removal proclamation. While the garage shutters are proportionately better, removing the others would make the house look plain, less interesting and sickly.

What jumps out to me as needing the most improvement are the toothpicks that are holding up the upper story. They look as if they should have snapped into long ago. Then, they are painted as if to make them partially disappear. I think it would be better to have much beefier columns, and fewer of them. If you could respace to 4, they would not need to compete with windows or cover them. If they held up a really nice beam at the base of the upper floor, that would be upgrade, too.

And, of course, there is a need for generally improved landscaping.You have nothing now but a bush.

When you get around to considering landscaping issues, submit a scene of slightly overlapping photos that are taken about half the distance closer than the above photo, Pan the camera to include peripheral space that is beyond the ends of the house. If there are neighboring houses visible, we should see them in the scene. (All those photos should be taken from a single camera viewpoint, not with the camera changing locations.

There is a “shutter law” which is so important if the home owner is striving to make the home as attractive as possible..

Properly installed shutters are very important to the curb appeal of your home. Poorly designed shutters will detract from the appeal.Just like windows or soffits or columns or trim, the shutter is part of the exterior design of the home. Shutters were a functional and important addition to a home in the early Colonial days and were not used as decoration to make a house look cozy or cute.

Boninicole, with all the gables and and roof lines of your home, it gives off such a farmhouse feel. You can investigate “white farmhouses” here on houzz, and see for yourself how shutters removed would add to the charm of the house.

Anyone interested in reading why authentic looking shutters are important, this article explains the ins and outs of sizing and installing and why some shutters will add to the look and some shutters detract from the look.

http://www.oldhouseguy.com/shutters/

As your house is not a historic or true period home, you may do as you please with the shutters without fear of being arrested.

Saying that there is a "shutter law" but not saying what it is, is not enough to convince me. To my thinking, it's primarily a question of art, not history. If one wants to live in the past, they should get rid of their electric lighting and replace it with gas lamps and torches, too. Many things in our contemporary life contemporary life cannot be as grand as some things in the past, but that does not mean they are categorically without value.

Thanks for all the comments on the shutters everyone, but I think they're going to stay put as we like the way they currently look, but we were more wanting some opinions on the door and the porch! Love the landscaping Idea you added, Dig Doug's Designs! Does anyone have any comments or suggestions to add to that?

The shutters are bad. They don't suit the windows and they date the house. Removing them would be a vast improvement.

Aside from that, more substantial columns on the porch and landscaping.

Bononicole, I don't see that you reacted to comments about the underwhelming columns.

Thanks for the reminder! I meant to add that in my last comment and forgot :)

Definitely agree they need to be beefier....just not really sure how to/ what to do to make them better exactly! Can you get bigger columns that would wrap around the existing columns to make them bigger or would you have to redo the entire porch? Sorry, not very handy with things like this so don't know how to go about it! Pictures would certainly be handy to help me envision this! Thank soo much for everyone's comments - appreciate it a lot!

As for the shutters again, they may date the house, but taking them off does slightly lessen the farmhouse feel and this house, I think, really needs to keep that considering where it is located!

Also, should have added that we took the shutters off so we could paint them about a month ago and we had a lot of comments from neighbors that they thought the house looked a lot better with shutters! I think it just gives it a bit more character...it doesn't have a lot of neat architecture that you can see from the outside!

Well I think someone better get the shutter police to my major city, because 95% of the people are breaking the shutter law. OH my how does anyone sell their homes around here with such ugly curb appeal. Bonninicole, keep the shutters, beef up the columns and your home on my monitor looks black and while, both neutrals so paint the door any color of your liking. Remember if you don't like the color you can always re-paint it.

Beefed up columns and landscaping. A discussion about shutters is like a discussion about politics. Talking doesn't seem to change anyone's opinion, so I'll leave that one alone.

This forum is about helping solve dilemmas, Keep in mind, I am responding to Boninicole and her post. Simply put, there is the right way to install shutters and a wrong way.. If one chooses not to take advice offered, that’s fine. But, I find it perplexing that commentators find the need to ridicule accurate information.

As for “Shutter Law”? That is Stacey’s term.

Actually, the discussion about shutters IS a discussion of politics, just not by the government type. There are people advocating a POLICY of shutter removal, unless one's shutters comply with someone's vision of perfection.

"I find it perplexing that commentators find the need to ridicule accurate information." This highlights the problem. The information may be accurate in your mind and in others' (as there is a fad going on now about this) but there are many who disagree with the information and for valid reasons. There are many who thought that Karl Marx's paradigm of economics was infinitely superior, but the test of time has proved them wrong.

(@functionthenlook ... your comment had me chuckling.)

One could argue that these are not shutters in the first place, as they serve no functional purpose other than to mimic the appearance of a shutter.

shut·ter

noun

noun: shutter; plural noun: shutters

1. each of a pair of hinged panels, often louvered, fixed inside or outside a window that can be closed for security or privacy or to keep out light.

There are some "columns" that are made to fit over existing posts, but whether they would work and be the best for your house is something you'd just need to explore. In most cases, they are replaced/swapped and there are probably many more style options in that type. A flat-out replacement would not be that difficult so that's the route I'd go. What you're looking for may be called posts. I'm thinking something in the 6" to 8" width .... not 4" or 10".

I also meant to mention that I'd do away with the railing. It makes your porch look like a bit like a cage ... confining. There's no practical need for it. It's the kind of porch that's an access point for the house in its entirely. Consider adding paving in front of it and redesigning the walk so it works. A pair of rocking chairs or a bench at each side might make it seem like less wasted space.

PS: that was a good point, Smitrovich.

Much better without the railing in my opinion.

Yardvaark’s rendition looks great. Evenly spaced, beefed up columns, no railing and kept shutters. Very nice.

I like yardvaark's rendition a lot! Taking off the railings would open it up and make it look better...good suggestion!

Spend your budget on the kind of landscaping plan Dig Doug suggests then shutters, posts, etc. won't matter at all. You'll need a local pro to help you implement a similar plan with native plantings. What's brilliant about Dig Dou'gs design is that it adds curves and softness to the many angles of your house. He's a genius!

BTW, I enlarged and slightly shortened shutters. (Not perfectly. It's an "eyeball" process.)

Here is a picture looking out from the front porch of our home. We were working there last night and the sunset was beautiful so I snapped a picture! You can see there are a lot of trees already on the property so didn't know if that would change anyone's ideas for landscaping. As much as we loved Dig Doug's idea, having a tree there would block this view so maybe a bush could replace this?!

Here are some more photos of the house. Hopefully this will help...I think Yardvaark had asked for more a while ago!

Also, we just found out that we will be having to replace the door entirely as it isn't closing properly! Any suggestions?

some ideas

These recent additions don't really advance the information for me. though I see Doug has been able to use them.