Thanks so much, everyone, for helping me out with your perspectives! As a next step I am going to get a landscape designer out here for a consultation. The previous homeowners were avid gardeners, and these plants are popular in the PNW (Japanese maples, rhodies & azaleas, wisteria, clematis, burning bushes, japanese umbrella pine, etc) so I hear you on your advice about being thoughtful about what to keep/get rid of. We've obviously let them overgrow to the point they are out of hand. However there is some benefit in the privacy they create - as we have one of the few acreage properties left in our (desirable) location so we want to consider how we maximize what is unique and special in our property. Appreciate your help!

Your new house looks lovely!! Love the windows and the woods - what a great buy!! I've been reviewing similar paint colors like crazy for my new house as well and looking at very similar colors to yours. I have tested so many on my walls that I have lost count!!! It is a huge investment so you don't want to mess it up right? We are also painting everything the same color walls and ceiling. Our base boards are white so we will keep those. After about a month of other renovations, I have to make a decision now. And I think I'm almost there but testing one more color - putting it on the walls tonight. Anyways, here is what I learned in the hopes of helping you.... SW and Benjamin Moore are good paints but BM is a higher quality. So to get the most bang for your buck, you should go with BM. It has higher pigmentation for the paint color to last and the consistency of the paint goes on the walls much smoother. If you get testers between SW and BM, you will see the difference. Play with sheen's - I haven't done that yet, but so many people have told me to do so. With vaulted ceilings, if you are going to paint it the same color as the walls, it will make the room warmer. It is a personal preference on ceilings white - personally, I'm not sure if we are going to like it but it will save us $700 and I decided to go with a color that will work with a ceiling if we decided to change the wall color later. Painting ceilings are a pain! Okay.... to answer your question: SW Alabaster was way too stark white for my home. I started testing BM after that and I liked Navajo White but that would require ceilings to be painted white (I decided). I am trying BM White Dove tonight which is suppose to be a universal all around good color. I even read it in the Architectural Digest as a fave. I hope it works for my home (although I'll go back tomorrow several times to test it out with the light, etc.) I also really like BM Sugar Cookie - but a lot of folks on here told me it was way too yellow. I didn't see that, but after searching online, it doesn't seem like a good choice. If I was going to go with SW, my next color to try was creamy. Paint for the trim and doors can all be the same color as your walls but with a higher sheen. Or what I read is BM Chantilly Lace is really pretty. Here's a website that I have learned so much from! https://www.kylieminteriors.ca/ But seriously, I've had the most stress picking out a paint color then anything else in our new home. I didn't hire a consultant but with contractors in our house, I don't hesitate to ask their opinion. I had a gal over from the Closet Factory and she specialized in SW with her other clients. She was a huge help in seeing how undertones work!! I almost regret not paying for someone to help but I'm spending so much money on renovations and now organizing our stuff and buying new stuff for our new home that I just really didn't want to. I'm smart - I can figure this out! Well a month later... :) All the best of luck to you and congrats on your new home!!

Read the Housetweaking blog from early 2011 through 2016/2017 or so. Dana and her husband bought an old, ugly midcentury and DIYed it into a really cool space - keeping the midcentury vibe but not being 100 percent married to it and doing it on a budget. They've moved on to a different house but all the old posts are still on the site. https://www.housetweaking.com/current-house/

For what it’s worth, a neighbor-friend on a street where I used to live put their house on the market a week or so ago, and I looked at the listing, which included a link to street view. I happen to scroll a few houses further, and I noticed that one of the houses on the street — a colonial like yours — had been ”updated” to have black windows, modern door, plain columns, sort of like picture Maureen posted. It truly looked awful, especially since the surrounding homes all still have a coherency of history about them (houses typically 100 years old on the street, not special, but just typical of an era, with variety of victorians, colonials and 4-squares). I think the people who updated their probably knocked $100k of the value, possibly more. It looked like the house had a fire or a tree fall on it, and they couldn’t afford to rebuild it to its orginal charm. HOWEVER: When I actually lived in that neighborhood I was taking a walk one day, and I passed a small group of people meeting on the sidewalk in front of a 100-yr old colonial house where the BACK SIDE of the house had been completely knocked down and rebuilt in steel and glass. I overheard the architect (who was standing right there) explain to the 2 other people) how when they toured the house, they should notice in particular blah blah — I just stood there, shamelessly eavesdropping, and when they started to walk toward the house I tagged along — I think the architect didn’t quite realize I didn’t know the other 2 women. Anyway, the back end of the house was super contemporary (it faced into a hill, so there was no problem with the all glass walls). Why don’t you leave the front of your house as is and do the back as MCM as you wannabe?