What a nice looking home! A few suggestions...that bush on the right of the picture is too large and too close to the house so you'd probably have to remove it to paint anyway. Keep plantings away from the house for water drainage reasons as well as aesthetics as the plants get bigger. The shutters on the house are too small....either remove or replace. To look right, shutters have to look like they actually work....when shut, just cover the window. I like the brick and would try to work with it. However, if you choose to paint the brick then consider eliminating the wall sconces and replacing with a pendant in your lovely arched porch. It will highlight the porch and the front door so much more. (I think the brick would be too hard to patch well unless painted.) It's hard to see what's going on with the front door...does that have sidelights? If not, I'd consider replacing it with a door that does....more glass and jewelry will really make that entry way a total wow! My preference is not for blue. Blue is a hard color to get right on the exterior. (Neighbors really flubbed it with their house which is now port-a-pot blue!) But it can be done if it has enough gray in it. You might go to the Certainteed website where they have a colorview area where you can select a home similar to yours and paint it different colors to see what you might like. Sherwin Williams has a color visualizer on their website that allows you to upload your own photo and try on paint colors. Benjamin Moore has their color gallery where you can select the color of your brick and then it will recommend color combos. For example if I select BM silver crest it recommends slate blue or red river clay along with the dark gray like your roof color. Here is a link that might be useful: Silvercrest

Hey you are right I think you should lighten your brick it looks better and is timeless and will bring it more up to date but I think you should lime wash it romabio has many different lime washes and natural masonry paints it allows your brick to breath and looks beautiful and it will age beautiful as well

"Ideally, a primary or entry walkway should be at least 48" wide and even wider is [often] better." I concur 100%. Another consideration in addition to sheer usability, is that a walk's width needs to coordinate with the building architecture ... size being one of those characteristics. This walk does that in that it is equal to the full width of the opening at the porch. My guess is that the walk is 5' 4". I have no arbitrary opposition to straight walks, thinking that many of them are equal to curved walks in their potential to be beautiful. From what we are shown in the picture, either seems like it could work well. It would probably only be worth the expense of changing it if a person developed a compulsion about it, as compulsions cannot be explained by reason alone.

Cons - many Pros - paint hides the fact that your home has a bad foundation. If you truly hate the color of the brick, stain it. No paint.