If this house is always in the shade (and if the trees are staying) as it seems to be now - lighter, brighter, and warm is the way to go. Paint the whole business SW 6658 Welcome White, or look at the SW color by family:

https://www.sherwin-williams.com/homeowners/color/find-and-explore-colors/paint-colors-by-family

Allow a good amount of time to go through colors. Also go to your local Sherwin Williams store for the brochures that show you the colors in different settings.

^Ditto to apple pie's suggestion.

If you like you could have the brick stained. See first two images.

Maybe consider going darker on the siding. You're in the woods and the house needs lots of chartreuse colored plants around it in the shade to get it to stand out.

I didn't realize you could stain brick. That could be a great option! Yes, we have a treed lot with the front facing direct North so not much sunlight :/ I would love to lighten the siding and see if that brings some charm to the house. I love the photos you sent with the hosta beds and I agree the contrast with the rich purple colors would work wonders. You are kind to take the time and answer my question Thank you!!

Elaine and Apple Pie, I like the idea of the lighter color, and Sherwin Williams is our go-to paint store! Thank you for letting me know that it would be difficult to keep up the painted brick, I really don't need more work (: I love the lighter painted houses, we moved in a hurry to get our kids settled into a school, that was over 7 years ago and now I am ready to dive into making the house as charming as possible Thank you for your wisdom.

Don't paint the brick. I agree to lighten up the trim work and add some color to the front door. People don't realize that landscaping will break or make a house from ho hum to wow. As much detail that is put into a house should also be put into the landscaping. Sorry, but your house only needs a little tweaking, but your landscaping needs a lot. You got the basic few trees and basic foundation plantings. Ho hum. I would get an landscape architect to wow your yard.

Landscaping has always been difficult for me, I go to the nursery and see a 100 plants and trees that I love. But then freeze when it is time to decide. I will have to price out a landscape company, thank you for the ideas!

If you can afford it, getting a landscaper out to give you a drawing will be super helpful. Otherwise, I’d make up your own drawing of how you’d like it to look, and do your own research on what would go well in those places. Your local garden forum on houzz should be helpful too.

There is even landscaping programs that you can play with different plant ideas for your house. There is a gentleman on Houzz that does great landscaping renderings of your house. His name is Doug. Maybe he will see this post or maybe you can repost the picture of your house with a title like "help me with landscape ". He might help if he sees it.

Think about starting small and then go from there. Painting the window trim a darker tone in the brick, wrapping the front door columns to make them look more substantial and painting the front door a brighter color (teal maybe) would be a good place to start. The next step would be to change the color of the shakes on the gables on the left side of the house. You could go lighter or darker, depending on your tastes.

At that point step back and take a while to live with this look. You might decide that the siding and the brick don't need to have anything done to them. Plus, you will have saved a lot of money by not doing things that the house really doesn't need. Some of that could be used to freshen up the landscaping.

If you're interested in seeing how some of these changes could look virtually, check my web site, Creative Visual Concepts.

This has been a wonderful source of ideas! I see homes I love but when I try to do things at mine own house I end up stalling, I think it is the concern of making a costly mistake. So I will try the virtual way first, then price a landscaper if I get stuck. Thank you again for all of your time and ideas! I will relist with a landscape question :)

When you repost don't forget your zone.

Yes that would help we live in zone 6 (NW Ohio) thank you