First thing to do is to remove the shutters from all of your windows. The windows are too wide to have shutters.

To lead people to your front door, put in a wide walkway from the sidewalk to the front covered porch. The way the current short walkway blends into the porch and driveway now helps conceal the front entry because it is invisible until you get right up to the garage door.

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Tina, I agree with Denita on removing the shutters. I actually think they are detracting from the look of the house.

If budget is not an issue I would say move the door from it's current location to the area of brick facing the street. If budget is an issue (and when is it not, LOL) then something on that area of brick to break it up (think metal sculpture panel, wall mounted fountain, etc.).

If you change the shingles to something less orange and paint the siding a softer color then the brick is not going to be so objectionable. Fortunately the brick is a neutral so there are a number of colors that would work.

If you're interested in seeing some virtual make overs of your home check out my web site, Creative Visual Concepts. Here is a before and after of the house that got my business started, When I saw your house it made me think of this one.

Tina, just playing around with your house I found that if you remove the shutters it starts to pick up a little Mid Century Modern (MCM) look. I think you can play that up with paint and trim colors. You could do a darker color on the siding and either go dark or light with the paint on the windows. A simpler column (style wise the round fluted column doesn't work as well with the house as maybe a simple square column). Looks like the garage door is new so I would probably look at painting it the same color as the siding. It would also be simple and inexpensive to change the outside lighting to something cleaner and simpler. I think for a small amount of money you could really improve the look of the house. You already have a good yard and landscaping so you really don't need to spend any money there.

deco said what i was thinking, relocate the front door. extend the brickwork to increase the patio, invest in the landscape. id go with a dark gray roof and perhaps board and batten in a blue shade maybe.

Also Tina if you're replacing the windows I would keep the second floor openings and the one next to the front door as they currently are. On the large picture window with two double hung windows on either side, you could do four double hung windows in that opening. Based on the clean lines of your house I would not put any mullions in the windows.

If you are replacing the siding (it doesn't look that bad in the pictures) and you wanted to "play up" the MCM you could do a horizontal cedar siding.

Before you get into the expense of extending the pavers and landscaping I think you need to stop and ask yourself, "Is this an area that I am going to use, or will my primary outdoor space be in the rear of the house?" If the answer is in the back yard then use some of that money there. A also agree with not painting/staining the brick. When you do that you take a no maintenance product and turn it into a long term maintenance issue. Plus as I stated in a previous post there are things you can do to "tone down" the brick color.

Tina,

When you replace the roof make sure that the roof isn't too gray. With the color of the brick you'll want to make sure the shingles have some tan in them too. Something like this:

Yes, it's a closet behind the blank brick wall. Moving the front door to face the street is an option. Really great ideas!! Thanks everyone, greatly appreciate it!!

Here's a house with yellowish brick, siding, and a brown roof. Your style is different, but the colors here work well together.

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.