I'm embarassed to post this it looks so awful. The front porches look a lot better, at least they are all straight tho missing some rails and skirts. We are also removing the narrow aluminum corner pieces and replacing them with appropriately wide wood or wood composite boards which we will paint dark brown. (Dark brown, light brown which you see onthe two windows to the left of the porch, and dark green are our trim and accent colors. Not sure what to paint the doors yet.) Thing to the right of the back door is a water heater which will be going down to the cellar. The main steps are on the leftt side, 2nd steps currently on right. Plan is to move 2nd steps to right hand side of the back, to go down into the yard. My dh removed the cheap skirts so the crooked support posts are exposed. I don't know where the yellow on the eaves came from. Its there in real life, guess its the sun!

How about going a few notches up on the chip from the cream white trim to a light tan/brown. It would match well with the siding and the door IMHO. Its hard without seeing pictures of the house.

We've removed the old dark brown tile we had on the porch and will be replacing it with...?? My husband wants to put slate on the front porch. I don't see it working with our brick. Do you know of any color slate that would compliment the brick? I'm open for any ideas (paint, stone, porcelain, ??) but don't want it too dark. The structure style is ranch. As you can see, we're in the country (Texas). My *visualizer* hasn't recovered from the huge remodel of 07...I need help! (lol) Thanks, Monica

@groveraxle the photo visual with the same color treads as the siding is great! @sammy, your pics as well with the plants running up the stairs (or the flanking mini tree idea) are great visuals from the previous conversations and two very economical ways to get this off your mind for now (as it is clearly bothering you regardless of next year's plans :) and have a lovely effect. Next year will come fast enough but you never know, you might decide to spend that money elsewhere first such as your roof plans for example, and other porch details that will inspire what you ultimately want to do with the steps. Perhaps in your future project (although it's hard to tell from the photos), if the driveway is to the right of the home, you may want to "L" shape the stair wall on the left and along the sidewalk in front (with some room for a planting bed along the sidewalk wall). That will feel far more private when on the porch, and boost your curb appeal. Additionally those mini walls could serve as the railing required by code. Alternately you could just butt right up to the sidewalk, save yourself the steep enough expense of ripping up the concrete and build (level) right over it, which also gives you "flat rail' surface to put planters, or to build a planter on top (mind the water issues so do this properly to avoid rot down the road), and plant various varieties that will hang down over the front to take away the 'hard' look of that wall if you choose to go that way. Let us know what you decide to do and good luck!