You can do a lot with landscaping to create balance. Are there to be changes to entry area or just garage? Choose a color from your brick?

The front door faces the garage. To clarify, I do understand that landscaping and lighting will help but we're getting to the point of working with a contractor to add the new bay, so prefer to focus on the siding in this post. . We are only adding onto the garage, and I want to avoid it looking tacked on since we're unable to match the brick well enough. Like the new bay, the entryway is recessed, which is why I'm considering making them match somehow. Choosing a color from the brick is compounded by the variety of colors in the brick. Here are two pics, a close up and one from winter:

Here is a similar expansion project I found online. Same hip roof ranch style. They were able to match the brick but the original entryway was a different material, and that is what gave me the idea.

I think your idea to brighten the middle will help with balance. I'd also see about darkening the addition which will make it recede more. Change out or paint your garage doors so they aren't glaring white. That will help with balance as well.

If you want to save the expense of siding the middle of your house, consider white-washing that area. It will be a more subtle effect and you won't have to match siding on the new garage.

Jennifer, are you suggesting three colors then? One for third bay and another for the entryway? We'd really rather not paint, stain or whitewash the brick. This is our retirement home, and we want to keep things as maintenance free as possible.

I'd side the new garage a colour close to one of your mid to darker bricks. I'd match all the garage doors to that colour. That will be enough to tie in the addition. Then, if you want to brighten the middle area, whitewash (actually limewash) is pretty much no maintenance since it's not meant to completely obscure what's beneath. Here's a good article about it.

That's something I hadn't considered--matching garage doors to addition. Won't that make the house look darkly lopsided though?

Here are two quick and dirties. I took the garage doors from local home improvement stores to keep low maintenance.

You need darker than the light grey but lighter than the olive. And no white trim to accent the garage doors. The lightness of your addition in the 2nd mockup seems reasonable but the colour would need to be a lot less green. Perhaps something like this:

I like that. The limewash really brightens the entryway. Thanks for the ideas, Jennifer!

Did you say the brick is only on the front facade?

Yes. It is real brick according to a builder who gave us a quote. The sides are painted wood siding. I confess I'm mixed about keeping the brick.

Will you be siding the addition in the same siding and colour as the rest of the non-brick areas. Or will you be changing the colour? Brick is lower maintenance than painted wood.

Mine is the same: built in 1973 with real brick on the façade but only half-way up. I thought it may be veneer but our contractor said it was real brick.

I'm confused, Jennifer K. Everything on front is brick. That's why I was asking how to side the addition.

You said, " The sides are painted wood siding. ". That's why I asked if the addition would be sided like them. I think if you already have siding on your house, even though it's not on the front, then you'd do best to make sure all the siding on the house is the same. So that either means painted siding on the addition, or new siding on all the sided parts + the addition.

It's wood panels painted rust red. I really don't like the color but the quality is good. So no brick on sides, only on front. Same goes for new garage bay.

okay, side the entire addition with wood plank and then paint it and all the old siding a colour that you like. Your house will look cohesive because there will only be 2 finishes: brick and one kind of siding.

Thank you!