The formal living room will not be used very often. I'd like to have it a bit separate from the rest of the business of the house for a few reasons: 1-my husband sometimes has informal board meetings for non-profit organizations at the house. 2-my MIL stays with us for around 6-7 months every year and it's a nice place for her to sit and have tea with her friends 3-dads usually retreat to the formal living during gatherings when they want to have their serious discussions (ie: sports, politics etc...) The dining room is used mostly for: 1-older kids HW 2-projects 3-formal dinner parties So I don't really mind if these 2 areas aren't well-integrated with the rest of the house. The major bustling will be from the garage to family room, kitchen, game room, stairs and bedrooms. I also wanted the kitchen to be in the corner of the house so that I could open windows and air out after cooking. Also, we have a 15' easement in our backyard so we needed to pull the pool into the building line so that we could build a pool enclosure around it. My 4 daughters will have the 2 bedrooms to the left of the house and my 3 sons will have the 2 bedrooms at the center front of the house, and our master bedroom tucked away in the corner back. So this is how the floor plan played out keeping all those factors in mind.

Your realtor is giving bad advice, leave the brick alone, you will disappoint the diehard MCM buyers. Your eye goes to light colours first, so leave all the trim especially at the roofline light, no black. If it was my home, I would consider painting the walls a warm taupe/grey, it has to work with the roof color, the brick and the mortar. Choose your colors carefully, you should hire a color expert to be on site. Or don’t paint at all, leave it to the buyer. Maybe the wood at the entry can be restored. Please don’t change anything that is authentic. This example photo shows how the wall and carport support was painted a color to work well with the brick.

Your house has nice proportions, very nice walkway and lamps by the doors, etc. I agree the color of the front door could be improved. Brick color is okay. The "y" pieces at the top of your columns are odd -- could you simplify them to be more plain white, straight up and down?, such as these: For your landscaping, do you want to maintain the shrubs in their rounded form -- that means trimming them every year. If so, they're okay; and the edging looks nice and neat. I'd tuck in a few tulips or daffodils around the feet for a bit of early color. If you want more help with landscaping a picture from a bit farther back would help people get an overall sense of your front yard.

i've shown you many, many pictures. of course white would work. you haven't said which of those styles in the pictures you like. or what else you'd like to do in the room. do you view all of the pictures in both of my comments? any of those you like best? I like these if you want to keep the white brick. the shelving on the sides are paramount to the overall look I would do a diff mantle, something slighting darker than what you currently have. Can you do something like this built ins? I gave you a bunch of examples and a tutorial you can try. get a black firebox insert (or paint yours) This is a white mantle, but the reclaimed wood one would also work. (look at how this picture is style w/color and textures. this is how you get away w/doing a plain white wall,,,,,color through other items in the room) if you can't do built ins, then get some simple white shelves (or paint some raw wood ones) and install them like this: You could do the black hearth if you want to go w/black contrast (see further down) (get a solid piece cut to fit, or, take a look at large Basalt tiles and cut those to place on the hearth. you should only need 2 or 3 of them (18" or 24" size tile) I also like this black. what do you think about all white walls, your rug, a darker brick color, and these other elements? what if you did the white, darker wood mantle, and a black accent wall (and do the others in white) (diff stone, ) But what do you think of this look? I think you have a similar bench. just get two sofas that face each other, some art for the mantle, two match chests or cabinets for the black wall (you could even do the angled black shiplap if you like) some lights, accessories. or, try painting the brick black (or charcoal, navy, gray,) , white walls (do a better wood mantle that goes all the way across) do black brick on the bottom part, and a white MDF top portion that covers the brick (like the other pics I posted earlier) Then you could decorate like either of these Or, if you rather would have the white brick, here's plenty of design options. just pick one of these photos you like and copy everything! very white, boho type of look. Exact same fireplace. get this type of wood mantle (doesn't have to be quite this thick, but just make it look like this) Style like any of these pictures that I've posted. White brick? try these items in the room Furniture options. How about a nice deep navy or forest green accent wall w/the white brick? Here's a nice blue like BM Gentlemans Gray or Newburge Green Pair it w/a leather sofa. (Try Article Sven Sofa) looks great w/the white brick and thicker mantle! another blue wall shot Here's your room size w/the forest green (imagine your white brick all the way up) This is modernized. Love this