Thanks live_wire_oak - I find myself agreeing with nearly all of your style points. I don't think we realized how prominent the roof was until we really spent some time looking at it from the street. I don't think changing the roof is in the budget now (it's pretty new), but we'll definitely keep that in mind. We're both really intrigued by the suggestion of a slab door - what is that? We picked up some paint samples yesterday. Old gutters are down and the house is already looking cleaner, even without the new ones up. We picked a gutter color that is called 'wicker', and had SW mix paint to match. Here's a pic of the samples we put up. It's dim - by the time the paint had dried, this area (east facing, under covered patio) is shaded - but you see the colors we're talking about, over the green and next to the brick. Trim/gutters - light tan (color matched wicker metal gutters) Front Door - BM Currant Red (1323) Shutters (if we do -- causing marital strife) - SW Umber Brick (more marital strife - not painting though!) - 6140 Moderate White. I like the green but we compromised and are currently planning on going with the tan color -- which we color matched from the gutter color we're putting up. That will be all the trim. The dark brown we were thinking for shutters, but if we don't do shutters... Clearly we won't use it :) Would you consider using that brown to paint the aluminum visible in the picture of the front? We'll replace the windows -- they're 1966 single pane glass -- but not sure when, and we don't like the aluminum lines.(could be usable) I like your suggestion on the planters and I'll consider today a success if I can get them dug up before the Rangers game :) Melanie, I believe, on the landscape forum, suggested creeping thyme -- I think we'll do something like that to try and break the planter box line. I also like the idea of semi-circle as landscape bed. My kids aren't playing out there - too close to the busy street - and having something to break up the monotony and add curves would be great. Melanie -- thank you for explaining! I'm looking at his books on ebay now. Thank you SO much for your help here and on the other forum! You've made us like our house a lot more. Summary on what we're going to do this week: Gutters (wicker above unless someone can talk me out of it in the next day) installed, trim/fascia/sofits painted to match. Paint front door Remove boxwood in planter boxes up front Pause and evaluate.... To sum up questions: If we don't do the shutters in Umber -- which my wife wants to do, and my painter assured her it was easy to shave the raised brick to install them, what else can we do in the brown to pop? The window frames? We had a decorator come to help with color selection, and she was a strong advocate of both shutters and painted brick. My wife is still on board with leaving the brick unpainted for now, but the shutters idea has come back with a vengeance. For what it's worth, most house in the neighborhood do ... But, this decorator also suggested we call a Realtor and ask for advice, which is exactly what I DON'T want to do. I want it to look good and not offend those that know what they're looking at! We were going to paint the windows in the white color, but would the brown pop? Give us some color without having to throw up fake shutters? VERY interested in learning more about doing a copper door. We're going to paint the door and frame in that red color above - more of a magenta. Finally, what are you guys thinking about the below picture? Dim again - my photo skills aren't the best - but this is an angle shot of my back patio. Same brick, which you can see. To the left is another bay window just like the ones out front, this one into the breakfast room/kitchen. The ceiling you'll see the drywall portion is white -- and then the wood portion turns to the trim color. The decorator we had suggested we paint the same color, the moderate white, so there's not a line -- opening the space up. But the problem is, if I paint that white, I think I have to carry the white all the way around the house under the roof, meaning the wood on the underside of the roof would be white, the rest of the trim tan. (We're thinking the white above) Or -- can I just tape off a logical line somewhere and transition from white to the trim color? Or .. I can just paint the ceiling the trim color, but then it all kinda blends in. THANK YOU!

Suezbell Thank you. very good suggestions. I will definitely add another walkway -that makes sense and I never thought of that. It could easily be done with flagstone or something. Another struggle is between the house and the existing sidewalk it is such a small area. It may be too small for anything other than flowers so having a multilayer of landscaping would allow me to still put in some boxwoods or something still. I'm trying to picture the porch in front as you mentioned. It's not a bad idea. We actually have a large shared pond in back with most of our acreage being in front and side (like a piece of pie shape). We have 5 little children so we keep the play set and trampoline in front of the house, volleyball net on the side... Not ideal but keeps them safe away from the water. We have a beautiful view in the back yard with large windows and a nice screened in back porch. Just need to bring some beauty to the front of the house. Great ideas. Thank you heres is a pic of the house from the end of our driveway.

I think you're house is darling and wish that our mid century ranch had sweet details like the window with shutters on the left and the vertical, scalloped siding on the right. A wrought iron railing is perfect for your house because it's nearly invisible. In researching our own front railing I learned the design principle that you don't want your porch railing to cover up your front windows. A thick railing would be taller than your window sill height and wouldn't look right. I'm concerned you have 3-4 trees planted within 8 feet of your house. They're too close and should be removed/moved. Retro renovation is a good resource for houses like yours. Here's one article about curb appeal. https://retrorenovation.com/2009/04/10/17-ideas-to-add-curb-appeal-to-your-40s-50s-or-60s-house/ I would not do wooden planks unless you intend to remove all mid century character inside and outside. They don't jibe with the original details of your home. This color scheme is what inspired the color on my own home. I thing it would look good on yours as well:

It looks like the landing area needs some work, but I will leave that for other better qualified people to comment on. My first impression was those awful white downspouts on the front of the house. You should consolidate those downspouts so that you end up with one long run of gutter across the front and one downspout the Left End where it is less noticeable. It's an inexpensive job and would make a big Improvement visually. I did this on the back side of my house where four small downspouts were consolidated into one larger one. (This not only looked much better but it made it easier for me to route the water away from the house, since my neighbor's driveway is only a few feet away on that side.) If it were my house I would paint the downspout to blend in better with the house color.