Wow, I'm amazed by all the helpful ideas and comments! It took me a while today just to process everything - thank you, everyone, so much! I went to the local nursery today and bought some morning glory seeds to run up the front posts. Roobear - I LOVE the drawing you did!! And I love the look of those front posts; they are definitely going on the "wish" list if we can fit them in the budget, maybe for next summer. For now, we're going with some vines. Thank you so much for taking the time to do that picture; it really made me see the possibilities! Did I mention I LOVE it?! I'll either do a trellis around the meter box, or possibly get a nice tree to plant on the other side of the walk to hide it from the street, as rosie suggested. We dug down around the concrete walk tonight, and it goes down several inches...too far to break up with just a sledgehammer - we tried. So, instead of going through the expense and hassle of moving the walk, I think we'll just have to leave it. I'm also going to get a tree of some kind to place on the opposite side of the house (left side when facing from the street), and expand the front garden out and circle around it. Hopefully that will give some dimension to the front. I also love the red door in roobear's pic. I would not have chosen red if I hadn't seen that visual; it's nice how it makes the door a focal point. Thank you all again - in two days you gave me more ideas here than I've come up with in a year. I'll try to post some pics once we put things together!

I'm not helpful about colors but just wanted to say to not worry too much about breaking from the dominant colors in the neighborhood. Maybe everyone else is feeling like they'd like something different, too, but are too afraid to break out. You may start a trend!

Weathered Wood roofs look very nice with greige/taupe colors. Don't go too grey, instead lean a little more to the khaki side of green/gray by incorporating more brown in the color. Take a look at Sag Harbor gray HC-95 or Clarksville gray HC-102. When you try a swatch on the house paint it high enough to see with the roof color. Don't worry about the center color of the painted brick until you settle on the main color. Just some ideas, hope it helps. Very nice house and beautiful yard!

I would take the shutters off. Get rid of the window boxes. Paint all the trim, the garage gable singles and the porch ledge white. Add some foundation plantings, but not too close to the house, on the two wings on either side of the main house.