We just bought a house with lots of issues (roof, plumbing, electrical, poorly done renovations, bad siding, etc.) and I would say unless you are prepared to do a LOT yourselves, you would definitely need far more than the difference between this house and the turnkey one to do the work. We are probably in a much more expensive market than you are (based on that house price) and we are paying about $25K just for the roof, because the previous roof was failing and there was a TON of damage to wood underneath that needed to be replaced -- original quote was for $14K before the old shingles came off! This is a moderately priced roofing job, we could have gone cheaper but we only want to do a roof once. Redoing our wiring is going to cost ~$10K, plumbing ~$5K. We're doing all the demolition and plan to do drywall and finishing ourselves, otherwise those would be higher. Siding is a HUGE expense -- around here it runs at least $15K to re-side a house. We're putting down a new slab floor in the unfinished basement and that will be around $4K. $250 per dumptruck load (and we've filled three already). Anywhere from $700-$3000 for new water heater, depending on whether we go tankless. Then there are the multitude of "smaller" expenses, like replacing some of the windows (previous owner put vinyl windows meant for a stucco house on one with wood siding), someday refinishing the floors, laying a new patio, extending the deck, interior paint -- it all adds up! We figure it will cost us at least $150K to get the house to where we want it (spread over many years) but it will still be far less than we would have paid for a turnkey house in the same neighborhood. Hope that's somewhat helpful!

I wouldn't call this a real Tudor, more a mish-mosh with some Tudor trim. That is why it doesn't look "right" to you (or me). Half-hearted gables, the door is wrong and lacks importance, it altogther seems not graceful. If you don't want to pull off the faux half-timbers, you could paint them out -- make them fade into the overall siding. You need to decide which direction you want to go -- I think there might be things you could do to "fix" the Tudor look to an extent -- changing the dark paint in the gables would be a start, maybe adding another texure (stone or brick) around the door area. As many have mentioned above, the right color scheme can make a huge difference. My inclination would to go in a direction that might suit the overall shape of the house a bit better though. Your roof's shade of brown is not a bad one and can work with several greens, blues, reds and, of course, neutrals including a few grays. You are lucky that you can paint which gives you infinite color choices. If you don't want the color to pop too much because you are close to the street, choose a muted tone. There are lots of gray- blues, blue-grays, green-grays that would lighten up the house but not be too strong.

Thank you all for the suggestions so far! I am including a picture of the side of the house. Would you suggest continuing the look of stucco on top and vertical or horizontal siding on the bottom around the sides and back? We are not able to locate a match to the brick or stone from the 1980s. Should we keep with the dark brown for the siding and the trim color? The house feels very dark to me on the outside. Maybe that is ok?

Thanks everyone for the suggestions! After seeing some of the suggestions I agree that keeping it traditional will look best, and lightening the color of cream to not be so buttery would be a great improvement. I love the first photo from celery girl and also the modern feel of LL's exterior in sealskin color. I also like Kathy's cream color suggestion- Kathy- any idea what color that is? Also, I was not joking about the red door for an additional pop and modern touch to the traditional exterior. Any suggestions for door colors would be appreciated too. :)