Thank you for all the great ideas! We're definitely going to go with a wood door and I can see that removing the shutters completely is a good idea, although I wonder if I could get away with just one pair in the larger window. I do want to get away from the brown though and go with a lighter color (maybe light taupe) for the entire house (including the parts painted brown). My husband would like to put some scallops up there like some other houses in the area have. We plan on replacing the wood fence with a brick wall. I'm also trying to talk him into adding a "porch" by replacing the bushes in front of the house (which are old and woody) with brick and putting a trellis in that area designed to look porch-like. I've seen some in the neighborhood that look really nice. Thanks again for the comments and suggestions!

Thank you all for your suggestions. Love the posts but the modifications they would entail are way out of budget. I will take yarvaarks drawing to the nursery when the time comes and try to incorporate her ideas with something that will work with our western exposure and winter climate. We have gotten quotes for paint and walk replacement and that will be where the bulk of our budget will go. The front gable will be resided in the same cedar shakes as the house and painted the same color as the body of the house. The shutters will be replaced with a panel style The house will be painted with SW Duration. The tentative colors are: The body of the house SW Hardware The doors SW Copper Wire. The trim white. The shutters and black. The walks will be Thechnobloc blue 60. Chaplain Grey Yes we are keeping the shutters (but not on the bay window) the vast majority or houses similar to ours in our area have shutters and the house will bare without them.

Next time you paint, consider a different scheme. Where the house and trim are both white, there is not enough contrast to add much visual interest ... at least not near as much as there could be. I think it would be much nicer if the house were grey, like the shutters or garage door, and the trim was white. If the house was grey, they shutter could become dark accents. The landscape is the standard builder's landscape that is somewhat high maintenance, with a lot of trimming. If not well maintained, they are able to engulf the house front. If we grew it out, it could look something like this: To be able to make good suggestions, we need better pictures, from a different vantage point. With camera in hand, stand ON the curb. If in the viewfinder you can't see from some of the yard all the way to the roof, turn the camera sideways and use the vertical format. Be lined up with the center of the house. Take a series of slightly overlapping pictures that pan from far left to far right ... far enough that we see the neighboring houses in the background, as your landscape should be responding to the neighbors' landscapes. Then go across the street and capture another scene. This one will include both front corners of the yard. If you need to pan the camera and take overlapping pictures in order to get the corners in, that's fine.

I just really love those colors @Jess Whisner, the aqua door and the soft shades on the house, and they don't look like anyone else's house. I also think the green lawn color does very well with those. What might be tricky is getting the paint shades so they go together well, but a Benjamin Moore (or similar) store might be able to help you get a pretty combination. Do you have budget for more of a little porch and some wider steps, as in your sample photo? There'd be room for some bright hanging baskets, too. ******** On the shutter question.... There's no fact that legislates how you should/must/have to/couldn't possibly not do shutters on your home. Indeed, certain periods of American architecture do have a shuttered style like yours, and yours is entirely in keeping with the 1960's, whether the Architectural Digest or some designers on this forum like it or not. For an 18th century colonial home in New England, I'd want to do shutters that fit the windows, because that was functional and not merely decoration. These shutters kept wind and storms out because glass was much thinner, and there were no storm windows. That's my opinion, but it also is a matter of historical verisimilitude.