Just scanned through the other ideas and thought I would comment as I have done quite a bit of problem solving on contemporary buildings before. A basic prinicipal is to make a clear decision on the style and refine this down to two possible options which could work ncely for the design. The first is to go minimal and discreet. This could be achieved by installing a high strength steel box section with attachment clips at either end to fix it in place. The other option in contrast to that, which could work well is to oversize the column with timber posts as discussed earlier this could be clad with with a thin sheet steel profile to match the rest of the house possibly powder coated to water seal it. Sounds like an interesting project I will be interested to see some as built photos. There are more ideas like this on my website www.plan-and-build-a-house.com

Insofar as arts & crafts style meant honest materials/ design your heavy 6x6 newels/guardrails are fine. By honest materials, I mean shingles and heavy timbers that aren't ashamed about what they are. 20 years previous, Victorians embraced the idea of all forms of sham and pretense. The porch posts were more like table legs writ large. The popular furniture style du jour was expended into the porch, the cornice, and the dormers! If a material could be tortured into a convoluted shape by saw or blade, it was. Or they cast it in plaster and tacked it on. Was it supposed to be emulating ancient stonework? then paint wood it and embed the surface with sand! Instant faux-stone. Things would not always (if ever?) be what they appeared. A&C was a reaction against this, and timber and shingle and natural lines without artifice and pretension were embraced. Your little bungalow is a simple expression of an honest ideal. "Let things be what they are". They _did_ like to use oversize elements, especially on the porch. Think of the huge pyramidal rounded fieldstone piers, and knee-braces and timbered gable decorations. Brutalism is something else entirely. It's about raw unfinished (and intentionally roughened) concrete surfaces. Not 6x6 porch railings. I grew up in a 1938 house that was sort of a stone cape cod and adirondack lodge combo. It had a third-floor interior balcony/catwalk enclosed with 4x6 white pine rails and 6x6 newel posts. Woodsy, but not brutal. The stair treads were solid 6x10's. I should scan the construction photo album from that place some day... Casey

Yes those V shaped things at the top of your post should be removed. It shouldn't be difficult. Your hanging baskets need to hang lower. Go to your big box store and have them cut you some heavy chain in about 1 to 1 1/2 ft length to lower the baskets. Most baskets need to be watered at least every 2 days, some times every day depending on the weather. Also once a week submerge the whole basket in a bucket of water and let it sit for a half an hour to an hour to re-dehydrate the soil. I like the idea of a yellow front door and yellow flowers. It is only paint. Tell the hubby if he doesn't like it, it can be repainted. Take him with you when you go pick out the paint and have him pick out 3 yellows he likes and then you choose between them. That way he has a stake in the color. If you don't like any that he picked out just buy the color you like and wait a few week to paint. Then when he says it doesn't look the same just tell him it is hard to visualize a color from a little paint chip. Lucky me my husband lets all the decorating up to me. If it was up to him he would buy a 5 gallon bucket of white paint and paint everything in and out the same.

The shapes, proportion and scale of the house in the photo are very challenging. The house is symmetrical, but the gable in the center does not have the same shape, pitch or fascia detail. The proportions of the house make adding a porch form (roof) challenging, as PPF suggests. Finally the scale of the porch and any columns should be sympathetic to the rest of the house. The columns in the first photo are much too small, while those in the second and third photos are much to bulky. A very careful study is need to see if and how a sympathetic porch may be added. If it was my house, I might be looking at a horizontal arbor or trellis type porch with appropriate detailed and scaled columns, rather than any sort of pitched roof. Google porch trellis or arbor for ideas. Good luck on your project.