Paint the supports under the window -- match the shutters or the brick. If you paint the front door, choose the green or the red of the brick. Plant 3+ same-sized good-sized bushes under the window to camouflage the window supports. Hydrangeas? (These can be had from a friend with overgrown hydrangea hedge.) Turn the corner for about 6 more feet with more of these bushes if you can afford it--will expand the width of the house visually. If you had a line of these beyond the back door parallel to the street that stops the eye before it goes from driveway down the hill at back you would also add some definition. Flower boxes on the small windows will simply look like there's a gardener who needs to be on tippy toes to water them. From street, you will look UP at them, not straight into them. Instead, cover the expanse of brick on that side of house from foundation up, not from the windows down. Plant larger, taller bushes on the left side of photo along the front of the house where the land slopes downward--arborvitae or other tall evergreen? Something with a pale bark and great silhouette that will outline itself against the red? Existing plantings in this area are much too minimal. If you use annuals, only use one major type or stick to one major color so that there is a strict pattern that is definable to observers. Consider pink if the brick has a maroon tone. "Knock-out" pink roses? Whites would look great against a brown-orange brick color. Tall cannas? green/white hydrangeas? white potentillas? Create a small garden between the house and the city sidewalk to give the lot depth but it's important not to make an "eyebrow" or odd shape but instead an organic shape that fits the existing features. A cluster of 3 different shrubs with contrasting leaves and bark, with one having a very chartreuse leaf? You could include the existing sapling tree in this garden. But...you also need a defined walkpath from driveway to front door. You may need to change the plantings you have on the slope in order to make the front door very inviting for those approaching from driveway side of house. If you create a sidewalk or formal path here, create some kind of tall perennial or shrub hedge on outer side of the walk from driveway to step, to give the yard more depth and definition. If you buy a tree, get the largest one you can afford. A line of hostas that follows the city sidewalk along the boulevard side of the sidewalk would also give the house some width and the lot some defintion. Consider painting the front steps white. If you use flower pots, get large ones in white, but don't put any more on the steps except on either side of door. White half-curtains in lower part of each window on 3 sides of house would add coordination. If you get honeycomb or other blinds, choose bottom-up type and leave them at half-mast during the times you don't want sun gain in daytime. This is a darling house and I wish you a great time in it!

First, do no harm. Don’t add any unnecessary gee gaws. Simple is better. Clean up the landscaping after construction has taken place. Second would be a bath in a porch doesn’t sound like the best idea. Old enclosed porches aren’t built up to residential standards. The foundation may not be sufficient, and the insulation levels are likely to be virtually nonexistent. Frozen pipes is s big headache to deal with.

A portico can be done, but your clearances are tricky and flashing will be important to make sure it doesn't leak. Here is the portico I added to your home. A lime wash on your home would be better than paint. You can control how much to apply for a more opaque appearance.

Your shutters are fine and look original to the house- and I think house loses something by removing them By early 1900s and certainly by midcentury theyve become merely a decorative element - think about it - who in the last 2 centuries has actually needed to close up shutters on their house! Look instead at design of the house - do they serve a good decorative function, and I think answer inyour case is yes. They add emphasis to the windows, and the balance of the large window on the left and two smaller on the right is pleasing to the eye. Sometimes internet claims are repeated so often that they take on a life of their own. This is not to say that there arent some houses with ridiculously small strips of shutters just way too wimpy and out of scale with the grandeur of the house- or sometimes the placement of the windows is weird so you dont want attention drawn to them. Yours is not like that. Yours is a modest smallish (but totally adorable) house so decorative elements should be keeping in scale with that. For that same reason, if you should do a portico take care that it doesnt look too massive or out of scale. The pitch or angle of the portico roof should be same as rest of house which in this case is pretty darn flattish. It shouldnt be, or look taller than the rest of the house. Oh - one more reason to remove shutters is the house is just way too MCM (with emphasis on the "modern") so the shutters just look ridiculous. Not every original feature is worth keeping and 1970s in particular had many houses where the shutters just are way too out of character with the extreme horizontal lines of the house. Again yuor house isnt like that - it is a ranch, but that is not same thing as or synonymous with "mid century modern." it still has some traditional features - eg multi-paned windows - I would guess late 1940s- 1950s? I would just enjoy the house for now and focus on landscaping as others have said.