I love 60s ranches! Ours is built on a sloped lot, so we actually have a full walkout basement, but from the front it looks like just a one-story ranch. Anyway, how energetic are you feeling? We used to have a concrete walk that ran straight from the drive to the house like yours. We took it up and put in a flagstone walk that begins down closer to the street and curves in an 's' shape to the door. That gave me the opportunity to plant on both sides of the walk and gave us a very pretty and much more interesting entrance. We also have shade and acid soil. I have some sun in the morning over the low roof, so I keep trying cone flowers and I have a peony which is really healthy, but only get a couple of blooms each spring. They aren't fabulous, but they are surviving and the gold finches are all over the cone flowers now. Most of what I have is shade loving, though. I have hosta, azaleas, one camellia (had two, but moved one and killed it-alas), hellebores (a favorite b/c they are evergreen), liriope (also evergreen), heuchera (evergreen), astilbe, dicentra, brunnera, impatiens-annuals for summer color, cimicifuga, asarum europaen(European ginger-evergreen and really pretty ground cover for filling in around other plants)and I had tiarella (foam flower) and lamium (dead nettle), but they died. To keep costs down, check with neighbors. I got some hellebores from a friend whose plants had spread too much, people may be dividing hosta now or in the spring, and you may have neighbors who can share the liriope. I don't like the look of a walk entirely bordered by any one thing, so I have hosta, liriope, heuchera, hellebores, etc. interspersed along the border and in the bed. It makes for a nice mix of leaf shapes and textures. The astilbe will spread if you keep it moist, and tiarella and lamium spread, too, but slowly in my garden (after which it died-about as slow as you can get, I guess!!!). If there is a local garden club, join it. You will find people with lots of ideas and also, plants to share! Good luck. Have fun!

Thank you Dig Doug and Yardvaark! We typically plant impatiens in the window boxes and water daily a.m. and p.m. Not to take advantage of your skills but I would welcome ideas for improving the back side of the house too. I should have posted a better picture and can later today if you want. There is a large picture window to the right of the screen porch and a square brick patio to the left with a brick sidewalk along the garage wall to the driveway. Straight lines, nothing fancy. The large bush on the right side of screen porch is a Japanese lilac. I know it is large but it provides privacy which we like. Thanks again!

Congratulations on your new home! The landscaping design Yardvaark shows is very nice. If I were in your shoes, I would remove the shutters and paint the garage door a color that blends with the brick so the garage door doesn't pop out. I also would paint the front door an accent color to draw the focus to the front door. Please read this brief article that shows why the shutters don't work on your home: https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/residential-architecture-101-shutters/

I agree with the first two responses; the shutters aren't right and don't match the style of the house (which is nicely proportioned except the brick does come up too high - could be corrected with paint or a strip of added siding.) The lamp post, the screen door, the garage door windows, are all quasi "early American" touches so popular in the 60's and don't suit the house. Think about beefing up the trim around the window sides just a little, instead of shutters, so that the windows make a bit more of a statement & aren' lost in the siding.. You don't have room to do so at top and bottom unfortunately. Then do as the others have said. Slate-y blue is another color that I think works with the brick, but I particularly like Patricia's suggestion. Our suggestions all have one thing in common - gray tones.