I also thought about pulling up the green shrubs and replacing them with hyrdangeas (white)

Its finally over. We closed the deal! Getting through the financing was pretty stressful once covid19 broke out but we got through it. So, the underground room. I cut the door open last night to take a look. It's about an 8x8 room, maybe 7 foot high, all the walls are cinder block. Here's the weird part, the whole floor is covered in ash and burnt pieces of wood, and a few bricks. Theres a few holes dug down in the ash like little fire pits. I can't figure out what it is. The house has a fireplace, but on the opposite end of the house. Any idea at all why I have an underground room with a bunch of ash and burnt wood in it? The floor of this room is at least 12 foot below ground. Any ideas?

Hello to all and thank you for your help. You had me thinking about these dark colours so I took a little tour in my neighborhood and I learned a lot about what happens to them. I live in Calgary Alberta Canada where we have nearly 365 days of sunshine. What I learned is that painting a house a dark colour one must be very careful about the undertone. I saw a beautiful dark grey house look like a washed out grape on the front and a navy house look purple. My house faces south and will definitely do the same thing, so i am so grateful for you getting me to think about this before I made a decision as this never occurred to me til our discussions. And Trish Walter, I don’t really want to paint the brick because the back of the house also has a terrace that is the sme colour in stone which would then be a lot to maintain, even though it would make it much more modern. The reason I wasn’t wanting to paint the house grey is that my house is an L shape and my neighbor has the opposite L shape so together we kind of make a U shape. Although that house is a split level I think it would look to matchy matchy because of this shape. I like the idea of matching the grout which then would be a light grey/brown and the darker grey windows. So I’m going to check out some colours. Thank you all again so much, you’ve really given me a lot to think about and opened my eyes. Cheers

Thank you @houssaon . Its so much easier to see now. I think the same size would be ideal but concerned that the window will be to big given the size of the wall which is 5'11". If that isn't possible do you have any other suggestions for a window?