Post the other three elevations.

Less is more. (The fewer different materials used, the better.)

Remove arched garage door lintels-they just reduce head space and are not a classic feature.

Don’t just stick stone on an elevation- this is another aesthetic mistake. A stone foundation (which is indented below the siding) is correct, or a total facing of the entire building. But “stone” selections these days are just going to date your house and go off trend in a few years. Save your money.

Here are the other elevators-

I agree about the garage doors. You will also have to pay more to get garage doors with the correct curved design that perfectly matches the arch of the opening. I did that in my previous Spanish style house and those garage door were custom and expensive.

Get rid of the arch in that front window too. Just makes it harder to do blinds and drapes and it doesn't look like you have any other arched windows to have some kind of theme.

Pay equal attention to all sides of the house. The top front elevation looks pretentious and the two left sides and lower front elevations are neglected. Tell your designer you want continuity in the design not a movie set.

Too late now. But I always wonder why owners with such spacious woodland lots settle for front elevations of 50% garages. (Jealous urbanite. First home was on a 15'x120' lot.)

@worthy, I have to agree with you. We are building on 10 acres of woods and didn't even look at any plans with front loaded garages. I'm not trying to be a snob about it, as we've lived in both types of houses over the years, but front-loaded garages are for narrow lots, IMO. Houses are much prettier with garages that hide away to the side.

Hi, Jeanne,

I suggest you apply the stone to the main home to give it more visual weight compared with the garages.

I now see the problem with the garages- do you think making a double door garage and single would help? Any other ideas to make it “better”? I will talk to my builder tomorrow to see if I still have options…

It's difficult to mitigate the visual impact of front-loading garages; your design has three of them. Plus, they are arranged so they project out from the main body of the home. I assume that's driven by the walk-out basement and the contours of the particular building site.

I suggest you explore side-load garage options and options for pushing the garage back to help keep the emphasis on the main body of your home. You might also explore an option for a single-car attached garage, a two-car attached garage, in combination with a detached garage. Or you could completely de-couple the garage and built it as a stand-alone structure.

The original house looks more like a row of townhouses than a single family home. I made a few adjustments to the roof lines and for ease of looking at the pic, just made the house white..

@misecretary, Better, much better!

misecretary- Thank you! Can you tell me what software program you used to change this? It really helps me see the house in a different light 😊

If you really want to see it in a different light, post the floor plans . . .

WARNING: Posting your entire floor plan opens you up to facts you may not want to know, but should. Be prepared for suggestions that will make for a better design. Keep a thick skin, open mind, sense of humor, and a glass of wine within arms reach. You may not enjoy it, but everyone else will and you will be better off in the long run if you heed well the advice.

Overall thoughts:

- Simplify the roofline. What you're showing us now is overly complicated, and it's just not attractive: four gables, four descending roof planes. This probably means simplifying the perimeter /cutting out the jigs-and-jogs in the floorplan, but it will make for a much nicer house in the long run.

- Yes to fewer materials on the front. Today's builders seem to have a terrible fear of a house being "too plain", but that's not a realistic fear.

- Consider that you have three different windows on the front of the house. The result is disjointed rather than cohesive.

- You said you need help with stone placement, etc. Ask yourself this: what are you trying to emphasize with these special items? Probably you want to draw attention to the front door -- but nothing in the picture you've shown us points us towards the front door. Right now you have two stone-fronts, and they don't seem to have any rhyme or reason for existing.

- Yes to looking at something other than a front-loader 3-car garage on a large piece of land. As another poster said, front-loaders are fine, but rural acreage isn't the right place for such a such a house.

I saved a copy of your picture as a jpeg document on my laptop. I then went to my download files and right clicked on the "open with" option and chose the "Paint" program. Then it's just a matter of how to use the program and to move things around.. Hope this helps you.

Thanks everyone for the feedback! I’ve changed the exterior to have brick only around the base and not the entire front. It was too late to change to a side load garage but we changed to a double garage with a single. Here’s a rough sketch- I sure appreciate everyone’s help-

Feels more cohesive!