Your home and lot already have significant curb appeal. Do like the flowering tree in the foreground as well as the post fence on the right side of the home. Healthy looking lawn is a huge plus. Definitely remove//move the bushes directly in front of the front door -- trimming rather than removing the rest might be best as long as you create a solid hedge rather than one with a gap in front of the porch railing. Read up on trimming the kind of shrubs you have. The ones you have may need to be trimmed at an angle to get them to grow thicker rather than have the trunks show. Painting the front door a bolder color to make it the focal point of the front of your home is well worth considering. Budget permitting, adding a forward facing gable above the front door is worth considering -- especially if it extends about 3' beyond the front of the front wall of the garage and becomes a covered entry enhancing the front door as the focal point of the front of your home. https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ae/5c/d1/ae5cd1da363f11d9561e11e5e7682bfe--ranch-style-homes-exterior-exterior-homes.jpg Like the shape of the garage doors and the windows in them. Painting the garage doors the same color as the home would make them less of a focal point. Outlining the driveway in brick or paving stones might be worth considering, especially if on the front door side of the driveway you created a sidewalk that stops about a car length from the door using the same brick or paving stone -- stops so you're stepping onto the sidewalk rather than the grass as you get out of your vehicle. A sidewalk need not be straight: by creating a curve/circle for your sidewalk, you could also be creating an outline for a flower bed and one part of the curve might curve toward the driveway while another curves toward a front yard patio: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/ae/5c/d1/ae5cd1da363f11d9561e11e5e7682bfe--ranch-style-homes-exterior-exterior-homes.jpg https://static.houselogic.com/content/images/front-yard-patio-ideas-visual-sameness_086e0058d8297bf2ae78c70aebe1197f.jpg

Thank you again everyone for all the help you have provided. My wife and I couldn’t be more appreciative for all the advice. At this stage, I feel like we have the following...remove railing, install potted plants/feature on side landings of stairs, paint porch a dark gray that matches the stone walkway, replace exterior lighting, remove interior window shutters, revisit landscaping options, install window planters. In terms of the exterior shutters and door colors...the current color is a dark maroon/purpley color (has to go). Based on some of the great feedback I’ve attached a couple options...1) High contrast black on white with a pretty brown stained door 2) Lighter shutters with a brown stained door. I think I’m leaning a bit more towards the high contrast black on white...thoughts on either and if brown is the way to go for front door or match color of shutters? Also color of planters under windows (same brown as door)?

PAINT: Is your home painted or whitewashed brick? If you could have your home pressure washed, do. Alternately, when the whether warms, scrub it yourself with a very stiff push "broom" (from a big box building supply store) such as might be used for roofing. Then you could repaint the house one exterior wall at a time. If you do repaint, first remove the shutters from the window on the left side of the house and invest in two colors that go well with your brown roof. You might consider two shades of green or gray. Paint the recessed areas of the porch the darker bolder color and the rest of the house a lighter version of the same color. Paint the gutter downspouts the same color as the exterior siding behind them. STEPS & SIDEWALK: While it appears you have a sidewalk but you might consider putting small gravel between the existing sidewalk and house for drainage and creating another sidewalk: Your steps could be enlarged by adding brick or pavers beside and atop and in front of them as a DIY project with the right cement mix and you could add a landing made of the same brick or pavers with their tops ground level. Have that landing be square. Later, budget permitting, you can begin to create a sidewalk the same width as your landing that begins at the landing and curves toward your driveway -- aimed generally at about where a car door would be when parked in your driveway with the garage doors closed. Just outlining the path the same width as the landing with parallel pavers, the tops of which are also ground level could be the beginning of your sidewalk. When you dig down for placing the pavers to outline the sidewalk, also dig the area between the parallel rows of pavers and level and pack the ground to prepare it to add gravel ... or you could use the parallel row of pavers a s a form and go ahead and mix bags of concrete in a wheel barrow to fill in between the pavers. LANDSCAPING: By creating the sidewalk, you also will have created a planting area between the sidewalk and your home. Dig that out and begin adding rich dirt. If flowers are too high maintenance, and if you're in a planting zone in which they'll grow consider a hedge of Aucuba bushes in front of your porch in that planting area. Rather than putting the shutters back alongside the window on the left, consider a pair of shrubs along that wall, each centered between the window and the corner. For decoration and interest, you might consider a large wind chime centered between steps and the right edge of the porch. A plain concrete bird bath in the front yard visible from the window(s) could also be a good addition.

I, for one, have always been a fan of keeping the architecture as simple as possible. But if flower boxes are your bliss, go for it. Me, personally, I'd give them a pass. They're small, need frequent watering, and can be a bit tough during summer (due to being small and needing frequent watering...) Certainly feel free to changing the door colors. Even the garage doors, perhaps? Some tone in the stone on the side, I should think. If you want to break the harmony, go ahead, no problems there. Burgundy? Slate Blue? Something tasteful and not too far out of range for that house. ETA: I rethought that blue on second glance; it's too close to the siding. Grays are out too, obviously. Bad artist, bad artist. :-) Burgundy would clash as well. With those blue-gray tones, you'd either want to match (which I wouldn't care for), pull from the stone colors, or stay white, really. /ETA I might avoid most vines because...vines. If you do, please choose ones that aren't invasive, like clematis, which won't eat the house (I don't see your locale, which would help us out greatly; for some users, it might show, for me, it does not). Clematis would also blossom beautifully. I would not recommend some blooming vines like wisteria because, again, edible house. They'll try to take over and require a flamethrower to remove if your environment is compatible. It's hard to tell from just one shot, but it looks like a flower garden (perennials for minimal care if you like) to the right side of the driveway as you come up to the door would give you attractive flowers in summer and possibly winter interest if you choose some evergreens as well. That will break the colder lines of the concrete and brick (although really, again, I don't find them objectionable). If you're up for more care, an annual garden instead, or a core annual garden with perennials and evergreens, will give you even more color during spring, summer, and fall while still lending some winter interest. A taller accent like a fringe tree (locale dependent) might look great there as a shape that would really break the lines, too. Again, so many individual choices depend very much on where you are. But...congrats on your new home! It's lovely as it is!