Is that an Eames? Awesome! And love that Ikea pendant. I'm imagining that the light from it plays in a very interesting way on your lovely ceiling. I'd love to see a night time picture of it turned on. Your home is incredible. You have three eating areas back-to-back in your new plan? Do you really need all of them? In your proposed plan, is that room at the top of the plan a new laundry room? I'm having trouble reconciling some of the photos to where they might be on the floorplan. For example, that last picture in your post above, where is that? Could you give us a floorplan of the entire floor the kitchen is on? It can be hand-drawn. It's best if it's on graph paper, to scale, with dimensions. But even a rough drawing would help at this point and you could put something more detailed together later. I have a few ideas bouncing around in my head but I really need to see a drawing with the rest of the space to see if they might work before I take the time to put them together. Do you really want your kitchen so closed off from the rest of the house? Most MCM homes I've seen with walls of windows are more open concept than you have. My idea, if it works with the rest of the space, would be to open it up more to the dining and the rest of the house, have a lot of pantry space for main storage, and more of an un-kitchen kitchen design in that great room with the wall of windows. Does that sound like something you'd like?

I'm no expert I just know a lot of people are doing cement board around me. I am not sure if they glue then screw and caulk to prevent hiding spaces. Best to check with an expert. However. It can all have the same look with a smooth stucco or other surface and scoring. Here is one with a slight two tone chimney. Not to much but enough to diminish the height a bit .

Your wooden gate is a more rustic style, so you might want to modify it - trim off the dog ears and change the hinges. Agree about the porch post - the style is all wrong for the house. Boxing it in is pretty easy. Also agree about landscaping If you have paint or photoshop, play around with different colors for your trim and siding. The current colors are neutral and safe, but there's no pizazz. Looks at blues, grays and greens, which will work with your brick and roof. I'd paint the window trim too, and look into beefing up the trim with some additional, but simple, molding. I can't see the detail of your front door - if it is a rustic, colonial, victorian etc style, plan on replacing it eventually - and yes, a lighter or brighter color. I don't see how you could remove or replace the "beam" (if I am looking at the thing you mean - across the front, above the windows?) and come up with anything that is better. Your brick ends below it; it is appropriately simple; although it is too bad that it sits right on top of the windows. Perhaps you could paint it to blend in with the brick, but I think just painting it with the rest of the trim is fine.

IMo a colored fornt door would not be my choice ilove the garage doors and IMO I would look for a door that kind of mimics that in some way. IMO would be a door similar to this syle with the frosted glass . MCM was all about simple and I love your house so be acreful not to go too far out of the box.I would however go to work on that front landscaping . I agree to colored pots on the deckand I had that same FP in my other house and it was orange maybe think about adding the color there too.