New Houzz member here, I had to chime in on this split level renovation. We're in a split level (and I love my split level) and when we first moved in it was in original late 70's Brady Bunch condition. We did a refresh of the kitchen by removing the u-shaped work area and running cabinets/counter along the entire back wall of the kitchen. We also removed any spindles and changed the wall between kitchen and dining room to a pony wall. Fast forward about 7 years and we decided to do a major renovation and addition. We pushed out the house 7 feet along the entire back wall (behind kitchen/dining room). We also flipped the dining room and kitchen - it was the best thing we did because the kitchen had too many doorways which got in the way of most kitchen activities. Even without the addition at the back, I would flip these rooms again because it made our house so much more functional! We did build a partial wall between the living room and the newly-located kitchen to allow for another wall of cabinets and a small pantry. Here are pics of the original condition, our initial refresh, and our final "big" addition/renovation. Original condition of kitchen, dining rm, living rm: Small refresh/opening up of kitchen/dining when we first moved in (that's a not-very-well-constructed sunroom in back off the dining room that we removed in our "big reno" phase): And this is how it looks now (only have the mid-project photo of kitchen & dining room area. The fridge/pantry wall is the partial wall we built to divide it from the living room): Sorry for the long post, but I'm definitely in favour of you taking the steps tomake your split level work better for you :)

Just remove the shutters and see how that looks. I don't think painting windows with black is going to enhance the house--just adds another element and you do have a brown roof, not black. A much warmer white for the middle would work better with yellow stone and brown roof. Save $$$ for a beautiful landscape design to further beautify the house. But what you have is pretty nice right now. It's important in a newly purchased house to go a year before making landscaping changes so you can see how the plantings look in all seasons. It's great you have quite a few evergreens for year round color--and no leaves to rake!

I agree that your style of home is not meant to be stark white all over. There are a few orange-brick homes with gray trim, gray garage doors in my area. Looks really good. Mid-range gray for trim and slightly lighter shade for doors, shutters, etc. Gray would like great with your yellow front door. I like the look of the back of your house, without the shutters. You might not need them on front. Much as I love trees, I tend to agree about removing the one birch that is in the center of the picture, but I'd keep the other birch at the side.

I need ideas! The siding is this yellowy cream and the shutters and garage doors are dark brown. We are painting the vinyl siding and garage door/shutters different colors but I would like to hear opinions on what color scheme we should do! I am just clueless lol thanks so much