I'm one that believes that a real budget needs to be allocated for garage doors that are a large part of your facade. We have a front facing garage and a detached rear garage. We did custom Spanish wood garage doors for our spanish style house. People would stop their cars and comment that they couldn't believe new garage doors could make such a change in the look of a house. We used Ranch House Doors, linked below, and they have lots of photos on their site that might spark some ideas. Here is a link that might be useful: Ranch House garage doors

roby_tijerina, I think there is a lot of potential in your home! Yes the garage is the prominent element but there are a few creative ways you can counter that. There are couple things that I noticed right away that can have a dramatic impact to your home's appearance. And I would probably change these things before I added any elements or changed any color because they could change the way you see your home. 1. Carry your entrance walkway to the sidewalk. When contractors turn the walk to the driveway they save money but this is a physical and visual disconnect for your home's entry. Also, it's subtle, but the design of your current walkway is drawing more attention to your garage/driveway as the more important feature. Carrying the walkway to the sidewalk would help defer some of that attention from your driveway/garage and tell the passerby that they have a safe, comfortable way to approach your home. 2. Much of your landscaping is all one level, Tall. I love trees but too much of a good thing can sometimes be a bad thing. I would recommend creating some visual interest in your landscaping by including some low and medium sized plants. Colorful plants help tremendously! Landscaping can also be used to draw or defer attention. Right now your garage is "peering" through your landscaping and it immediately jumps out at you. In this instance, landscaping should be used in a way that takes you on a journey and draws more attention to your front door. Hope these help! If you have an questions, please let me know. You might also find some inspiration on our website. We've helped many homeowners just like you tackle their design problems. EDIT: roby_tijerina, I must apologize, I overlooked the major piece of information that you are trying to sell your home. I thought I would mention that we offer a digital design service that can show off the potential in your home to prospective buyers. It might be just the thing you need to draw attention to your home without putting a bunch of money into it. Just a thought. Good luck!

The fact of space being so tight necessitates the use of plants that comply with the plan. Left of the garage is fairly large shrub. Start turning this into a small tree form so that its bulky part, the canopy, will eventually be over your head where it can serve like a protective umbrella. Near the walk would only be a few upright trunks that do not occupy much ground space. To train it into a tree, make its overall shape similar to a sugar cone, where its tip has been embedded into the earth at the exact place the shrub grows. Trunks and foliage come up through/within the main part of the cone but nothing sticks outside of that shape. After it has reached 8' or more feet tall, you can let branches and foliage spill outside of the shape as if they were a giant blob of ice cream overflowing the the cone. Over time, starting at the bottom of the plant, remove branches, twigs and foliage so that only the bare trunks remain. You can do this to 50% of the plant's total height. (At any time of year, but early spring is the optimum time. Near the end of the growing season is the least optimum time. Plant some low growing annuals, perennials, or groundcover below the tree. (Pick one, not use all three.) See if you could do the same thing at the right side of garage door.' See if you could replace the uppermost garage door panel with one that has a bank of windows in it. Along the narrow path to the front door, I'd ditch the hedge and replace it with low growing annuals, perennials, or groundcover. Since it is long, you wouldn't necessarily need to keep it all one thing for the whole length, though you could if desired. It could be a strip of multicolored impatiens, or a strip of variegated liriope, It it could have color at the beginning and end while the middle run is groundcover. For the blank wall, consider some flat, outdoor art decor. A flag stretched in a frame would work. But there's not room for plants or anything else to stick out into the path.

Thanks for the comments and questions. This house is certainly unusual. While the photos I posted show the entrance , it's not obvious in the photos or in real life. The entrance to the house on the upper level is by wood stairs against the left side of the house, leading up to a small deck on the left side (south end) and the door into the mudroom. My intent is to make the entry more inviting with new granite steps leading up to wider stairs, maybe with an arbor at the bottom. There is no hiding the big doors; it's what you see as you pull in. My thought is to just accept that and make it look more like a "carriage house" by replacing the cheap 1970 doors with more stylish ones. I like the idea of a wood arbor as that's something I have the skills to build. Tom