Find and hire a local architect to draw out some options that will look appropriate for the house. Use those drawings to get rough quotes from local contractors. Then you can decide if you want to spend that much money!

Your house is a 20th c. version of a garrison colonial, and they had straight facades like this. Sometimes a portico can be added, but in your case it would probably involve shortening the middle window to get a decent pitch on the roof.

the problem is that they won’t move forward with providing designs without a deposit. This is hard to understand because what if I don’t like their sketches/designs?

This is someone's job, which is why they expect to get paid for it. Not everything is 100% commission where if you don't make the sale, oh well, you end up with nothing, better luck next time. If you don't have a very productive day at work, do you give your boss back your salary for the day? If you work on some project that ends up going nowhere do you refund your paychecks for the time you worked on it? I am not saying you need to pay someone for full development of the whole project, but you should expect to pay something for the Ideas, not to get free ideas from three different people and then go from there.

Hi there! Thanks a bunch for sharing your insights – your input and the details about the middle window are very helpful! 😊 I totally agree with your perspective on compensating people for their time. Just to clarify, I’m okay with paying for design sketches and drafts.

I should have been more clear, I think I am running into issues with having trouble getting proofs for a couple hundred dollars versus thousands or agreeing to a project to even get proofs.z

However, I’ve encountered a bit of a hurdle. The proofs from two different companies exceeded a couple of hundred dollars, and an architect quoted 10-12k for the design, along with estimates for a small addition. Does this seem standard to you?

Can you paint the shutters? I think a softer more subtle color would look good. Get larger lights for beside the door, which you could paint white. Maybe add an arbor to the garage. Then focus on the landscaping to add depth and interest. I agree, get rid of the paving.

Are you being as vauge with the architect as you are in this thread about what you want? If so, that could be driving the price up. Not sure if you want a porch, depends, not sure if you want to change the roofline, maybe you want plans for some dormers... perhaps a landscaping or few in there too. You don't know what you want, and that can mean coming up with a lot of plans or spending a lot of time trying to extract from you what an acceptable plan to you is.

Maybe start by coming up with a wants list. That part can be helped here with folks suggesting things. Some folks do nice mockups or know the apps so you can start your own. After getting a decent idea of what you want or for sure don't want... then take that to your local pros. It will help them come up with plans faster, better, and more in line with what you want without a lot of trial and error of figuring out what you want.

Find a picture or pictures of of a house or houses similar to yours that has been modified in a way that you like with either a portico or a porch, so whoever you talk to has a starting point. I would not expect to receive or pay for a full set of working drawings before you selected the architect or builder.

No one can afford to work for free. You should find concepts you like for the Garrison Colonial and then use them as a jumping-off point.

Here is the only remodeled Garrison Colonial I have found that I like. It's not only the colors but the textures that have been assembled for this home. Not the added dentil molding details on the house. Those are available through FYPON

https://fypon.com/pages/all-products

IMO the biggest issue on your home is the Dutch Lap Siding. That scale IMO is all wrong for the house. Way too many horizontal lines on the surface.

You'll need to spend the $$$ to reconfigure the walkways at the front, the plant beds and frankly, your home requires an extensive landscaping plan. Since you have no steps into the home, you should consider brick or stone short walls out in the lawn to make the entrance to the home more interesting.

Sketchup is a software package you can learn and experiment with. It has a learning curve. There is a free version: https://www.sketchup.com/

Thank you all for your suggestions so far! These are super helpful.

The time to add dormers is when you need to replace your entire roof.

Thank you!! This is good to know!

I would focus on landscaping. If so, what you need is a landscape architect. A lot of the landscape companies have either their in-house architect or designer or partner with independent architects/designers.

It's a nice Garrison colonial with good proportions and symmetry. You have no flaws or oddities to worry about. I find the color scheme to be bland and not all that cohesive. A warmer white for the trim and a warm brown for the shutters would go together better. Some people find color a place for a wow factor. You could do warm green or olive shutters and a lighter shade for the door.

Your landscaping is uninspired.

But, all in all, it's a nice house.

I really appreciate your feedback! I agree - I think some changes in the color will go a long way.

I would start by removing the shutters and painting the house a nice color . Get a new front door and add asome type of cover for guests when standing in the rainMayb e a dd a porch all the wall across the front with nice wide steps leading to the new front doo Lanscaping will have huge effect on curbappeal for sure . A new garage door with glass in it No dormers unless you are considering redoing the entire upper floor and roof

I think the lack of character has as much to do with the colors and materials used on the exterior as with the design of the house. It's tough to make vinyl siding and windows look good. The following would be huge improvements without making big structural changes:

• Replace windows with true divided light 6 over 6 windows, ideally wood-clad.
• Replace window trim with more substantial wood or paintable composite with lintels
• Get rid of screen/storm door or replace with wood version painted to match front door
• Get rid of fake shutters and replace with functional wood shutters with appropriate hardware, or nothing
• New wood garage door
• Copper gutters
• In an ideal world, replace siding with wood or a better grade paintable composite
• Update exterior color scheme
• Landscaping!!

That's a long and very expensive list of improvements, but these would have more impact than what you're describing (which would probably be at least as expensive!).

Architect Patrick Ahearn has some good guidance on enhancing curb appeal on his Instagram and here: https://patrickahearn.com/blog/adding-curb-appeal-without-breaking-the-bank/

Thank you so much !

Agree that your biggest bang for your buck is landscaping - you can often get a great landscaping plan from a local pro for a few hundred dollars - I would ask about adding depth and texture to the front -they are so many ways they can do that with lush plantings, ornamental trees and strategic hardscaping

You send me down a rabbit hole - here is a great video going through architectural improvements for a garrison colonial not too different from yours: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBFrHobdH4w

Thank you so much!

I think context is very important. If you want to be hypercritical, yes, technically your house is not a very authentic-looking garrison colonial style , it only makes a nod at it. The windows are probably too big, the siding is too narrow, the shutters are too small, there are no "details". But if it is surrounded by various similar "colonial" style late 20th century houses in a development, it fits right in, and those sorts of details become much less important as far as I am concerned, and you won't get a lot of bang for your buck making it look much nicer than the other houses in the neighborhood. I am not saying this to be critical of your house in particular at all.

My house would look hideous as a free-standing house on a lot. I looked at it because I thought the four houses it is in a row with were the weirdest houses in the neighborhood. In the context of the four, mine is the nicest version because it was truest to the architect's original intent, but it will still not win any beauty contests. But it fits into it's local environment well and that's important, too.

The challenge of looking at images like the photos below and the youtube video are that those houses have very subtle architectural proportions that are quite different from yours. They have smaller windows on the second floor and more space between windows. The roof is a different pitch. I don't think a lot of the architectural changes you are wanting are going to look good on your home because of the specific proportions of your house. I think they will look tacked on and out of whack, no matter what architect you go with.

Focus instead on making changes with paint color and landscaping. Both of those can make a really big difference.

The comments have drifted away from your earlier statement in which you asked if $10-12k was a reasonable cost from an architect for drawings for a new facade and an addition. For an addition, yes. We spent that much over ten years ago for an addition we put on our previous home. We only increased the square footage by 10%, but solved a lot of the issues we thought the house's interior had, and the exterior ended up looking better afterwards. That's the value an architect adds. When we sold the house the buyers specifically mentioned the addition as a factor in their making an offer.

Landscaping and a new paint scheme is what’s needed, more than structural changes. BTW , my landscape / hardscape designer requested a $2800 deposit for a design ( credited towards the finished job if I went forward with the project ).

No to dormers, they're complicated and expensive and would look really weird on your house anyway. But yes to a porch, and not a "metal" front porch but a real one made out of wood. I would carry it from the garage across the front and past the front door, deep enough for several chairs and a small table. On the left side I would imrove the landscaping and get rid of that little curved planting bed. There must be someone local who can sketch this for you at a much more reasonable cost than $10-12K, or try and create it yourself with a computer design program like Sketchup or similar.

A porch like this would be a easy and relatively economical way to relieve the flatness and symmetry of your front facade.

WOW! I love this! Thank you so much! I really like the portico and also the landscaping is so pretty! It makes a huge difference having the bushes up against the house.