That is an attractive house. I like painted brick and there's a lot of it in my neighborhood. "Off-white" is a lot of range, though--some off-whites are grayish and others are creamish, for example. I like creamy better than cooler tones, but that's me. Some pretty painted brick houses in my neighborhood are: warm gray with white trim and charcoal shutters cream with sage/taupe-y trim and shutters sage green with black shutters and there's also an electric periwinkle blue with white trim and black shutters, but that's a controversial choice among my neighbors... I wanted a black garage door and the garage door guy said that around here (Kentucky) a black door won't stand up to the heat, as black absorbs more sunlight than other colors. So, you may want to find out if that's true where you are. Or even true at all--maybe he was wrong.

Wow everyone, thanks for the input and the compliments, we are at that stage where we are just tired of remodeling, even though we are in the home stretch, so it's really nice to have positive feedback! Suero and Justgotabme, I really am liking the idea of the pergola it's something I hadn't really considered before. Thanks Suero for trying the cedar shakes on the gable ends, I'm sure it didn't do much since it just accentuates the low slung roofline and that's something we'd like to down play. Oceanna I completely understand what you are saying about painting. We do have a really good painter who has done work for us for years and is very reasonable so I could ask him what he would charge. Scoobyruby I hadn't thought about natural wood like cedar, I may have to think about that one, if we don't choose to paint the brick it could be really complimentary to the tones of the brick, but less cottage like I would guess. Socks and Megsy it's good to know that we don't *have* to paint the brick since it appears that people on here don't hate it, which is great. I do think better landscaping and shutters would go a long way in making things look better. I had to laugh at the white shutter/white sock analogy, we think they look like white socks too! :-) Kitchenkelly, I have long admired your kitchen and your photos of your backyard so your compliment really made me smile! One of the best parts of my job as a writer is that I've been privileged to write about some amazing homes, both large and small so I've been filing away ideas for a long time now. My husband loves my job and hates it all at the same time. I do a lot of designer and renovation homes so I come home and say things like "hey we can take that wall down!" When he gives me the "no we can't" look, I simply say, sure we can I've seen it done! I'm amazed each time I do a renovation story, I've found over the years that most of the time it's the homeowners with the vision. Few, if any, of the homes I've covered used high powered design or architectural firms to create their dream homes, most of them, like me, have just had a picture in their heads that they are lucky enough to make into a reality! I'm not knocking either designers or architects, if my MIL hadn't had either she would still be trying to make decisions and with their help she and my FIL have a lovely home! And like it has been said before, good architectural plans can often save you money and give you a more sound structure in the end. My husband has been playing around all day with Photoshop Elements to try and color the house, we just need to figure out how to import BM or SW paint colors, so far all he's been able to apply are crayola primary colors lol! Kat :)

I've been looking at high end roofing tile websites and one of them has a color expert that made recommendations for house paint colors with their orange/brown roof tiles. Here is a link to some of the schemes they recommend that may give you some inspiration: https://www.davinciroofscapes.com/blog/exterior-color-schemes-autumn/ You can color match to Sherwin Williams brand paint.

rocketjcat, it came from this link but doesn't look like they give the paint brands or colors. https://www.bhg.com/home-improvement/exteriors/curb-appeal/exterior-color-combinations/