This was a great thread and detroitnate did a great job. If it were my house, before I did any planting I would have widened those steps and the walkway. Every picture in the series I focus on those tiny little steps and want to rip them out and redo. I've read that the main walkway leading up to a house should be wide enough for two people to comfortable walk side by side, that rule of thumb seems just about right to me. You want people to be invited into your house with the walkway, not forced into a single file line.

Great! If the roof is brown, you have a world of colors to choose from. In that case, I would chose a color for the trim and then paint the garage door that same color. The house door can then be another color to bring attention and help it stand out. Do you want to paint your trim every several years, or are you wanting to cover the trim with vinyl and aluminum? That is the first question you have to decide. The second choice greatly narrows your color choices. If you decide on paint, Chose a color family (like dark taupes or bronzes or ivory or hunter greens or turquoise...) and get paint samples at the local paint stores and paint some poster boards. You just live with them next to the house and roof on non-rainy days and see what you like. I once painted stripes of color on the wood of a house we were going to side. Neighbors walking by were asked to vote! Are you gardeners? Are you interested in taking care of annual flowers (water once or twice a day, fertilize occasionally, keep weed-free), or learning about perennials or bulbs? If you want to learn, you can actually make a garden bed that always has either a bulb or perennial in bloom. Or, you could go low-maintenance with shrubs and mulch. Again, your zone and your house's orientation (NSEW) is needed for anyone to give you advice on plants. I am with those who think that your bushes are way too old and overgrown. Maybe you can keep one or two that are green all the way to the bottom and don't look all shaved down. Use those as a backdrop and go from there. Are you interested in putting in any hardscape? If the window next to the door does not come down too low, it might look nice to have a bench there. Is there a concrete slab area behind the bushes there? if yes, you can use containers to add colorful annuals. If you want to garden, you can make garden beds in front of the front door area. Little fences or a raised bed made with landscaping stone are all options. Over where the room comes out further than the porch, there is a nice bush near the corner that may be in good enough shape to keep. Not the one by the downspout, the one in the front. (I would remove all of the bushes to the left of that one.) If there is a matching bush in good condition on the other side of that room, I might leave them both, but remove the ones in the middle, so the other two have room. You might be able to put a trellis under the window and train a flowering vine to spread side-to-side and fill some of that space on the wall. A few low plants around the tall bushes and in front of the vine, and you are done in that area. With a taupe roof and creamy brick, you have a pallatte limited only by your wallet, skills, and imagination!

I would remove the shutters. (And you can’t add ones to the big window as they will not fit properly). Your storm is black, so paint the front door black. Would probably go with the color of the corner brick on the vertical siding and all the house trim, as well. The white is just too bright.

Wow thank you all for the awesome feedback! So far I think my favorite ideas are darker roof, darker shutters on just the two smaller windows (removing them on the picture window), stained garage door, staining our original door a bit darker, and maybe a portico style that has the open rafter look with a shallower peak (larger than a 90 degree angle). We definitely need a path to the driveway and not the street, as our subdivision has no sidewalks. I would love to see some landscaping ideas with more grasses and smaller shrubs, as I think anything too big swallows up the house. Thank you all again, these visuals and ideas are so helpful! Oh, and I would love to see the trim color a bit darker, maybe pulling a grey color from the stone-work. What do you all think?