All the front landscaping is also under renovation: got rid of the lawn, the shrubs will go soon, to be replaced by drought-friendly plantings.

Painting the posts would make them "disappear". I've just done a Reno on my 1964 ranch and painted the horizontal wood siding dark hot chocolate brown. Love it! But I also have brick...
What I would suggest is keeping the gutters dark like the roof, matching the gutters to the house body color to make them disappear (they're not a feature), and using a combination of three colors. Body color, trim color, and perhaps a door color. Three.
What colors do you love on other homes?

Since your windows and garage door are white, selecting a color scheme that works well with white - perhaps cool colors or pastel cottage tones unless you are a fan of throwback tones like barn red and white.

The posts are actually extra charming with the throwback ranch corbels. I wouldn't try to have them blend in at all . . . . Since your roof is charcoal tones, I tend to think that a classic approach is to use neutrals here that work with gray so we can use white and gray with it. A muted blue gray is classic - let's start there and then you can give more feedback.

test http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-color/gullwinggray
a nice trim is the lighter off-white / light gray - http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-color/whitestone - this with a navy door and some nautical light fixtures would be lovely

a cottage tone would be bm hawthorne yellow with something like white trim and a steel wool front door.

If you want to keep the wood tone front door, come back and lets see if we can find some mixes with camel and gray.

Thanks janeannrob. So are you saying to paint the body of the house a dark color and make the gutters match it as well as the posts? We just put in new white vinyl windows, so white will be one of the colors. I figure we'll make the trim around the windows white. And I'd like a red door. But I'm up in the air about the main color. The front porch is tiled and I don't want to replace it. The tiles are cream and various shades of brown. So that kind of complicates it. Sigh.

Thanks libradesigneye for your thoughtful answer. I guess charming is in the eye of the beholder, right? :) We're just not fond of those "throwback" posts although we're resigned to the fact that they're holding up the porch roof! The roof, btw, isn't really charcoal even though it looks that way in the photos. They were taken at the end of the day and the color is off -- the shingles are actually brown. Some of them will end up covered by solar panels, but that's not exactly a design statement. I also don't want the garage door to be painted an accent color, maybe just its trim. Garage doors that scream "look at me" are one of my pet peeves. We do want to paint the front door an accent color. I really like the BM Hawthorne Yellow. What elements would you suggest painting white? And is there something bolder to use for the front door? Maybe blue?

Yellow with white trim would be great and you could do almost any color door on the cool side - you can paint the garage door yellow or leave it, either way. If you do paint it yellow, I don't like to put contrasting trim around the garage door when it matches the body color. Here, eventually, a carriage type garage door in white would be very charming with a yellow house. On the other hand, if we are working with some tile outdoors that will take a while to change, we might want to use a sort of biscuit white to fool the eye where the trim around the front door and posts meets the tile . . it will still read white to the street, but it won't clash with the beige tile. You would want an off -white for outdoor anyway as there is so much light that they read plenty white and give loads of contrast but are easier on the eyes.

I'm hearing that the "ranch" part of the corbels bugs you, but the dated thing for me is the sunrise windows on the garage. On the other hand, they sort of echo the top glass in the front door and that might be just the thing you love. I've learned it is the little details that make a house sort of unique and special. So, it is a little like a great marriage . . .learn to embrace as unique and "yours" what you at first think you might really like to change. 90% of people don't bother to look at houzz or take much interest in these topics. That you do makes your house already going to be more attractive and desirable than 80% of houses out there (with HOAs now a lot of stuff can't be changed from designer approved palettes, so it can't be really good or really bad).

For instance (and I think this was If you wanted more of a mod cottage), then did I mention a more contemporary approach is that instead of the "fun/ugly" bright trim on a plain house you inherited, you can paint the whole house a striking deeper tone instead of pastel? Charcoal is out with a dark brown roof, but this could be a fun shade like bm knoxville gray (not gray, just muted teal) or a deep brown gray like equestrian gray - either with white trim and a really bright front door tone. This approach signals contemporary intentions with your exterior. It works, but takes brass and a love of atomic ranch style. Easier to carry off with solar panels though.

Let's stick with the yellow you think you want and get back to front door colors. Front door color ideas - an aqua would be darling if you have the dark brown roof, but you could also do a bright navy / cobalt or denim tone You could use a periwinkle / purple blue or a sort of caponata / plum brown tone. There are even greens that could work on the mossy side. but I'm interested in which of these work in other ways for you. What colors will you be using for accents in the public spaces? In the warm shades, I'm not really a fan except perhaps a tangerine (orange-yellow).

Tell me your favorite two of these and I'll pull some colors - need to look at them next to hawthorne to get the right ooomph!

I agree on the garage door being the same as the body color of the house, with or without contrasting trim. You can also faux the existing garage door for that "carriage" look.
Yes, I did mean to paint the posts the same as the body color to minimize them. Or, think about wrapping them in wood for a rustic look on your ranch home. Cedar is very nice.
I also love painting darker colors now for a modern look to a classic home. The colors mentioned in the reply above are terrific! Test. Test. Test. Don't be afraid to push yourself into the future with a color choice. You'll be glad you did and your resale value will reflect it as well.
On to the landscaping! Curb appeal is 80% of a home's feel. Make it lovely!

libradesigneye, I like your philosophy about about embracing a house's (or spouse's) "quirks." I do think I might not mind those corbels and posts nearly as much if they weren't such an awful color!

It's interesting you picked up on the shape of the front door windows, because that's something else I really don't much care for. It's a good, expensive door, though, so we plan to keep it (brass trim and all). Speaking of which, do you think it would work to replace the lockset with something in a brushed nickel finish? That's what we've put all through the interior of the house.

Our painter wants to use Kelly Moore paints and I found their color called Blended Fruit seems close to the Hawthorne yellow. And they have a color called Wild Blue Yonder that I like for the door. On the other hand, I do like the Equestrian Gray quite a bit and it might be fun to have something more modern-looking. There is no HOA to deal with, but almost all the houses in the neighborhood are pastel colored. In fact, our bright green trim (what the heck were they thinking, I wonder?) is about the deepest color around. Anyway, I'm not afraid to be a little "out there." If we went bold, where would we use the off-white trim color?

Here's a couple of photos that show the tiles out front. I'm considering them permanent at this point. I took one to show what they look like in the bright sun, the other in the recessed entryway.

The "default" color inside is a gray called sand dollar, which is slightly warm for gray. We'll be painting a couple of accent walls inside as part of the remodel. I'm leaning toward something like bm roosevelt taupe for a wall in the dining room, and maybe bm mill springs blue or jamestown blue for one or two walls in the family room/kitchen. All the woodwork inside is a soft white and we'll be getting white plantation shutters for all the front-facing windows.

Besides the door color I mentioned, I like the plum brown idea as well for the yellow house. But if we go bold, I'd love some door color suggestions. Not yellow, please.

Thanks for the encouragement, janeannrob. We've thought about wrapping the posts in brick, which is somewhat common in the neighborhood. But if we can find a paint solution, that would be nice. Any details you have on the idea of faking the carriage doors for the garage? I know that window shape is pretty dated. But on the other hand it could be our nod to the authenticity of the house. The woman we bought it from last fall was the original owner, lived in it since 1965.

That will actually be good, that the house is sort of original to 65 - some of the things they did then (and the neighborhood / mature landscapes) are priceless today. . .
Back to paint -

https://www.houzz.com/magazine/get-the-scoop-on-finding-the-best-paint-for-your-money-stsetivw-vs~4571847

I went to Kelly Moore to look for colors for you - in the equestrian gray family
vosey gray i think is the best
rustic hacienda
bay area
and foggy night are also rans. .

Because you corrected me - your roof is a dark earth toned, I skewed toward the cool with a little camoflauge green undertone - the yellow underneath will resonate with the warmth in the brown roof . . and deal with the tile on the front step better (like a leather color - pretty good option there)

I think the off-white tile is flat enough I would almost try to match that for my trim color - it will read as white on the house . . it is almost like monterrey white in bm so just bring a bunch of off-white swatches home from kelly moore and choose the one closest to but darker than - it will work best, trust me ...

With this, some of the best front door colors are in the violet tones . . amaranthine 5541 is terrific. . you can go blue here, but then, probably more blue green . . like castaway cove

you could still do something cobalt, or coral,

if you stick with yellow on the siding, you need one more muted, look at stella dora probably - but yellow is something to test, test, test . . .that is why hawthorne is really proven on exteriors so it is a safe historic color / hardie uses it for siding

Finally -
i believe you can change out just the top row on a garage door for 1/8th the cost of a new door - they just switch the panel out and they are happy to have the business because when you do need a new one you will come back .. so you might investigate that.

#1 Kelley Moore can match any color from any other brand, so whatever you like, they can mix up.
#2 Faux garage door (just google it!): www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJm7YU26sFo
#3 White trim definitely goes with ANY color. Just be sure to choose a complimentary white. Warm white for warm (yellow undertone) body color. Cool white (blue undertone) for cool body color. Easy!
#4 Is the garage door made of wood? That may be an 'original'. You can definitely get the windows changed out, if you like.
#5 Did you know brass is the "new" new thing? It's baaaaack.... ;)
#6 Perhaps consider using the same trim color as your door (the accent) as the post color. If the door is remaining in the wood finish, consider painting the wall around the door or the entire outside entry, the accent color. Like I said previously, a third color is BEST. Odd numbers. They really do create a complete quality look.
#7 Side entry door to the garage should be painted the same as the body color.
That's it!!! Take what you like, tweak it, make it yours and leave the rest!

It's been a journey for sure, but the project is finally done, including the exterior paint. We ended up using Kelly Moore Ironwood for the body, Swiss Coffee for the trim, and Sequoia Red for the front door. The back door is Night Sky. It turns out I really don't mind the posts now that they're a nice color. Here are some photos.

One more photo. And many, many thanks again for the patient help!

Very nice! Posts look great too. Next!

Looks Beautiful !