I agree the brick should be left alone, but looks like the driveway and landscaping need some work.

Thanks. We have plans for landscaping, including the addition of a camellia between the two front windows.

I love the brick. As mentioned earlier don't paint or cover it. You could paint the wood and garage in a tan color to blend in better with the brick., Add landscaping plants and redo the driveway also.

Any recommendations for a specific tan color? We hate the driveway as well and would love to pave it. The driveway is over 100' long, so it will be an expensive project. Based on the comments I'm getting, that's probably where we should be spending our money!

I don't have a specific tan color, but what you could to find the right one is Check out Lowes or Home Depot or a similar store and get color swatches or small paint samples and see which one you like and go from there. Yes, the driveway is more distracting than the house . Your house is nice with a great view!

Driveways look soo much better when paved. I would not paint the brick b/c then you have to continue to paint it. It may decrease it resale value or sale potential.

For a different color combination. Drive through other neighborhoods to see what colors really stand out to you. You and your husband have to love it and seeing colors on another structure is the best way to determine your likes.

You might put "garage doors" in the Houzz search engine. Your garage door is such a focal point you might want to enhance it. Some of the stained ones are nice. In France, stained shutters were popular too.

I agree that a different garage door might help, as really your GARAGE is the focal point, not your front door, which is basically hidden. Results of my brainstorming:

1) Get a new garage door, something with a bit of character. Understand that your garage is pretty obvious and work to enhance it as versus hide it (cause that obviously won't work!) I might even suggest, after getting new doors, that you add a small pergola over the garage doors. You could train some sort of fast growing vine over it and I think that would look really pretty.

2) I'm a big fan of traditional paint schemes. Even though your roof is currently brown, I'd think about painting your trim and siding out with white (if its in a material that makes that possible). Your brick has a brownish tone and white trim might bring out the red more, adding more contrast and livening up the house.

3) Potentially dd a pop of colour to your front door. It's not really a focal point because its so hidden, but colour would be nice surprise. With the white trim I might suggest a rich navy blue?

4) New black shutters, as yours are too small. I like the idea of shutters as they're a nice detail, but ideally they should look like they are least somewhat capable of covering the window itself (even though obv they're attached to the wall!) because that was the original point of shutters - to cover the windows. Overly small ones confuse the eye.

5) LANDSCAPING! I agree with creeser that a plant with some height to it placed between the two front windows might draw the eye upward more. I don't know much about landscaping but obviously those beds by the front window and the door could use some help. In addition to the taller plant/shrub between the two windows, I'd use some lower massed evergreen shrubs to provide additional height contrast to the house.

Is this a home that your living in year round or a weekend retreat. I only ask this because if it's for weekends you wan't the landscaping to be extremely low maintenance and you won't want to be doing yard work for the entire weekend your supposed to be having fun and relaxing

1) I will definitely research new garage doors and shutters. I think I was too focused on the siding to see the impact those features were making. We could use a new garage door, and we have the space for larger shutters. Thank you Carolina Photo and Jess.

2) We do live in this house year round. It is our primary residence.

3) I believe we can paint the trim. It is aluminum. I do prefer white trim, but I'm not sure how it would look on this house. There is a wide piece of trim separating the brick and vinyl siding. I'm afraid that would make the house look even shorter. Is this fear unfounded? I do like the example with the pergola, but in that example the bottom and top are the same color.

4). We had a professional landscaper draw up a plan, and we will definitely be improving the landscaping in the front.

Thanks again for all the great comments!

An idea for the driveway is to have it paved, then have someone come in and stamp the concrete on either side to make it look like pavers of some sort. Makes for a nice polished look and the concrete stamping isn't that expensive. I'm assuming from the name 'carolinalake' that you are in either North or South Carolina. I'm in SC and concrete stamping is getting to be very popular in our area.

Its hard to tell about the wide piece of trim just from the pictures, but personally I don't THINK it would make the house look shorter if it were all painted white. I just love white trim and I think it will pull the red tones out of your brick and make it classy looking, like the pictures I attached.

I think the reason that you feel the house looks sort of squat is because there is such a sharp flat divide between the siding and the brick on the garage door wall and the front wall. The eye is drawn to it regardless of what colour the trim is. I think that implementing three of the suggestions listed here WILL solve that problem though.

Firstly, new garage doors with a bit of interest (i.e. with glass panes up top or whatever) and bigger shutters will automatically provide the eye with a different focus than the divide between brick and siding. Secondly, if you were to install a pergola above the door it would probably hit at about where the divide is. Having a pergola and climbing vines will essentially "blur" or disguise the divide, which in my opinion will make the house look taller as it will draw the eye upward.

The same applies with creeser's suggestion about the taller shrub/tree placed between the two front windows (you could also maybe use a lattice with more climbing vines, although an evergreen--do you get snow there?--would be more permanent). The tall shrub and/or vines will again "blur" the line between siding and brick.

I live in a painted brick house and wouldn't hesitate to paint your house. I love your bluestone path. Build from there. Paint it all a greeny gray color. Install a carriage style garage door with windows and paint it black. It will look fresh and beautiful! Oh, and add a small scale white camellia tree between the windows.

I would try to remove the paint from the brick and leave it alone. It will be much more interesting. Of course, the driveway needs replacing. You could get away with tinting/staining the concrete, and add pavers to the dirt portion, at least for a few yards. I would also try to scoop away the concrete portion of the drive under the windows to make room for more plants, especially an undercanopy tree. Anything you plant in that small bed will become a nightmare once it grows, unless you only plant a goundcover, which would be extremely boring. The home has lots of potential to look quite nice. I'm biased, but I even do a landscape plan for my own home. I can't imagine you doing it piecemeal. You'll end up digging things up later on. Get a plan done and just do it once.

Espalier on that masonry wall on the left between the two windows. Landscape and an interesting driveway texture, such as pavers or stamped concrete, if affordable. If there is a lot of freezing/thawing it may not be a great choice to do it solidly.... maybe do a grass in-between the pavers... very handsome.

As the site says: "Grass pavers are a great solution in a situation like this, where large amounts of pavement are necessary but not really desirable. They are also a great "green" solution, as they permit rainwater to soak into the ground rather than runoff." http://southgateresidential.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-boards-courtyard-cottage.html

You have great bones with this house. All it needs is a bit of updating. Blend the colors on the trim to complement the brick and roof colors. You could also have some larger shutters made to accent the windows rather than the small shutters. Extend the deck and make it terraced or tiered with a series of steps on all entry points so its not a 3 foot drop with a railing.

Also, purchase a new garage door and paint it the same as trim.

I think the trim colors really work well with the brick and roof.

Would love to see the outcome of this discussion from a few years back!