As you said, Victorian is not going to happen with that house. But cottage style is definitely a possibility. Too late tonight to offer much in the way of how to make that happen, but a few unrelated thoughts:

A lighter color is generally better at dissipating heat in a hot climate. And plenty of cottages are painted white or pale colors.

The rock/mulch won't complement a cottage look, but there are loads of drought tolerant cottage garden plants. I think it was Fine Gardening that had an absolutely gorgeous cottage look garden on a very windy, hot site -- might even have been in CA.

The fountain idea may be soothing in a dry, hot climate, but combined with a rock mulch, and your existing arches, I think the look would be more Las Vegas than a lovely CA cottage.

Can you share your budget with us?

I'm not sure "cottage" will work for you, because of your window design.

Mission might be better.

Your arches are a strong style point; maybe you can do more with those?

The first thing that jumps out at me is the huge blank expanse of the garage door. It needs more differentiation, something to break it up and make it more interesting.

In a magical world, you could change the garage door.

In the real world, you could paint the door.

Even if you painted a row of darker squares across the front to resemble windows, it would give your house a much friendlier look.

And the "windows" could have an arch style, to echo your other arches:

{{!gwi}}

I agree about the arches -- I like how beefy they are (easier to see in your album photos). They are the main distinguishing characteristic of the house - I'd definitely work with them.

The exposed rafter ends in you photo album made me think that a pergola structure with beefy exposed rafters would add a lot of interest to the roof line. I could envision adapting the attached garage inspiration photo for use as an attached pergola.

I really like your house. Based upon what you have said, this is what I would do:
Put some lattice on those arches and train a vine up/over them. Then, change the walkway to an L shape, and inside the L, put a fountain and other flowers/paving to have a small courtyard. You may even want a small wall along the front to give it more privacy if you plan to sit there.
This will camoflage those arches that you don't like, give you more seating area in the front, and increase your curb appeal.
Love both suggestions about your garage doors. I would definitely continue the look to have a vine overhanging the garage doors. We trailed morning glories up the colums of our back porch and over with just string and some strong cup hooks. This will continue that cottage look you want, and make the garage doors a positive instead of a negative. Both of these changes could be very inexpensive except for changing the walkway. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Removal of the arches is non-negotiable. I can't stand them. I think they look horrible and crowded in with the big brick columns - not to mention that to me they are clashing styles.

The garage door is non-replaceable and is paneled, so the "faux" window idea wouldn't work. Besides, I've discussed painting accents with Hubby and he has nixed that idea. He says it would be "too busy".

I'm not too concerned about the window trimming as that will be reconfigured, too. As mentioned, that whole porch area will (probably) be going away.

mjlb: I LOVE that last photo of the garage all trimmed out. I'm certain Hubby would say that's "too much" but I can see it becoming an inspiration pic.

holleygarden: I love your ideas. If I lose the battle of the bump-out (and perhaps even if I win), I do believe we'll incorporate some of those ideas. The trick is, whatever vines we plant must be able to withstand lots and lots of direct sun as well as very high winds.

I was thinking about this more last night and combining my ideas with some other discussions I've had with Hubby and the feedback so far. So the latest inspiration / idea is that we'll put a short (maybe 3 feet) picket fence around the perimeter of the left side of the front yard, slightly inset with a wide border of mulch/bark or river rocks (in the gray to brown family) and plant some climbing roses in bright, cheerful colors to climb over the fence. Hubby actually likes this idea.

Budget is pretty limited so creative inexpensive ideas are best.

Thanks for everyone's input so far. You're helping me come up with some great ideas (and see some of my ideas as not that good).

I'm thinking you can replace the arches with some chunky cedar posts and brackets. That will give it a more current look. I tried to find photos but it seems I have lost the touch.

Nifty idea but not really my taste.

I'm lost in a sea of pastel in my neighborhood. Houses are yellow, peach (yes peach), white with turquoise trim, flat-out baby boy blue, kind of tan/taupe/yellow, orange, etc. I think that's part of why I'm drawn to the brown. I'm also thinking it will give me a good base for some colorful flowers. Though I do have to say, I'm really tempted by that smoky amethyst color squirrelheaven posted over on zipdee's thread. Maybe something like that and some simple white columns/posts...

Hubby and I have been taking morning walks around our neighborhood. To keep myself occupied/interested I've been looking at what people have done with their homes and I do believe I have a plan. Now we just need to finalize some of the details and find the time and money to accomplish everything. It's definitely going to have to happen in stages.

So the main bullet points:
Repaint the house brown (Behr's folkstone) with white trim, possibly dark brown and/or black accents.

Reface the brick columns with slate tiles.

Build out the current porch area, redo the trim on that one window to something a bit more reasonable/simple, build a pergola across that area (between the bump-out on the left and the garage on the right with mjlb's pic as inspiration.

Put in a simple picket fence around the perimeter of the yard with a large-ish, fluid (non-linear) border area that will be filled with river rock. The current orange rock will be moved to the back yard and replaced with the same river rock.

Plant said border area with colorful climbing roses to be trained up/over/around the picket fence. Possibly add some pansies and/or salvia to the mix.

Plant a silver birch tree in the middle of the current lawn area, with flowers underneath.

Find a spot for an outside fountain of some sort. Maybe that area between the garage and the path.

Maybe, just maybe, add a few pieces of gingerbread.

Still need to figure out what to do with that garage, though.

What do you think? Anyone out there that would care to help me visualize this? Please?

Still need to figure out what to do with that garage, though.

What's your budget for the garage?

Surface changes only - possibly changing out some of the trim. I do know the address light (what's behind the black edit on the left brick column) will be replaced by a pretty light of some sort - probably in black to match the porch light - and a new address sign (linked below).

Here is a link that might be useful: new address sign

Here;s my rather sad attempt to change the colors. The tool I have is very limited so it's not quite what I'd like, though.

Here's a scan of the paint chip for folkstone. On my computer (which is known to be rather inaccurate) it comes out looking a bit lighter / more gray than the chip.

I had another thought, spurred on by some previous comments. How about if we just paint the brick to the white (which we had planned to do anyhow as at least an interin step) then put up some light trellising and train the red creeper roses (or maybe white roses?) you can kind of see in the pics to climb up said trellises? My only concern is that they'd get a bit shredded with our high winds. But plants grow and change and it would be simpler / easier than resurfacing them.

I tried painting the columns white. Ick.

Anyone? Am I a hopeless case?

I think if you are able to remove the heavy arches, (non-negotiable means they *are going away, is what I am reading?)--that will improve the facade of the house.

However, don't try to turn the house into something its not. You will remove the "Spanish" influences but it is still a modernist house, and with that roofline it will always be a modernist house---I think you are going to have to embrace it.

I am currently working on a house that is in a development of postwar ranches and splits that are too small for today's tastes. There have been a variety of solutions from large additions to complete teardowns. The remodelings that have grafted "Tuscan" or "Chester County Farmhouse" onto these houses are just a mess.

There is an underlying rhythm to your house that would be very difficult to change.

But what do I *do* with it?

I've been playing around in another program I have (BH&G Home Designer - which pretty much sux) and I think I'm closer. House all the darker brown, white trim around windows, garage door painted a lighter shade of the brown. White pergola across the middle part, white picket fence and the river rock bed around it and the silver birch in the middle with a rouchly circle river rock bed. Lots of colorful flowers. Unfortunately, there's no way to export the preview image so I can show it (see previous suckage comment).

I think Pal has made a really good point.
Our first home was a painted brick modernist ranch.
Several owners later , they tried to turn this house into a cottage.
They painted the house country blue with white trim. Put up a picket fence on one side of the driveway and they filled that area with river rock and roses climbing over the fence. They replaced the gate to the back yard with an arched gate that also had climbing roses. They put up a lattice wall at the entrance of the house. It did not look good.

The house has been sold again and this owner is slowly trying to return the house to what it was when we lived there.

We also made a similar mistake on one of our rental houses that had arches like yours. Ours was even more spanish because it had an arch at the top of the windows on the front of the house.
We took down the arches (they were wood and rotting)and replaced them with wood posts and put up a cottage style railing . It looked pretty bad, but since it was a rental we didn't want to spend more money fixing it.

I agree it's too expensive to fight the outside style on most houses. If you want cottage, the roofline needs to be changed, like put an addition on it. I think it would look pretty as it is with a Spanish tile roof on it. I don't mean to sound unsympathetic as I've felt the same way as you... but I just did my changes mainly on the inside to get what I wanted.

I think changing from an arch to something more squared off, will go a long way toward changing the front of the house in a way that you would like.

Are you planning to completely integrate that space into the interior of the house? Perhaps that will give you the opportunity to create a door and window in the middle that is more in scale with the triple window and garage door.

I don't want to discourage you from trying to modify the facade --its your house. I would just encourage you to keep it in spirit with the parts you like enough and are not changing.

We just re-did the roof about a year or so ago. Spanish tile is very expensive, anyhow.

Can you tell me more what you mean by "change the roof line"?

That middle part will be changing. It's kind of hard to describe and I don't have any software tools that will let me show it but basically that section will be coming out so that it takes over the tiny front porch area and the columns. hard to see behind those arches but there's a door with sidelight (door and sidelight will change but basic configuration will remain) and a rather large window. That also means the trim around the window is open for change. Scale is about the same as the two sides, I think.

See here's the thing - take away those hideous arches and you have a basic, simple, box of a house - the same box that is repeated over and over (and over) again in our neighborhood. The only thing distinguishing one house from another is color and a few bits of trim, essentially. The ones that stand out (in a good way) are the ones who have added a little something extra - such as a decorative fence and some beds in a distinctive style.

If there were more true Spanish elements I wouldn't have an issue with it. In fact, the house I lived in as a teenager was Spanish in style (and quite nice even though it was a suburban tract home). But with just those two arches with those WTF boxes in the middle and the competing huge brick columns, it just looks half-a$$ed and thrown together - which it was. We know the builder and his style and reputation. He was interested in fast, simple and cheap. not style.

Don't worry, though. I know I need to keep the changes fairly subtle/tame.

I took my Mom, to see Pocket Opera's production of Carmen at the Legion of Honor museum theater today (in SF). We wandered around the gallery a little and I noticed their walls were painted in a color very similar to the folkstone. With cream-colored trim work it was absolutely gorgeous and let the colors in the art work really "pop". It's just the effect I'm hoping for - the house will become a backdrop to the plants and flowers.

So I think there's hope. Just have to figure out the details (how to trim out the window and door, exact shape of pergola, etc.)