! agree w W Brown, and also suggest widening the walkway to the same width as the new staircase., which in turn will be centered to the door. You still will have limited seating area, but could place a simple bench below the picture window.

The cheap version, and the version I'd probably do. This house would look better without shutters.

#1 red steps,nice. The other one someone could trip.

The modern solution is actually the least expensive. . you do need to pour concrete across the entire area by the door .. then you need steps to it . .

brick must be set on top of concrete, guys so it actually costs more . . concrete plus a mason to set the bricks . . love your blue and white house scheme - the recess on the front of grovers contemporary stairs are an extra detail that doesn't cost more but just takes attention / request / on the part of the buyer .. the steps /blocks out through the yard are more . but not as much as facing with all the brick . .

Don't leave us all in the dark! Please tell us what color?!

Probably just refresh the current color, although I was looking at some of the houses that were painted white. The inside of our house is all coastal style with most walls being Sea Salt and the interior doors painted black. All the trim is white. I'm open to suggestion.

Our yard is uninspiring right now because we live in the drought land of California. Our city has severely cut back our water usage. We just replanted with drought friendly plants that will take a year to fill out.

Here is W Brown's solution applied to your house.

A bit of an MCM house, so the shutters are incongruous - remove them. I'd remove the plate glass picture window and install more of this look across that area with a door and two more window openings, then add the full porch, railing and steps. Don't forget an MCM light fixture.

Tracie Ellis' Home · More Info

I think deco was suggesting you do this, just on the part behind the porch:

Wow! Again, super handy with that program your using, groveraxle. Thank you for showing me what it would look like. I think it's a great look in a totally different direction than we were thinking. Zero privacy, though. We have lots of foot traffic on our street.

You can frost the lower glass and still get a lot of light - feel private in that space - get direct light from transom . . no help for the heat loss in winter tho

Top down/bottom up shades might help with privacy. Triple pane windows with heat loss. Looks great, grover! Suits the house so well.

batterbee, your house has definite MCM lines, especially with the clerestory windows on the second level. I suspect the modifications in my last rendering would not be as expensive as you think, and would make your house a knockout. Some of it--the rock mulch, for example--is a total diy. Reframing the front wall and pouring concrete are not such a big deal--I suspect the windows could get expensive--but it wouldn't hurt to get an estimate...if you like the look, that is.

Thank you so much for your help. I do like this, my family, though, is divided. They may just need to warm up to it.

Whatever you do, paint the two white corner trim pieces to match the body of the house and give it a more expansive look. Can't see the ends of the house, but if they also have a white trim piece (or white gutter) paint to match the body color. The vertical "stripes" the white is creating chops up the home. If you install the above MCM version, there will be enough vertical lines in the porch, so you don't need the additional ones flanking it.