I didn't even think about the roof. What are you thinking. Also, I would definitely consider a finish other than stucco.

I really like the outside as long as beachy is the look you are going for. If not, more earth colors and greenery.

with your budget, I would focus on the inside since that sound like a priority for habitability.

when you move on to the exterior, you need to check to make sure that it is structurally sound and deal with termite and dry rot issues. I say this based on looking at beams on the edge of the roof.

With 50 k, I'd get an architect.

I agree w Kelley: focus on the interior and give the exterior a fresh coat of paint in a slightly unconventional color & upgrade the windows. Make sure to paint the chairs a fun color too. I love it!

I agree if there is much needed inside, make the exterior look great by painting body white again but add a punch of color with something like the blue. That will give you time to focus on the interior. If the overhang is bugging you badly, I'd add posts/ columns on the corners and fill in with lattice. The posts are not structural, merely decorative so it won't be expensive. Lattice panels are cheap and if you go with vinyl , there is no upkeep - although I prefer wood!

Thank you all so much for your input. It definitely make sense to focus on the inside first. I really like the bright white and blue example for color. Maybe once it's freshened up, I won't feel like it needs major work.

Great house! Love the exterior design. Don't worry about the over hang. Some house usually just keep it the same color of house, use wood siding or cement siding. It will be fine same color! There is a website that can help with deciding the cost and if you are going to DIY; http://www.diyornot.com/Project.aspx?ndx2=11&Rcd=313and another help with what type of paint if choosing; http://www.jlconline.com/exteriors/painting-the-coastal-home.aspx. Here are some pictures:

Thank you for the encouraging advice. I will check out the websites you suggested. I'll follow up once we have come up with a plan.

I would look at that roof and that buckled bit along it; fix that and any rot/pest/structural problems, then focus on the inside.

It doesn't matter how pretty the kitchen is, if the roof caves in...

Consider some Bermuda shutters for protection. I like these colors for your place. General repairs are in order first.

I would use primary colors for striped awning (beach-ball colors) off the overhang and choose one color for the trim. I agree that fitting good custom made windows would improve the inside and outside looks. It's the beach but maybe some primary color again, larger and different sized cubes with plants arranged in front to break up the horizontal lines a bit, or colorful but spacious seating? It begs for something in the front. My family had a cabin with the sloped roof line like this but just the one level, and it was difficult to decide how to make the front look inviting. We kept things simple and clean.

Yeah, I really don't see anything wrong with this sweet place- maybe just the board along the roofline. I'd leave it white or a pale gray with turquoise or coral trim for a change from the green if you're tired of it.

Thanks again for all the great comments. Changing the boards under the roof is a priority. The place is funky but in pretty good shape considering it was built in the 40's. Love the splash of color ideas.

Perhaps a huge planter, or a hole in the pavement just left of the picture window with a major evergreen tree to balance the look of the overhang for you. It will also provide shade for your dining terrace beyond, and the sitting area in front.

Look at trees like Live oak (Quercus virginiana) and Southern magnolia or the smaller Sweetbay (M. virginiana) at the garden center, and there are lots of other good choices, whether you are on the East Coast or West. Underplant with colorful shrubs or low plants like ageratum, cissus, crinum lilies, gaillardia, spider lily, lantana, coontie - lots of great plants to bring some nature to your site, down here or up on the balcony.

Keep some plants within reach to touch and smell throughout your day.

cascio.offsite@gmail.com

That's exactly what the place needs - something green and alive! Thank you! I love the idea - magnolia is my favorite tree. I wonder if that would work there?

ditch the hard square chairs. no more hard lines. bring in huge colorful planters

I own a beach house too, so my biggest advice is making sure the materials you use, are the easiest to maintain against the salt. My first thought about the over hang off the roof upstairs, a possibility could be the composite decking used to make it look like a wood ceiling, and would be basically maintenance free.

It's a beach house, for heavens sake, and looks like one! Don't look to change it to a mountain house or whatever. I agree with some of the others….. do whatever minor repairs are needed to the outside and then give it some jazzy paint! I like the suggestion of putting posts and lattice at the overhang which should give you a new functional space- a fun outdoor room to decorate!

upgrade the windows, paint and trim...done.

Treat the top as a timber beach cabin set on a masonry base. Timber trim under fascia and new balustrade to lighten up the verandah. Plants (and a new street number). My 5c worth for kerb appeal.

Fix broken trim, repair, add two flower boxes and a funky bright colored bench and spend the rest on the inside. I think this house has a cute beach-ey look!

Personally, I would paint the body a fun color, maybe a bright blue? and do the trim in white. I think new windows would be a great improvement for everything, energy efficiency as well as resale. Change out the house numbers to something a bit more modern. Best of luck!

Use fun, bright or pastel Caribbean, beachy colors on siding, trim and doors! Paint the chairs different bright colors, too. Go crazy and have fun! You're at the beach!!!!! Do what makes you HAPPY and brings a smile to your face every time you see it. Life's too short not to take a chance on doing something fun and a bit out of the ordinary! ;-)

RE: plants and trees.... There were some suggestions made earlier in a post... but check and see if they are salt tolerant. You are at the beach and there will be salt spray that will kill most trees, shrubs and flowers. A good local nursery can tell you what will, and will not, work for your beach location. I love sea grape trees!

After wood repairs and siding repairs and roof ... do it with paint.

It's a beach house, like stacked boxes, so go with the squareness of it. My first thought was to mark out and paint it to look like Legos or children's blocks. Perhaps too offbeat for you.

More conservatively: I'd paint the walls to the right and the ceiling of that carport all
the same color, a color something that won't show signs of
fading too badly, like a pale yellow. (it's pale grey in my edits) That gives you a strong zig-zag modern look. Paint the wall at the left (we can't see it) that color too.

You have two strong horizontals - make them the darkest.

Top box, paint front walls and overhang the same color to make overhang go away. Paint the uprights in the railing the same color as the walls, the top rail same as the beams.

Front of bottom box could match the top, or be a different color.

Adding wire mesh
panels to the balcony could give your beach house a fresh new look. Please take
a look at examples of McNICHOLS® Wire Mesh in our
Ideabook. If you’re interested, you can find a wide variety of
styles at our website.

I love it as is, classic, old school beach house.

I am no expert - just an ol' DIYer. Many people here have suggested focusing in your inside first and the exterior last. If you have structural, rot or leak problems on the outside, I would recommend fixing them first. I have seen that when people remodel the inside without these types of outside repairs being made first, the leaks and/or sags can eventually damage your new interior work! For example, wet wallboard would all have to be replaced! That's my 2 cents anyway.

My first thought was, 'it doesn't really need much.' Agree with above suggestions of wood repair and a dash of colorful paint on the accent areas. Further: I'd add shiny new house numbers (hoping metal doesn't pit too fast, and if it does, the ones from Home Depot aren't expensive to replace) and maybe a fancier material for the second floor balcony railing. Again, metal if it will hold up at all. Definitely some ground cover and/or potted plants along the overhang driveway side. I don't see a magnolia in your setting; besides they get -giant- and shed large leaves constantly that don't easily degrade. A native beach grass makes more sense to me. Also

I'd invest in a set of matching chairs for both stories, with colorful cushions. Perhaps your accent paint color could be derived from the chairs or cushions you find.

^ took the words right out of my mouth with the chairs. I love what the house looks like and I think the Acapulco chairs in a matching color would be perfect. I also sorta had my eye on this one for you but now that I see Paintcolorhelp's pick, I prefer those.

Cheaply I think you could add really large house numbers and stack them straight down. Add very large planter boxes to at lease one window if not both--you could use some corrigated farm troughs for a more modern look, paint them or not. Very large hanging planters with various flowers all colorful on the upper level. I would add a darker trim color to the palet also. Also add a lattice screen to the electrical boxes in front. Good luck.

Some window boxes under the street level windows and maybe some planters designed to go on the rail on the upper level balcony - fill them with punch color flowers for an inexpensive curb appeal boost while you complete interior renovations and determine how much of your budget is left over for exterior modifications...

I like the idea of cloth awnings on the upper balcony for fun color and to soften the lines. Freshen up the paint on the outside and add punches of color. Keep it simple and enjoy the beach.

I agree with Barbra (spelled like Striesand!) that SeaGrape would do well there, with handsome multiple trunks, massive leaves, good shade, and is native to poor soils of the Florida keys.

Throw the ripe seed pods in the sea, and they will find a worthy beach to make their home.

Lots of cute ideas. I recently saw an updated beach house on HGTV's website (a wonderul resource!!) and they painted it a muted coral! It was so beachy and inviting. White trim would be nice. I love the idea of a new railing on the upstairs deck, and I would either close the side by the overhang off with the lattice, or add a railing to match the "new" upstairs railing and make it look like the area is more joined to the house; this would also add extra outdoor living space when needed. Accents could be flowers, window boxes, outdoor furniture (maybe lime green or turquoise chairs, etc. for a pop of color, and even patterned pillows to pull in all the new colors! Hope to see pictures of the finished update soon.

speaking of HGTV... this is a cute and simple beach cottage from one of their magazines. (keep going past the video ad near the end.)

http://www.hgtv.com/design/decorating/design-101/from-gross-to-great-an-island-home-makeover-pictures

I just painted my house, 1 mile from the beach, a light vanilla yellow with white trim and light/medium aqua blue shutters... and a bright flamingo or Hibiscus colored front door!!!! (The other doors are a darker shade of the shutters.) It's fun and beachy and refreshing, yet still is not too wild for my rather conservative neighborhood.

This is THE most fun way in the world to pick paint colors. It is a great website that puts a complete palette of colors together for you based on your personal preferences. Search by creating your own personalized palette or by a theme or a season or a place, etc.

(I printed off the color palettes I liked and took them to the store to match paints.)

http://design-seeds.com/search

all great design ideas. i am a professional interior and exterior designer, but before thinking design, i would talk to a contractor and get some real numbers. structural/rot/etc. obviously shouldn't get painted over. it is a lot of money, 50K, but on construction - any kind - the money will add up faster than you can imagine, simply for repairs. one thing gets done and another one rears its head. with a plan in mind, you can budget first, then make design decisions. work on scary repair stuff first, then ask a designer to do a few color sketches for you. i do this for clients, & you can find places on line. cost runs from $200 to $500. you don't need the gingerbread detailing with a great paint job. remodeling jobs are notorious for add-ons, $$$. best of luck. it's a very cute house. california?

Thank you all so much for your wonderful comments and suggestions. I wish I had a eye for color and the creativity to come up with design ideas. I plan to keep all of your suggestions in mind as we move forward. I know now that the first thing I must do is repair the wood in front and make sure that the building is structurally sound. That will be my priority. I will get started on that work in the next couple weeks. Once that's completed, I'll hopefully have some $ left to paint. After that, I'll either wait until I can build up funds to work on the inside or do one DIY project at a time. The color suggestions and the links are great. I am going to play around with the ideas and see what hits me. I sure wish this came easily to me!! I keep going back over your comments and discussing with my husband. Again, thank you.

I'd look at photos of houses in Bermuda and some quaint old Italian fishing villages where there have a lot of multi-colored pastel houses and pick the color scheme you like best. And since your house is in the US, sure you don't want to stick a pink flamingo or 2 somewhere? Maybe in those big planters a lot of people recommended. BTW, don't forget to consider the dirt of any trees or plants you choose. Some natural debris stains when it gets wet and/or it sticks to your shoes. Crepe myrtle flowers are a good example.

Thank you, cheistenz for the amazing drawing of the front of the beach house. I love it!

pcotta, Thanks for your "Thanks"!!! I'd love to see what you do!!!! The most important thing is to design a space that works for your lifestyle. & then enjoy it.

I was going to suggest painting blues and yellows, but when I saw the budget I figured you could add me. Love the house as it is.

Hello again! What great advise the posters gave. I just wanted to tell you, we love to see the projects as they are done in stages and of course the finished results.

I will definitely post the final photo following our upgrades. We plan to start the exterior in September. Thank you, again for all of your ideas. You've helped so much.

You really should put some supports under that overhang on the right side and, unless you drive underneath it to get to your parking spot, consider creating screened porch there.

Also consider adding tall (two story) posts or pillars or columns all across the front both to support the roof over the top floor and also extending out far enough toward the front to not need a second shed roof over the downstairs.

You could extend your balcony to wrap around that outside corner and the railing appears to need to be replaced.

Consider opting for two shades of the same color for the exterior, using the darker color for the trim.

Budget permitting, and if the existing rafters are in good shape, consider creating a modern sloped roofline that covers the entire home, including balcony and steps.

https://imagesus-ssl.homeaway.com/mda01/958768ae-005a-448b-aa36-abc866c2fabc.1.10

https://imagesus-ssl.homeaway.com/mda01/4241d65a-c86a-4426-88df-86fc34b065df.1.10

http://cdn.homedit.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/modern-house-with-flat-roof.jpg

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/29/7b/de/297bde79a5e8f1a7314da281eb2fa0e0.jpg

Thanks, suezbell! I appreciate your input and your links were quite nice. We have found that most of our budget has gone to needed maintenance (as many suggested) and we have not been able to add much flare! But, we are enjoying every moment that we are at the beach.

Passing along a tip I recently learned from a southern friend. Looking at the white roof overhang.... reminds me of my porch ceiling. I'm plagued by yellow jackets who hang out on the porch and chase me inside. A friend told me to paint the ceiling blue... yellow jackets see that as sky, and as their goal is to be in a more enclosed place, they just move along. Apparently this is a routine ploy in the south. I remember a summer I spent at a beach that was ruined by bees... so... if you find you have a problem, you know what to try! And blues are always a nice beachy color