have you ever thought about painting your brick?

You can definitely modernize by a better choice of colors. I would get rid of the shutters around the window and door at the front (they look ok on the smaller windows on the other side) and try to find a light grayish shade for the roof and siding. Then repaint the remaining shutters in a color that harmonizes with that (but significantly darker), and paint the garage door and side entrance a shade similar to the siding so that it's less of a dark hole over there. The color of the brick itself isn't problematic, or at least won't seem so when you get rid of the red shingles and 70s brown trim. I'll see if I can mock something up.

I agree...remove the shutters on the door and bow window. If it is in your budget I would replace the bow window with three double hungs ( they can then be opened). Perhaps a sage siding and trim would work well. You could then paint your door a dark red ( paint the storm door the same as the door). Do not paint, stain, or wash your brick.

Revamp your landscaping, get a new mailbox, light fixtures , etc. Just removing the brown from your home will be so fresh!

CC - like I said in the above, I was leaning away from not painting (constant upkeep, costs, downing the value).

acm -Your mock up is wonderful! I can't believe the big difference the darker window makes and getting rid of the shutters. Thank you so much. We will totally take the ideas into consideration! I'm leaning towards a charcoal/darker roof.

grapefruit1_ar - Thank you for your suggestions! Doing the small upgrades like mailbox, light fixtures, and numbers will definitley make an impact. Landscaping will come next spring, I believe. Why do you suggest not washing the brick? We live about one house away from a beach and I don't think the previous homeowners did much upkeep. We were thinking of powerwashing the brick soon to clean it up. Some areas of it are very dirty.

Here's a mock-up where I worked with the gold tone of the brick. Not very polished mock-up, but perhaps it helps to visualize anyway. I like the yellow brick and the angular lines of the house.

Warm buff siding & Owens Corning Summer Harvest roof, which in real life isn't as busy looking, but is a nice tweedy blend of grays/slates/gold/brown. Dark slate blue on the doors, and a taupe-ish charcoal on the gutters and trim and fence. No shutters except for that one window where the shutters seem to be filling in on the sides where the window is too short. And a prairie style window on the house front. Adding prairie style lighting would work well with this great house.

awm03 - Your compliments about the house make me feel so much better about it! We've been having so many issues haha. So thank you for that! I really like the taupe/charcoal look and think we will be leaning more towards this than the bright yellow siding. The roof looks interesting and may have to look into that. Thanks for your help!

I'm a sucker for yellow brick houses and have always wanted one. And your home has all those cool mcm angles and good horizontal lines. Hope all goes well for you & that you'll post pics when you're finished!

Hi. Just wondering what you decided on. I'm struggling with the same myself. I don't mind a little color but I'm afraid of making a huge mistake. I have a light yellow brick tri-level that has boring white siding and black shutters now. Bleh! lol I'm trying to find some ideas.