The landscaping needs some help, such as the large bush blocking the front entry area. The shutters on the top window need to go...window's much too large for them. A wide, white trim around all windows would be nice. It's a cute house...lots of possibilities. What color is the roof?

The roof is gray. Thanks!

It's hard to say until the large, pink shrub is relocated or removed.

The pink shrub needs pruning to be sure. It really blocks the entrance.

While the yellow is OK, I think a neutral color for the gable would be more attractive. It is an intense color and so is the red of brick and they are fighting for attention. If you do a taupe with white trim, then you could do a bright color on the door.

I would also replace any grass on the slope with perennials.

Cute house.

Jennifer, a gray roof is good! It's neutral making it easier to choose other colors. torreykm is right...it's hard to say for sure with the big bush there. Is removing or relocating it even a possibility? Another photo without it would be helpful. From what I can see right now, replacing the step railings with white would look nice if you use white trim on the house.

We can definitely trim or remove the giant bush. In person it doesn’t feel like it obscures the entrance as much as it seems in the photo, but we’re not attached to it at all.

When it's in the budget I would reconfigure both sets of steps so they are lined up with the front door. Right now one must walk up, turn right, turn left, walk up, turn left to get to the front door. Make it a straight shot asap.

Congrats on first house! Beautiful mature landscape, just a little out of control. Plant perennials for low maintenance, color, and help the pollinators. Her are some ideas, but your local garden center will sell plants that do well in your climate Zone and can tell you the plant’s sun/shade needs. To left of black hand railing, if you want color down the slope...plant daffodils/narcissus (bloom yellow in Mar-Apr), bearded iris (bloom purple in May), Stella d’Oro daylilies (bloom yellow Jun-Aug), and tiger lilies (bloom orange Jun-Aug), but not so close to the railing that their long leaves spill over to the steps. If you only want greenery...plant an evergreen ground cover (periwinkle, candy tuft, blue rug juniper, or ivy) down the slope. Trim the sides and top of the pink bush (Azalea? Rhododendron? Hydrangea?) once it stops blooming, so that it doesn’t interfere with the stairs and walkway, and you can see more of the front door from the street. If there is mulch under the blooming bushes, start replacing mulch with pachysandra or periwinkle. Remove the window shutters. Keep window trim white (or charcoal gray if you want to be less traditional). If you keep the siding yellow, paint the front door light gray, white, aqua, teal, royal blue, lime, or salmon. To outline the walkway that connects the 2 sets of steps, plant a row something short such as variegated liriope, fern, salvia, succulents, or lambs ears. Along sides of house if bare, plant a few hosta plants or Nandina bushes (red berries in winter) and butterfly bush. If you have a trellis, grow star jasmine, trumpet honeysuckle, bougainvillea, or climbing rose.

These are some really great ideas. We will definitely plant a bed of perennials down the slope like both of our neighbors have. We have a water issue in the basement so we're going to diagnose that first, and the landscaping around the house will probably need to address the water issue as well.

You could try a rain garden to funnel gutter rain water to plants.

Another quick question since you all are so helpful: what kind of architecture is this? I'm told it's a Cape Cod, but it seems like a Cape Cod turned sideways.

It’s been a while since I posted this. Since then, we’ve pruned the bushes, which are azaleas. We’re thinking about replacing the siding with a color that’s…not yellow. I’m thinking taupe, which looks great on our neighbors’ house that has the same brick as us. I like the suggestion above to remove the shutters and put a wider white border around the windows. Question: can we do that on the first floor windows? It looks like there might not be room. Also, any other color suggestions for the siding?

Hello, again! Hope your basement water issue is fixed and your plantings are establishing well. If a neighbor across the street or next door has taupe, it looks too cookie cutter from the street to see houses painted the same color. Your gray roof is neutral so you are not confined to taupe paint. If you don’t like the yellow spectrum, do you like cool white? Warm white? Blues with gray or black undertones? Greens? If you love, love taupe - which goes great with your gray roof - go darker taupe or tanner than the neighbors’. Play around with a picture of your house on a color tool like Sherwin Williams Color Snap app. (Limit yourself to the exterior paint colors).

For example, here is off-white trim and gutters, taupe siding, and bluish door.

Find a color chip that matches the red brick when you start looking at paint colors. Don’t trust the PC monitors to show you true colors! Get the painters to include power washing your concrete walk and steps.

You ask if you can make the window trims wider. Yes. There are paintable vinyl and aluminum “cap trims” to make the wood window and door trims wider. Here is a link to vinyl trim explanation and info for aluminum trim.

https://youtu.be/n45jyWy-6wA

Thanks Marylut! I think a blue would look nice against the red brick, but I’m not so good at picking a shade or a door color to go with it. Do you have any suggestions?

And yes, we’ve power washed the steps and porch. It made a big difference.

Would love to help you with specific colors, but my monitor doesn’t show true colors and the sunlight hitting the house makes a big difference. I can give you a hack. Hope this makes sense. Grab all the red paint chips at the paint store. On a sunny day look at your majority brick color and pick only 2-3 chips closest to it. Then back in the paint store display with your selected red chips, look at the display as a grid and pick a few blue paint chips on the same horizontal line ACROSS as the red (be sure to mark which blue goes with which red!). I think this hack works because the blue and red automatically coordinate and the blue will actually look 3 shades lighter in sunlight. (If you want even paler blue, go 3 blue chips UP the display). As you pick the blue paint chips, move away from the reds and yellows towards the greens columns and browns columns and grays, blacks (mark which blue has green, which has brown, gray, black). I think this hack works because you don’t want to fight the red In the brick. Also grab 1 blue chip on that row with the RGB (red, green, blue) values about equal but green and blue slightly higher than the red. Back at your house on a sunny day, see which 3 blues you like best and buy some sample sizes, paint them on poster board, and check how each looks on all sides of the house. Pick the best one. Consider painting the downspouts same color as the siding. When picking white paint chips for the gutter and trim, steer away from true white and bluish whites (too stark for red brick and mortar) towards warmer whites with hint of beige, taupe, or tan.

You have multiple options for the door color. It depends on the look you like and how bold your neighbors went. You will know the direction once you see the blue on the house. Consider charcoal gray, battleship gray, darkest color chip of your blue, navy, off-white, Tricorn Black (very popular), and all are conservative choices with blue. If your neighbors went bold, consider cobalt, sage, honey dew melon, mint, lemon (is “dated” here). The important thing IMHO is to get a glossy finish on the door.