An instant upgrade would be a beautiful cedar garage door with windows with possibly a pergola over it.

Lake Washington Residence · More Info

Devote your budget to extend out a garden bed beyond your tree.

Highland Park Nantucket · More Info

Cottage Renovation · More Info

And, a tree bench from which to sit and admire your new garden!

Contemporary Deck · More Info

You haven’t said anything about budget.

Change out the siding color starting from the colors in your brick. I would want something somewhat darker than the current color. I can’t see that adding cedar shingles to the top part of the gable ends, leaving the rest as it currently is, will be an improvement.

Changing out the garage door for one with windows is a good idea. Match its color to the siding as the white highlights something that doesn’t need extra attention.

Widen the walkway so that two people can walk abreast, and make it of more interesting material.

Find a garden designer to help you come up with a garden design that suits both your taste and ability/interest in doing the needed maintenance. What you currently have has some evergreens which is good, but there isn’t anything interesting or that complements the architecture. You landscape is stuck in the 60’s with nothing except for your two rows of evergreens and a small patch of some type of flowers.

Some changes I would make would be:

• widen walk to porch opening
• reconfigure walk, bringing it farther from the house face
• add windows to garage door
• reconfigure planting to one or two shrubs per window unit, color near entrance, circular bed below tree, low groundcover & colorful perennials near house corners.
• begin planning for the future by removing lower branches from the large tree (before it becomes a huge chore.)

(You probably a SMALL tree off the right corner of the house but this area is not shown.)

I'm editing to add that I'd darken the siding color by a shade or two. I don't think there's enough contrast between the siding and trim such to make it pop a bit. If you take the color of the siding as it appears in the shadow produced by the roof overhang, that might be dark enough. Another example might be the shade of the step risers. I would also paint the fascia and soffit white to match the trim color.

I would do what Doug has done, and paint the siding a new color. add darker trim, and new front door, wood garage door

Consider louver gable vents for your home.

I really like the idea of a new garage door with windows - a wood door seems to make it pop, and the trellis above is cool too!

It seems from the edited photos that changing up the landscape makes a big difference- really like Dig Doug’s Designs photo!

Also, any ideas on how much it would be if I wanted to tear up the sidewalk to make one bigger and more visually appealing? What kind of material should I use to make sure it doesn’t clash with the brick??

There was a mention of painting the fascia and soffit white - what do others think of that?

And finally, what about the single post I have? Any way to liven that up? What you may not be able to tell from the photo is that there is a downspout running down the front of it, painted the same color. Looks slightly tacky.

I appreciate everyone’s input so far!!

Dig Doug does it again! If you do something like that, plus the wood garage door, the house will be transformed. You could also do a cedar pillar if you get a wood garage door. Good luck!