I would extend the front porch. add a horizontal wood fence, remove the shutters, replace the garage door and front door and do drought tolerant planting, (they lend them selves to mcm well.) What city are you in this looks like it could be in my neighbor hood lol.

The house is a mid-century rustic ranch. I love rustic ranch homes and think people ruin them trying to make it something it's not.

When you say "retro/midcentury style of your dreams" what does that mean? If it's mid-century modern, that will take a lot of money.

My ideas if I owned the house:

I would remove the security door.

Remove the fence. If you want a fence, I would do a painted rustic split rail.

The original windows are fantastic and give it charm.

Will you be using the garage to park cars? If you could take some driveway space and add stairs coming out facing the street, I think that will give you a better looking entrance. Incorporating the used brick from the driveway would be in keeping with the style.

A new, carriage style garage door would look nice.

Paint the downspouts the same color as the house siding so they blend in.

Thank you both for your thoughtful responses.

I do want to keep the windows, they are all original. Since the windows are white, I've been considering white trim, with all white exterior paint, and then just doing a trim color along the roofline. On both sides of the door, there is currently dark brown vertical siding, and I haven't decided what to do about that yet.

I plan to remove the downspouts and gutters, but I do need to keep the beams on the entrance as they are structural (or I would need to replace them with something else for support). I don't love them as they are now, but I think the look of the whole front is throwing me off a little.

RL, I really like the image you sent of the off-white home with the wood fence on the right, and I think that would be relatively easy to pull off.

yes I agree about the railing. If you are removing the downspouts what will you put in its place? After this year's rain, I would think you would want to keep those.

The gutters pictured are actually cracked and broken, so I doubt they did much through this last rainy season. And there are no gutters at all on the back of the house. I was planning on just installing on the sides and back of the home, or at the very least relocating on the front so they aren't so prominent.