Improved landscaping with color. New front door appropriate to home style with less glass so the color of door is more prominent. Do not paint the sidelights they should match the trim.

I think the house is ALREADY pretty. Pay a professional photog $175 and Im sure people will look at the pictures of the house and say its amazing.

your picture has gray skies and that makes it look dreary.

if that were my house it would be getting a white coat of paint

the white accents between windows would become gray,

and the gable porch would be replaced with something more industrial and probably clear.

Beautiful property! BeverlyFLADeziner idea is great. I took that and did a quick and dirty edit in photoshop, to help give a visual.

(please excuse the editing/colors/flower choice, littles running around like maniacs)

Split-level homes are the least favored design these days. You don't see too many of them being built, but many areas have lots of them that were built between 1970 to 1990.

I would google "remodeling a split-level house" to get ideas, but most will probably be much more than $20k.

For $20,000 you could have the house repainted with an improved entry portico similar to Beverly's photo above.

I would beef up the columns on that portico. Paint it white and add grey/greige shutters and get a nicer front door, to repeat what others have said. People post a lot of pictures of pretty front doors in Paris/London/New York/LA, if you want inspiration.

In addition to what others have said, if this is the angle that people first see your house, I would replace the evergreen shrubs at the corners with ornamental trees placed out a little further from the corner and some nice understory plantings at the stone walls to frame the house and keep the eye from wandering back to the garage doors, which is where my ye is being drawn right now.

What if the retaining wall next to the garage were straight? You could put container plants (and jack o lanterns!) on top, and it would hide the garages a bit. Is there a way to do a complementary wall on the right side of the driveway, to set it off as the private parking court?

I would go with portico all the front way and make steps wider.

Unusual to see those quoins on a split level house. Since they can't be removed, I think you'll want to upgrade the portico to something more classical that goes with the vibe quoins establish. The builder grade panels between upstairs and downstairs windows are a cheap way to avoid more brick. Can you camouflage that with paint? Maybe painting the entire house a rich gray with white or black shutters would do it. I suggest a portico more like this one. Remove the gravel at the drive and have the retaining walls redone with classical landscaping in mind.

Trueblood Custom Home Exteriors · More Info

Paint the white sections between windows same as house Flowers each side of steps in pots. No shutters.

Or may be some kind of ...with big portico and shutters?

Oh, no, that huge gable just looks way to much like the 90s monster homes near me. almost exactly like the one that had a drug bust and gunfire.

The wide steps are nice, and I do like the planting on the retaining wall to the right.

Add some color to the home and change the landscape.

Have you considered painting the around the windows and between the upstairs and downstairs windows a bold color -- even black.

You could replace the front portico with a front porch with a forward facing gable -- taller posts and wider and deeper floor, extending the porch all the way out to the driveway and have the ridge of the porch meet the ridge of the home at a right angle.

Add a short overhang roof over the garage doors as well.

Definitely repaint those architectural features (that are sandwiched between the windows) in the same color as the body of the house. So they disappear instead of stand out. Love the suggestions to make the side walls horizontal/level instead of angled, shutters, beefed up portico and I’d maybe square up posts to replace instead the round (?)