IMO, neither the current color (agree with your husband--boring & depressing color) nor a darker gray works with the brown stone. Find a light color that complements the stone for the body of the house and bring in a real color, teal perhaps, for the doors.

The door will be stained wood.

Be bold—go red with some gray (maybe in the peaks?) to contrast—It’ll look great with the white trim and the stone

Oh, and I agree w/ Patricia. No shutters. Lots going on already & shutters would only clutter things up.

really dogsand cats how tacky that would be

Wow. Thank you for the rudeness, for the suggestions that are not anywhere close to the style I said we like, and for criticizing things about our house that we are happy with. I certainly hope you are not this rude to your actual clients.

I don't think you have room for shutters. The house is pretty as is but a sage green might be a nice option if you'd like a change. IMHO, I don't think the black and white are suited to the style of the house. Maybe something like BM Jojoba.

Oh sorry about the red suggestion then. I spent the morning looking at red houses with gray and was excited about that. Btw haven’t been on Houzz for a long time—it’s not as fun as I remember or as focused. Just saying.

I think you're house looks great the way it is, but the white farmhouse look would look good too. You have a really pretty house!

Not a pro . . . with earth colored stone and a brown roof, I'd go with a warm color scheme. I'd worry that the white and charcoal will fight with the other elements of the house. Beautiful house!

For better or worse, you are asking for advice. I think sometimes people "think" they want one particular thing and then after a few comments are on a completely different track that they never considered, but LOVE. I'm going to agree with the consensus that shutters aren't really needed here. I'm not sure if you are in the market for new garage doors but something in a wood look (like Patricia mentioned) to match the cedar might look sharp! I searched everywhere to find these that are so realistic looking. https://www.chiohd.com/homeowners/garage-doors/accents

While there is some benefit to your charcoal and white plan (pulls the corner out into the light and really accentuates the various parts of your house) it has a striped effect that might not look so good on the real house. You also have a lot of roof and I'm not quite sure the charcoal really works with the dark brown. Maybe a color would work. We did this color with dark brown lap siding on our front. It's Valspar Model T - in FLAT, it came out way too hunter-greenish in semigloss. Our doors are the CHI ones in walnut.

Charcoal seems to need a black roof, IMO...

And for the record, I think your current color is quite nice and like the white posts you have now. We had a very similar color scheme on our home in the northeast and had people stopping all the time to ask the colors.

You might consider leaving the medium gray siding but paint all that white trim black.

I don't know where you plan to use cedar, but I think even the two-tone look chops the house up too much. And I definitely wouldn't add shutters to any of the windows.

Suezbell mentioned black trim- I think by changing just the fascia boards to black or match the garage door colour, would add heft plus compliment the dark window mullions. I agree with groveraxle that a stark contrast diminishes the look of your lovely home- perhaps a closer tonal contrast would achieve the added interest for your home’s elevation without chopping it up. I’d always prefer the lighter tone on the most ‘forward’ element - therefore the clapboard siding, but I’d treat the garage as a whole in the darker receding colour, less contrast to the doors. Maybe grover can do his magic again. I know BM has great exterior colour combos- in any case the jojoba is a warm soft choice.

Due to your roof color and stone color, I would stick with the light beige color- such as the one groveraxle posted 1st out of the 3. Then put nice cedar posts/beams on porch and replace with nice matching stained garage doors to match. I think upgraded wooden garage doors would make a huge difference and be stunning. All siding should be a uniform color; too choppy otherwise. Great house!

Very much agree on these points:

- no shutters

- no gray; you have tan and beige elements already existing so stick with warm colors rather than gray

- it's a lovely home