Paint the wood an off-white color to prevent the Pizza Hut look. Regarding the lawn, you may want to develop a long term plan including getting rid of the trees and have a professional landscaping company come in and take all the boulders out. Then you can have a lush lawn, if that's what your ultimate goal is. One benefit to the lawn as it is now is that it is fairly maintenance free. Also, if you live in a hot climate, your style lawn prevents you from using too much water. In a hot climate, you may have water restrictions from time to time.

It's not the roof, it is the dark brown that gives the Pizza Hut vibe. Try a forest green with cream or white trim. Paint the front door an accent color. Keep the vertical boards, they fit the house style.

The fact that you can't have a grass lawn is a big plus. Remove or move what is struggling and add native plants, grasses and groundcover. Smaller plants will be easier to plant than big ones.

You need to post where in the world you are. Not just the zone, but nearest large city or say what part of the state you are in.

The yard is very natural but also rough around the edges. To the right, is a 40” natural rock wall and our property feels like a courtyard facing into a totally private yard due to the high rock cliffs.

A lot of our acreage is on top of that wall looking down at the property and we are also set a good 150 feet back from the road. Nice to hike around, but unusable. Behind our yard is a “valley” that belongs to several neighbors, but basically is also unusable to them due to HOA regs and topography. When a trees fall in a storm (as we had last week during Isais), we can remove from our property (6 need to be removed this week), but that valley is littered with years/decades of fallen trees.

I think that we may want to plant some sizable shrubs to create some structure in our view, otherwise it looks like a gray wasteland during the cold winters (we are in the Ramapo Mountains in NJ, about 20 miles from NYC). It looks tougher than usual now as we just got power back and are only beginning storm cleanup.

Beautiful! Research native evergreens.

I honestly think this is a MCM ranch regardless of the shape of the roof . As for property I think you need to talk to landscape architect to get the best from that space. BTW they can blast out rocks no problem. I acutally dislike lawns and all the chemicals required to keep them green and lush. IMO a new front door would set the tone for MCM style. Then get to work and check out MCM landscaping it is all over the map for different homes and really a great place to find inspiration. IMO the bold white trim with the brown siding is what would turn me off. I love the stone walk .

I couldn’t agree more on the white trim with brown siding. I know we need to change it dramatically, I just figured we’d live here through the seasons to get an idea of which colors might work best.

I’m not opposed to white. I think it might look pretty stark in the winter, but the same can be said for the current brown.

I’m posting a few images of things that came to mind about things that I’d want to consider.

1. I think that horizontal siding might work well with the long and flatter nature of the house.
2. I’ve considered either darker trim for the siding and windows, but I’ve also considered a stained wood like mahogany or cedar.
3. For the soffits, I think that they are actually pretty prominent on this house. There aren’t a ton of areas where you can add some style, but the soffits might benefit from a cedar or mahogany look, perhaps with a vent line as shown on the attached image.

For the doors I’e considered MCM looks and also some that, I suppose would be MCM/craftsman. We don’t really have a problem with a lot of glass in the front because you can only see into the foyer from outside. So, clear glass doors would not be an issue. For the second sidelight from the doors, we have a powder room on the right side, so I’ve thought about having custom MCM or craftsman stained glass inserts made. The light fixtures on the house have a craftsman vibe, so that’s what got me thinking in that direction.

Agree that the current door is totally wrong for the house, though.

There are some areas of bare wall on either side of the windows and sidelights where I’ve thought about putting stained wood slats as accents on either side. - - something I’ve seen on some midcentury renovations, sometimes with the house number attached.

The other areas on the front of the house where I thought we could add some accents were the empty wall between the side lights and the bay windows. Something sort of like one of these wood slats. I’ve seen that on some MCM renovations.

II’ll try to do some mockups with lighter paint. I wonder if I should go for an off white or more of a very, very light gray or bone.

We’re in Morris County, NJ close to Sussex and Passaic. Supposedly a 30 minute drive from Manahattan but whoever made that trip deserves a land speed record. :) I’ll try a mock up in forest green as well. I had never tried green before.

The roof has an Asian vibe, but I would say the house is MCM. I think the vertical siding is a better choice. Consider reed glass for privacy.

I like this color scheme. In this picture it looks gray, which I like with the wood, in other pictures it is clearly olive green. I like the shine to the finish.

Mission Style House and Studio · More Info

This is another interesting combination - dark gray and rusty yellow.

Loveshack, at Dinner Plain · More Info

All kinds of comments can and will be made on any picture that is submitted, but honestly, I do not think the first picture (or any others) do a good job of explaining what you have. Also, I'd suggest dealing thoroughly with one area of the yard before moving on to any other areas, as it gets confusing and/or overwhelming to be discussing everything all at once.

The first picture seems to be taken from too low of an elevation to properly show the front of the house. It may be the case that you need to stand on something -- a stepladder, bed of truck, or whatever works -- in order to get the camera to more of a normal level. Then, we need to see a complete, whole front of house, and yard in front of it, in order to grasp how things fit together. With a long house it usually works best to take a panoramic series of individual photos than it does to use a pano feature on the camera. To do that, place the camera in line with the front door for all photos. Pivot the camera to take a series of slightly overlapping photos that extend all the way from far left to far right. You might not have neighboring houses in the next yards, but extend the series of pictures far enough left and right that we would see them if they were there. Post the individual pictures. (You might actually move closer to the house than the first picture above was taken, usually the foundation planting and house must be looked at separately, and in addition to, the overall front yard.

You don't need lawn. Don't waste money on that.

I don't like the entrance area. It is not grand enough for the nice stoop and path. That is where I would make changes. I tried to make the house closer to the color of your soil.

I truly love your house. I don’t see Pizza Hut. But I would paint the house a different color, because I think you could make it really rock. I personally think it would look really great in a gray toned body and black or charcoal window trim. Then I think a 6 paned glass door with 3/4 glass, maybe done in a wood tone that would compliment your roof would look awesome. I think the landscaping also looks great. I love the stone/paver side walk. I’m not a pro, but l like to play one on Houzz. Lol 😉

What a wonderful house and setting. Have you considered something in a gray/green that would tie in with the beautiful surroundings? Here is BM Carolina Gull paired with some different wood tones.

Thanks! I like that green a lot end it would solve the problem of trying to get a gray tone to match with the beige roof.

I found some photos from the original MLS listing that I am pasting here. Shot with a drone, and I guess that the roof doesn’t really give me the Pizza Hut vibe from that angle, but it does from the street. I will take a picture when it’s light out tomorrow.

When most people approach the house for the first time, they see the side of the house with the garage. There are definitely huge opportunities to spruce this up as well. I thought about some kind of veneers on the foundation and maybe a wood or wood with glass craftsman or mid century garage door.

The second phase of renovation will include the driveway. Currently all crushed stone.

(the dog kennel fence was already removed, btw).

Awesome property! This is going to be an exciting project!

For a cheery but tasteful look, I would suggest a medium grey/taupe-leaning tone with white trim. A grey roof should easily go with anything like this. IMO, dark trim leans ghoulish. Dark body colors leans somber.

Lovely home. What a canvas you have to work on.

Stop referring to the house as Pizza Hut because their roof is like this and you don't have that style roof.

IMO it might be a good idea to have the home blend into the surroundings. I think all the white trim around the windows has to go It's distracting from the architecture.

I agree with Beverly, about the white trim around the windows needing to go. It’s quite stark to your natural beautiful surroundings. And, I totally disagree with Yardvaark that dark trim would look ”ghoulish” … whatever the heck that means 🥴. We are in the building process and are doing the black windows. They look very chic and really make the windows pop (my husband would have loved for me to not like
them, $$$).
Please Please, whatever you decide to do, post pics. I can’t wait to see it. Still loving your house!
(Side note: would love to see inside pics too. 😉)

"And, I totally disagree with Yardvaark that dark trim would look ”ghoulish” … whatever the heck that means 🥴." It means that it looks like people from The Adams Family -- or women who use a pound of black eye shadow and black lipstick, and naturally have a few dozen piercings, live there.

Love your ideas for playing up your soffits! For paint colors, images shared here look like good choices: taupe...gray...gray-green. Some interesting colors suggested for the trim, too. I would think that color would depend on whether your windows frames can be painted. If frames are vinyl, it appears you would need to consider the white when choosing the trim color.

What did you choose for interior design style and colors? Continuity between interior and exterior would be awesome, especially if colors are inspired by your natural setting which is gorgeous!

When the time comes for resurfacing the driveway, please consider a permeable driveway. Better aesthetically and environmentally.

Our house is from about the same era and has vertical board and baton siding. It was white with kelly green windows, doors, and gutters. Horrid. We painted the siding, windows and gutters Behr "Castallian Clay". a medium grayish taupe. The front door is a medium blue and the sidelights trim is white. We changed the roof to a grayish brown called "Weathered Wood".

I still love the color and it has been 35 to 40 years. I also like the windows blending into the siding and not picked out in a color.

ETA: At one time the front door was a stained wood until a hail storm damaged it.

Yardvaak, for a “pro”, you have just insinuated that everyone with black eye shadow and piercings have ghoulish taste. I would think you might not judge a book by its cover. I just don’t look at things the way you do. I think that same black eye shadow/lipstick wearing person could decorate in many styles, just as I would assume you could. I would suggest to you, to step out of the box you seem to put people in. That might make you a way better “pro”. Just my opinion.

I'm not INSINUATING that heavy black eye shadow, black lipstick and piercings might look ghoulish. It just IS ghoulish and that's why the Adams family and all the other spooks and Goth go for that look. If one wants to project images of cherubs, ice cream and bunnies, it's not going to be with black make-up and metal stabbed into one's face.

Back to the OP...I might look into why the front yard is how it is...previous owners may have given up on lush grass...Winter is often a wasteland...it shocks me each spring after looking out at flat/white NOTHING when all the perennials come back!

Not trying to make you mad, I just don’t agree with you. I stand by the fact that you are judging a book by its cover.
Thank God we can all have our own opinions.

"I just don’t agree with you." First time ever happened. :-)

I have a similar color scheme MCM house, but we have a simple gable end style roof

For what it’s worth, I’m looking at SW Dovetail and Felted Wool for our next paint job.

Your windows look very similar to our vinyl clad casement windows so I’m thinking painting the white isn’t an option?

Here are a couple style garage doors we have in our idea book....

Our front windows are all wood-framed and overall in good shape. They would be ok to paint. The sliding doors in the rear are all vinyl and could be painted, but lower maintenance to keep them white.

I've looked at similar colors to Felted Wool too. About a year ago, I paid someone for a few design concepts. He took it things in a very, very different direction. I could share a photo, but let's just say it would be a distraction. LOL. Almost purple with rusted steel garage doors and garden boxes. I couldn't see it for the house, the surroundings or the community and the community has a ton of variety. It just illustrates there are so many different options and potential wrong turns.

How about doing the green with a softer white trim. Not stark white, but something more off white. Then add vertical cedar around the front door and two windows. That would make the front entrance stand out and break up the length of the house a bit. Go to a full glass front door with reeded or rain glass. Instead of side lights, add a recessed spot over the front door that would shine down on the door.

Yes, when we replaced the sliding door, we bought white clad. I wouldn't paint that either. It doesn't look weird with the windows painted to match the house, it just looks like it is a door.