So confused which direction to take. I tried this on Houzz last month. House is solid cinderblock. No room in budget at this time to add siding. We will be painting the exterior and staining a new wood deck in the back. All of the windows in the house need to be replaced as well as the front door and garage door. Roof is brown with reddish tint. It is newer and will have to stay. There is no actual driveway, (common for my area), but we drive in from the road and curve in front of the windows and into the garage. Not a lot of area for landscaping, but I know something needs to be added. There was a row of shrubs under the windows that we removed recently per a suggestion on this site.

So far it has been suggested that I remove the shutters and use casement windows. On the other hand I’ve also been told that “decorative” shutters are an element of 70’s ranch and that casement windows should be taller than they are wide which doesn’t appear to be my case. Should I enlarge the windows? Remove the shutters? Casement windows? Double hung? 2 over 2? It has been suggested that I switch to black frame windows, then by another that black windows would be too harsh with brown roof. It has been suggested that I paint the exterior a creamy white and introduce a cedar wood element, but no suggestion as to where that element would be. Planter boxes? Garage door? New front door? Don't know what a 70's front door looks like, but anything is better that what is there now. I have spent days on Houzz reviewing 100+ discussions on exterior updates. It has been very informative as well as confusing. It seems there are the "purist" that feel that houses should be kept true to the year that it was built and then there are the “outside the box thinkers”, that believe a more modern revision is sometimes better. Right now there are elements from a lot of different time periods and they don't all go together.

I just want a cosmetic update that improves the curb appeal so that I don’t hate it each time I pull in the “driveway”. We bought the house for its location and a water view. We enjoy that part, but not much else.

The picture that is attached is our home after I worked with it on a paint visualization

website to try to clean it up to somewhat take out the shutters and the shrubs in front. I'm not great at it.

Thank you for any suggestions.