A simple suburban ranch with a shallow hipped roof, built in 1947. (Photo: William Wright)

Great post-war house.

How about a photo of what the house is now.

Your mockup would not be my choice. I would try to keep the authentic look.

Authentic look when we bought it in 1999.

Replaced windows 10 years ago. Painted out the trim around the windows and painted over other brown trim with white 6 years ago. New garage doors recently ordered: contemporary panel with no windows. Need a new front door. Trying to decide on paint color for garage door and if lower part of house (stucco) should be repainted. Changing landscaping to drought tolerant CA natives mostly.

I would do a look like this. Gauntlet grey body, red cent or great falls for the door with pure white garage doors and trim

Thanks Lisa! It might be time to replace the vinyl siding, which would allow us to go in another color direction from the beige. Construction costs and wait times though...

If you want a complete change (you can paint vinyl siding)

Here is a sage green with a complimentary darker color and both look great with white.

I would paint the garage doors what ever color you choose for the stucco. You don't want the garage doors obvious.

Front door...I like this cumin color.

Judianna - in addition to the lovely greens, i like that the house has a dark gutter like our new gutters. These greens will work with my brick? Also, a dark paint on the whole bottom half of our house would not be too bold?

Some visual with dark bottom

Manor House SW

Thanks, Celery! I was just working on that. Here is it is SW double latte. I'm wanting more cohesion, though. It just seems like two separate top/bottom houses with the light/dark and not getting tied together. Does that make sense? The only thing I can think of is painting the window trim in the darker color...but that just looks so dated. Soooo tricky, it seems.

No, I feel that the bottome of a raised ranch should be darker that the top. Kind of like wearing black pants. Anyway, the darker color I showed is not that dark. It is B.M. Squirrel Tail and the green is B.M. Grecian Sage. Squirrel Tail shows soft...a lot of gray/green undertone.

I’d love to understand why the bottom of a raised ranch should be dark. I’m just not feeling it.

Using the black pants analogy, I feel like people walking on the sidewalk are not seeing the pretty top and face but just the pants. I like the darker bottom on a house when it is a much smaller portion of the house. Hope that makes sense.

Maybe it might work better if you have some distance to view the house. Our neighborhood has very short front yards.

Cat_ky - would love to hear what you like about the original house. It definitely does have a design plan; however, I'm not sure I want to go back.

A neighbor has a raised ranch, and a short front yard. He painted the top a lovely dark blue and the bottom a creamy off-white. The house looks top heavy. That's why I like dark on the bottom and lighter on the top.

Otherwise, paint it all one color and choose a stunning color for front door.

Ok, yes... that may look top heavy. I think the two toned is tricky. I am leaning toward the all one color (provides cohesiveness) and let the pop of color be on the front door. Also - the juniper is coming down soon, which will open up the entrance.