Your ideas are great!
Yes remove the shutters.

Add lights.

And add some landscaping.

For the landscaping I’d like the walkway with some plants as well.

I might remove the current door and sidelights and replace with a larger, more grand looking front door.
And maybe a pendant light hanging outside.

...

Lovely home!! I really like it!!

I think we are neighbors! My home looks very similar. Are you in Houston/burbs?

Lose the shutters, add the lights and move in. Doesn't seem like much of a hardship to me!

Transom is regrettable, but all too common. Leave it alone- is what it is.............and there's a very long line behind you for anything close : )

PS..... the keystone is balanced by the far right. The windows are not the same, so don't obsess.

Msalazar11 yes indeed, but haven’t moved in :-) burbs north

Limewash could drastically change the appearance of the home.

Would suggest painting the brick on this one to modernize and bring it out of the 80's/90's. The brick on the house seems kinda frenetic and painting the house a solid color should help calm that down. Would suggest making that the first step and then evaluating who the house looks and what other steps you can take to modernize. Good luck!

How long do you think you will be in this house? I am not sure that you can do a whole lot to change the style of a a neo-eclectic McMansionish style of house without a whole lot structural expenses for cosmetics, which won't give a lot of return. And I think cosmetic fixes like painting the bricks will mostly turn it into a disguised neo-eclectic and not do much to address the things you don't like about it.

If you are there long enough that window replacement makes sense, this house would look a lot better with higher quality windows without the fake divided lites, especially the one over the door. But that is a big expense.

My tendency would be to more or less let the outside of the house be what it is and make the inside what I wanted it to be. Not that I would try to change that character too much either, it will never be an MCM no matter how modern you went with the interior. However you can make it the best as it can be and decorate eclectically. I am probably coming from a different sort of approach because in the urban environment I live, there are many houses which have close to no curb appeal and little opportunity to get much and people tend to not pay much attention to that and concentrate on the interiors. I don't mean that you should ignore the outside completely, just that you should probably let the house be what it is with minimal changes unless you want to make a big commitment. And if you live in a neighborhood with lots of houses that look essentially like this I don't know that you would get a lot of return from changing it a lot.

There's no turning back from painted brick. ...........just saying the obvious. While the eighties and nineties may have been the land of Mc Mansion? There are worse decades of design. Raised ranches,,,,,come to mind.

Either way, it simply points out that we are known in this country for some bad ideas - most a result of trying to tweak a classic to something it can not be - without losing the classic completely. Of "modernizing"..... many times to homogeneous suburban hoods of what? White stucco and black windows? Farmhouses on cul de sacs? Salt boxes on city streets are next, in some new version of the tiny house? We've already done entire cul de sacs of craftsman hybrids.

Are we getting more sophisticated, or just "blanding the landscape"? Just as we have done with open interiors and a gray wash on every surface.

I must be cranky......it's raining. I don't think the house is ugly. I think the neighborhood is probably very nice and loaded with similar. A "terrible" problem to have : )

Me? Just give me this. Warm and fuzzy. Lol. The older I get and the harsher the world? The more I crave warm and fuzzy.

Ten years ago I would definitely have done painted brick. Now, there is no way. That trend is moving itself right out the door. Too bad too because I like the look but it’s a big overused now.

Jan is that the father of the bride house?? Anyway Beverly’s advice is your E-ticket, but rambio now makes a masonry flat paint in those same colors. It’s gorgeous. Your brick color is all over the place. Paint and then think about removing sidelights and door and getting one new big one. You have enough light streaming in. After your have it painted, then decide landscape. Nothing wrong with mansions….. ;-)

i don’t agree that painted brick is a trend. it’s classic. never goes out of style to me. always appropriate when done right, just like a limewash.

I am a fan of masonry paint or limewash. Never apply acrylic paint to brick. The paint will peel over time.

Saving for me. I’ll be a neighbor soon too! (Just have to find a house, move, personalize it….lol details…). I wish you all things good, HU-245, and will watch for updates.

Make the inside of your house practical and functional and lovely on the inside . Adjust to your new family size and think about the outside this time next year. ...you may find the outside is fine after all.

Painted brick is hardly a trend. Watch a couple shows HGTV. Your brick is 50 shades of red pink orange and is really busy. Painting that house would be my first plan.

It will be pretty expensive to paint the exterior of a house that large, so I'm going to agree with the other posters who suggest working on the interior first and waiting to see if the exterior grows on you. If you're still living there in five years consider the paint. But I can't emphasize enough to use the right kind of paint. Brick needs to be able to breathe. Also, once you paint it you are creating a periodic maintenance requirement that you don't currently have.

While this would probably be even more expensive than a paint job, the brick is likely to be a veneer surface so you could have it removed and replaced with stucco or stone. Someone did do that in a neighborhood that I used to drive through to get to my son's school. I don't know how much that costs.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I just can’t do paint. Maybe a stain or something. I know there‘s history too painted brick. I just can’t do it. I’ll see what I can do though!

You might want to get an arborist to check out the two oak trees. The “lion tail” pruning and the built up dirt around the bases are both a recipe for declining health.

Paint the front door a beautiful navy blue and just move in. If your family needed a large house, there’s probably tons to do inside. I agree with everyone who said to remove the shutters and then sit tight. One, your house may “grow” on you. Two, nothing gives you better perspective on house ideas than time and looking at tons of pictures of brick houses for ideas. We all learn to “not see” what we don’t love about our homes. Spend the winter planning your landscaping and dealing with the inside space. You should not “paint” the brick, ever. Changing it to white, if you decide to later, should be a lime wash like Romabio. Now isn’t a good time to do this huge change. Congratulations on your new home. Your kids will love the space!

Do not follow HGTV for any ideas so far from reality and definately I would ot paint that brick. I am confused how you went from MCM to mcmansion but that is another day. I think I would concentrste on making the interior perfect for your life and do some fabulous landscaping to enhance the house remove the shutters they just add to the confusion. If or when you replace the windows those could be done with no muntins to give a bit of releif from all the busyness.Start with the front door and sideleights no grids no fancy glass just simple .

Patricia why are you confused? She moved…..

She moved for more SPACE. A suddenly larger family........no reason necessary for that

The mcmansion is literally double the size and 1/2 the price because of the neighborhood being in the burbs. this location is right for us and the builder is high quality, despite the design being irregular. For us, the price is important. But none of that matters. I brought up the MCM to display that my knowledge of architecture is limited.

How many square feet is this house

I love your house as is. For our similar home, we recently replaced the window glass and we kept the divided light bars. We also replaced the rotting front door with an identical door because I loved the glass pattern.

I would say that I think the sago palms by your entrance are not very appealing. I would remove them. Thankfully, The Freeeeeeze killed the ones that were on our new-to-us home. I'm looking forward to some major pruning and landscaping next year to upgrade our sad state of affairs, but yours looks in very good state to me.

I'm contemplating whether our shutters will go but I'm in no rush. Like others said, I've got too much to do indoors to worry much about our facade, HOA approvals notwithstanding.

Love your private courtyard drive house, by the way. You are living my dream!

Here is Before and After comparison. 🙂

thank you Flo! this is so different and inspiring!

I am so glad you are inspired. I think you could also take it in steps as budget permits. Then some additional bolder landscaping next spring perhaps would add finishing touches. Lots of ideas for that step. Maybe I will add some landscaping ideas tomorrow.

Flo what program did you use to change the pic?

I use a mix of programs because no one quite does it all. But you can try the “sketch” tool here on Houzz. It’s just very hard to work with. There are apps out there too. Just takes kissing a lot of frogs before you find one you can use relatively easy. Wish I had better answer for you. But if you tell me what you would like to see, I can try to do it for you. 😉. Time for bed!!

@Flo Mangan- that’s a unique idea!

Flo Mangan that looks very nice. It reminds me of Waveny House in New Canaan Ct.

The house is quite beautiful. You can possibly take care of the missing keystone by having one faux-painted where it should be…or maybe have one added. The large transom window allows the chandelier to be seen. If you added any window treatments, the chandelier would be hidden. Is there a privacy issue with the transom window showing any upstairs landing area? Removing the shutters is a good idea. I would add bulbs for springtime color in the raised planting areas around the trees and along the front of the small hedge on both sides of the entry.

Think of it this way, the front windows on the diagonals have no key stones. So, you have a diagonal match!

Wait….no they don’t! Sorry…. I would just have one added. And…change the front as Flo Magnan suggests.

I am having more fun with your home today. I expanded the beds around the trees and added butterfly bushes and hostas to beds. I put large stepping stones sunk into grass fir walkway to the driveway between front right beds. I put an upright dark stone water feature in bed in front of right lower window. This will draw the eye away from missing stone accent. Some annual color in front beds will also help soften the all brick facade. Enjoy!

So pretty Flo!

Thanks Kathy. Very nice of you to say.

This is something i tried to do, obviously very crude and definitely not a designer.

@HU-24534289 Changing the windows to be symmetrical is a huge job (and expensive). But I love your rendition!

Do you know what the cost is redryder

I have absolutely no clue!! So take this with a grain of salt but I’d budget upwards of 10k for that!
I think it’ll look great, and would be money well spent!!

I don’t know what the above windows would cost but they are oversized, which is part of the reason that rendition is so nice. Undoing the brick, redesigning the space so you have the right opening for a larger new window, then repairing everything around each window is where the cost is. Maybe someone who did a brick window change can help us. (HGTV makes it look like it’s nothin’. Not helpful to us people who live in the real world…..)

I don't think that you could do a window change like the last rendition for $50,000.

Figure around $5k for each window, brick removal and repair. Sealing window in to make them leak proof (not easy). Repairing walls inside and doing new trim out. Repainting walls inside and trim. Easily 30k plus with today’s inflated costs. I doubt you could ever recoup that sunk cost. You might look into getting professional painter to paint outside existing windows black. But might affect warranties. Plus, black is current trend but in 3-5 years could look dated. It is already waining here. Nice job on your mock up though.

My sister is spending $37k on new construction Milguard vinyl for her 2,000 sq. Ft home. Windows cost a fortune, especially black ones. That an upgrade in every brand

i don’t care if the windows are black, or even if they are large. but i would like windows that are more similar. In this neighborhood I would not be able to recoup the costs I agree. I would still consider it depending on actual price estimate though.

Well, wait til next year. Prices MIGHT calm down a little. No guarantees. Getting materials is almost impossible so keep it on your wish list and maybe get a couple estimates.