No shudders ;)

Ditto palimpsest. Since you're leaning toward modern doors, then no shutters. The vertical siding will contrast with the horizontal lines of the doors. I'm sure you're planning on it, but switch out your porch lighting fixtures to a modern style as well.

I presume you are removing the grids from the windows?

All great suggestions for leaning contemporary/modern.

Another vote for removing shutters and window grids. Sounds like your changes will look great!

Yes we will be removing the grids as well and getting more modern light fixtures

Thank you all for the suggestions

IMO the fastest way to devalue a house is to paint the brick and that house can be awesome with no shutters and no grids in the windows and hoestly think MCM since you are already going in thta direction The landscpaing will be what really makes this awesome . I use this for inspiration for clinets often , not e the garage door and front door style and also the windows I think verical siding in a dark gray could be fabulous with the brick

I can’t do gray because the house next to us(identical build) has the gray. I also already did my landscaping and plan on adding some hardscaping near the front door

I like the idea of a dark gray. Our neighbor has a silver gray and now I’m not so sure about painting the brick because it can damage it

Paint the brick. Best decision I have ever done about my house.

Someone mentioned to me how it traps in moisture and can ruin the brick. They did tell me lime washing was ok to do. How long has it lasted for you? Would love to see

Before I painted the brick on my house, I had the brick and concrete block on my husband's office building painted (it is what gave me the idea). Painting his building set off a bit of a trend in the office neighborhood, as several business owners followed suit.

Consult with the folks at Sherwin-Williams about the best type of paint to use with brick. First, I power washed the brick to get any dirt off. Then, I used a primer and then I painted with a paint that was elastomeric. The elastomeric paint honestly didn't seem much different than a normal latex paint and cleaned up with water. Elastomeric paint is designed to stretch and not crack and covers hairline cracks. I used a paint roller with a deeper nap--I don't remember exactly what I used (1 inch? 1 and 1/2 inch?). You need to use a paint roller with a deeper nap because of the deeper surface of the brick.

His building is going on 5 to 6 years of paint with no peeling or any problems. Our house is on year 3. My guess that any problems that you may read about are because 1. people used the wrong paint, 2. they didn't power wash first and just applied the paint over the dirt or 3. they had brick that was spalling before they painted it.

The brick/concrete block on his building and the brick on our house were just awful looking in my opinion. I would imagine that to install some sort of false brick over the existing brick/concrete block would have been both expensive and logistically problematic. Painting was relatively cheap and easy.

My husband's building was built many, many decades ago, and we have paid to have it tuckpointed at least twice in the 30 years that he has had it. With the building painted, I don't expect that we will have a need to incur that tuckpointing expense again, as ivy will not be able to penetrate the paint and attack the mortar like it did in the past.

What do you guys think?

I'd paint the brick a dark grey and the rest of the house a matching lighter shade of grey.