Thoughts on how to update our brick Cape Cod?

last year

Our house is due for some updating. We've lived here about 3 years now. Really dislike the cream colored trim, the shutters are rotten, and we need to replace 30 year old windows throughout the house. We initially thought we would just replace the windows with similar new ones, replace the shutters, and live with the cream trim. We are now rethinking things, and considering more significant changes, including staining/painting the brick (I'm aware of the downsides of painting), changing the trim color, and perhaps having more modern windows in black or slate trim. We obviously would like things to still fit well with the style of the house.
I do think our brick color is better than some homes, but am honestly not a big fan of the classic/traditional look it gives the house. Would love to hear ideas on modernizing the look while also fitting with the style.
Attached are a few photos of the house, along with a few AI generated attempts at a white/black design, and one leaving the brick but just doing dark trim.
Appreciate all input!

Featured Answer

woodrose77

last year

I love your brick as it is, too. For the sake of future owners, and for resale value, I beg you not to paint that beautiful brick. Paint the trim if you must, but leave the brick alone. Also, those first two pics are hideous, and the bottom pic is no improvement. If you want to change something, improve the landscaping. Try a variety of shrubs that don't have to be manicured into round balls.

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Comments (11)

Rho Dodendron
last year
Fourth photo with all white and no shutters give a bit of elegance to the house. The flat black trim is too severe. The next one with black around the windows is similar to heavy eyeliner on a face---not a good look. The shutters are not a bad look but they need to be correct size for each window.
cat_ky
last year
I dont like the white at all. I do love your brick, and the way the house looks now. I would keep it just like it is. I would however, do some landscape changes. Those rounded shrubs (yews?) look old and outdated and in need of something new and much nicer.
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jck910
last year
The white is awful. Painting brick will give a lifetime of maintenance. I would paint the trim a pale gray. And as suggested work on the landscaping
Expobaby
last year
I like the brick and would leave it as is. I would also concentrate on the landscaping. One thought would be to change the door surround - perhaps add an awning, then match the shutters to whatever colour the awning is.
Holly- Kay
last year
I love your home with the current brick. I would recommend updating the landscaping also and maybe a new color for your front door if you really want a change. your home is exactly what I would choose if I weren’t already in my forever home. It’s lovely and a classic.
KATHY
last year
it is a beautiful home the way it is
PRO
Celery. Visualization, Rendering images
last year
last modified: last year
Some options for windows and trim.
lmmcnitt
last year
Landscaping could be updated and the trim above door should be updated. New trim color too. Brick is so classic and pretty as is.
palimpsest
last year
last modified: last year
This is a Georgian Revival house. The shape is the same but the proportions and the formal details are different, a "Cape Cod" would generally have plainer detailing, a steeper roof, and usually do not have so much space above the windows and doors and the eaves. A Cape Cod would have proportions and details more like the side wings of your house, and not have the brick jack arch headers over the four main windows, the arches on the dormers, or the broken pediment over the door.

Since a Cape Cod is a more generic form (and practically anything 1-1/2 stories tall with a symmetrical form gets labeled a "cape cod"), they can be modernized somewhat and still look okay, but I don't think it's very successful to try and take a house with so many classical details and attempt to turn it into something else, especially just by painting and putting in the wrong windows.

I live in a city with genuine 18th and 19th century houses and it seems like people spent the 1880s to 1950s trying to turn a lot of the facades into something else and then from the 1960s and 1970s and beyond trying to put back together what had been messed up with previous modernizations.

The last AI picture which keeps the house a Georgian Revival but painted white, is not to bad but the first one that paints out all the details of the house and obscures the details in the space above the doors and windows, and the second one that puts thick black outlines around everything are both pretty awful. Are they current and fresh and very 2020s? Yes. But they are like a 75 year old woman who is in great shape trying to dress like her college age granddaughter. She would look great if she acted her age, but looks silly trying to be something she's not. The black and white is more a scheme for a house like Celery shows, which is a completely different style of house.

Personally I would put on better shutters and a fresher trim color and that's it. You can decorate however you want on the inside. (You can on the outside too, but it just won't be as successful).
palimpsest
last year
last modified: last year
Here is a house that made me think of yours. They did paint the stone, but they really left the outside of the house alone. The inside is a different story. You can kind of decorate the inside of houses to your taste, whatever it is.

https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/tour-a-charming-hudson-valley-cottage-that-embraces-weirdness?source=Paid_Soc_FBIG_CM_0ASC_GTM_0ARD_US_Prospecting_C&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=Paid_Soc_FBIG_CM&utm_brand=ard&utm_campaign=paid-ASC_GTM&utm_id=120216297650360640&utm_content=120218497694300640&utm_term=120216297650370640&fbclid=IwY2xjawLvstJleHRuA2FlbQEwAGFkaWQBqyMKuCApEAEeuwktKYwJh7ma2dv7pWWPuEth5jZWmkn4xVyDwuMYvKTYIH4LUlXfneYv13g_aem_crmVs9onoTt9AqeiAfBspg