You need a path to the door to start so no huge parking lot but the path can go from the parking . This is a cabin so fancy landscaping with tons of work not usually ideal so my advise some nice perennials you can trim back maybe once during the summer and ones that do not require a lot of water . I tend to like cabins that blend into the woods so maybe anice green more grayed not to bright , maybe brick instead of the gray stone to keep it looking like a cabin. A bit bigger windows and this I love maybe not quite this many but you get the idea

Show the floor plans and right side rendering -- ideally a view showing the front and side like the image Patricia shows.

It's a very cute looking house, but why 3 different types of siding on a small house? If you haven't yet started building, replace the stone with the horizontal siding. Then add interest after it's built with landscaping.

^^^like this

Other than landscaping, I can't see how you can "add interest" to that house, which has 3 different sidings, shutters and horizontal trim. I think it would look better if you used just one kind of siding. It's a nicely proportioned house. The simple shape looks good.

Make sure you have some room for foundation planting or other ways to have greenery in the front yard. Parking lots never look good.

Is this the actual house or AI mock up? I too would simplify ajd then focus on landscaping.

Such a cute cottage! just another vote to skip the stone veneer that seems to be stuck on everything these days and stick with siding - lush landscaping adds interest :)

You have a gorgeous tree and nicely proportioned home with correctly sized windows and shutters. That is interest enough. Plus, and I hate to say it, parking cars in front of your home is going to block anything interesting that you would do here.

The proportions of your cabin are correct but you have so many finishes and trims that it ends up looking junky. Generate another AI version of it without the stone finish and without the horizontal trim between first and second floors.

Finally, make two versions of your simplified exterior AI view - one without cars parked in front and one with as many cars parked in front as you can realistically expect.

Once you park a couple of large SUVs in front, how much house will you actually see?

Patricia Colwell,

Please learn to use spellcheck and correct punctuation. Your good design advice is eliminated by the poor spelling and punctuation use. Not really a pro then.

cream trim

Nice, Sadie! Either one is much nicer than the original mock-up.

Are you happy now AM. Sorry I have no idea how punctuation has any bearing on pro or not

Doesn't have any bearing on pro or not.

But it does affect meaning. Consider the different meanings below, purely based on whether a comma is in the sentence or not:

Let's eat, Grandma.

Let's eat Grandma.

Capitalization matters too. Look at these two:

I want to help Jack off a horse.

vs.

I want to help jack off a horse.

I like the one with cream trim. Two comments, though, window boxes are hard to keep looking good in the best of times, if it's a cabin you aren't going to live in full time, it will be harder still.

Because window boxes have limited space for soil and roots, they dry out quickly. In a heat wave, if this is a weekend cabin, you'll keep coming back to dead or drooping plants.

With foundation plantings, you don't need the window boxes. You need much wider foundation plantings, the mock-up is not realistic at all for the amount of space you'll need. But it does give you an idea of what it will look like.

As someone with errors in my posts this happens often on the app where you cannot see all you right and cannot go back and edit. Not everyone is using the desktop version.

What a cute cabin! Personally I would prefer more neutral colours that blend into the forest surroundings. Also less siding finishes, I'm showing horizontal for the bottom section and shingles for the top.

I’ve never used them myself, but there are some very convincing artificial plants that can look great in window boxes.

I agree with trying to get the cabin to blend into the woods, both with siding color and landscaping. You should be thinking of ways to screen that fence from view, as well as how to create enough of a separation between the parking area and house so that you can make it feel like your journey into the woods is starting before you get to the front/ side of the house. You don’t need a ton of space to do that, but i would include some trees and larger shrubs into your planting mix— have them frame the front of your house with a leafy deciduous tree (could even be a smaller, or 20-25’ tree) off the left corner of the house.

P.S. because it was referenced above: I just realized that (when using the Houzz app) there is an option to expand the size of the comment box you are typing into by swiping up on the top of the comment field to avoid the disappearing text issue.

@Diana Bier Interiors, LLC, I nearly spit out my vodka! Could you work a dangling participle into your grammar lesson?

Chatham Bars Inn

Haha, Judy! OMG the Chatham Bars!!! A gorgeous place!!!

And we know it looks 100 times better when you see it in person.

It is always easier to make suggestions if you backup more ….to show the setting and the surroundings better… are there other homes nearby?…is there a driveway?…an estimate of the size of the lot ?….is there a flat enough space for house and parking?

It is always easier to make suggestions if you backup more to show the setting better …also which direction does the sun come up and godown from?

If you are in fact, in the middle of the woods, as your mock up, indicates, I would not go for the window boxes and the foundation planting right up against the house. There’s not enough information here to make any intelligent landscaping suggestions. For example, we don’t even know how much light that side of the house gets. I don’t recommend plants growing up the siding or rooting down…right beside whatever you’re using for a foundation.

Depending on where you’re located and your water source, window boxes can end up looking very scraggly or dry out quickly. The side of your house with the shutters and the siding has plenty of interest. More information would be needed with an actual plot plan of the size of the lot, compass direction indication in relationship to cabin, and zone, to make any landscaping suggestions.

Lisedev has the best ideas and mock up here… 🥰A low bed of perennials, selected for location, (such as shade/sun, your zone, and dryness, because if they are close to the house, the soil may be very dry) with a natural stone edging and a small, attractive path that blends in with your setting, would work. Depending on space, you could also do some Woodland plantings around some natural rock placements… but a map of the plot plan would be needed for any kind of intelligent suggestions.