A thicker trim or contrasting color around the windows to add some details.

Needs some dimension...ie something protruding towards the street. Awnings are nice sometimes. Pushing out a main window with a window seat/bay window would be good inside and out.

Satin etch glass and aluminum garage doors would be good idea.

The most modern garage door you can buy that perhaps uses bronze metal or perhaps has a wood look metal element (considering the wood pergola near the door above) What if you added some modern train rack pergola element like this between the window rows - it won't line up with the other pergola height wise / nor do you want it to connect /attach. [houzz=]
This could be done with L brackets stainlesss steel bolted in above to studs at 32" oc above and the scale of the cross members should be carefully chosen. It should stop at the end of the lower windows right and left so it doesn't continue under the corner cutouts. . You might go up and repeat it in a small off kilter corner fan at the top corner window over the entry stair not for the sun but as the architectural gesture to tie them all together - now the wood pergolas come in threes - you might look at the entry one you have and see if there is any more modern detail that could be done while keeping the frame so they all look apiece. Below I'll suggest a color tie.

Alaskan white cedar is going to do the best in the sun for you long term - finish it with 5 coats of protectant before you hang it - it will still weather down color wise but last longer.

Entry doors from crestviewdoors.com or a doppelganger from your local door supplier - painted a bright color - that is where you need yellow or better yet, tangerine - like bm citrus blast or mandarin orange. A fun stencil treatment on the stairs - ? a short poem you read on the risers as you go up in paler yellow on the gray concrete (maybe some door paint mixed into white concrete paint)?

Finally, with the wood starting blonde but soon feeling pretty silver, with your modern light fixtures and some oversized (are your light fixtures bronze?) mod font house numbers on the entry wall left of the stair, consider washing the existing wood / entry cover / courtyard pergola with a silvery wash to give it that reclaimed look, and do the stucco in a pale off taupe - test bm seattle mist - as the wood weathers down, it will all be tonal. Compared to the house next door, yours will look white and silvery and your plantings and front door will pop.

Oh, and if I didn't say - go for casements, . . .except the middle picture window - you can flank it with divided casements.

Sorry I did not monitor the discussion better! Life has a way of interfering with remodels!

Wow. What thoughtful comments. I'm liking your ideas, libradesigneye...

We are looking at an anodized aluminum or bronze color garage door with translucent glass. Also thought of industrial type awnings (in the vein of what libradesigneye suggested in wood...but in metal.

Maybe lose the cutout windows in the corners upstairs but shift the upstairs window so it curves around the corner of the house towards the front door. (This suggested by a friend).

Frankly anything would be an improvement. We are definitely thinking of making the lower windows taller with matching casement windows flanking a fixed window in the middle.

I think the cutouts are what make the awning layouts work well - like the metal for longevity - and you can always do it in a core-ten finish (though this may run when it rains onto the stucco - so anodized aluminum would be preferable) walls are very useful in a living space - so unless the room is dark and you need more natural light - that would be a huge expense without a big payback that might make the room worse.