Is there part of the house we can't see? Where is your front door? Just the double frontage like that is plain, but that was the style and not much you can do about it. The homes you are looking at do have a lot of features with opportunities to bring in other colours but there is nowhere with yours to do that and if you try it usually cheapens it. If you take the triple fronted house you posted, I would do the lighter green on the weatherboard and the deeper green like they have used on the window frames, I would do for the baseboards and the front door. I would keep the window frames and eaves white and paint the guttering to match the roof. Are you country? Are here any water issues for the garden? Instead of trying to do something with the house, I think I would be inclined to give it all a cottagy look with a picket front fence, nice entrance, a lush lawn and lots of plants for colour and lushness. The dark green baseboard will be a nice background for some small shrubs in front of the house. Weatherboards really lend themselves to that look. Don't forget the addition of old tyre swans - lol I notice you have small awnings over the windows - maybe replace them with some striped canvas ones in greens and terracotta - if you can get the combination. [houzz=]

I love this house - it's got so much potential for "wow" with a small budget, depending on the materials you use and if you're prepared to do all/part of the work yourselves. A trip to your local hardware store will help you get costings and work out what you feel able to do yourself and where you're going to employ experts. If the pergola is council approved, I'd keep it, extend a deck (eco wood is easy to use for a beginner handyperson) where the pergola is. I'd add a louvered roof over it so that you have a living space (I'd use specialists for this), and a way of keeping hot summer sun off the front of the house. As it looks like you've got a metal roof, I'd think about painting it, the house trim and the garage doors the same colour to give your home a sense of cohesiveness and keep the exterior walls white as it looks fresh, doesn't date and is in keeping with the style and period of your home. Refreshing the front garden beds will make a huge difference too.

Your budget isnt big so you need to choose carefully what you plan to do. The driveway is fine and it is pale grey. I would pick up this grey and use your money to get new garage doors that are a darker grey than the driveway. The gutters and posts are too white; you could consider using a 50% reduced colour of the garage doors as the guttering and post colour. In later years, I would then change the roof colour to grey. But the guttering, posts and garage doors may fit within your budget. Forget the rest - they aren't important. Putting fencing up is going to make your front yard look smaller. I like the openness of the space.

To my eye the only thing your house lacks is floral aspect in the garden. You have some lovely foliage but florals make a bush block come alive. Some beautiful grevillieas will bring birds, moonlight is my favourite as the white florals really lift a landscape. Leucospermums are dramatic and come in sunset colours that work so well on bush sites. Pandorea are a native vine that's extremely fast growing popular with nectar feeders and comes in a huge range of colours. The flowers appear in massive sprays in early spring. Would look great on your porch, Unlike wisteria it won't harm the structure it grows on and is easy to chop back. I really love the sunset one. But they range in everything from pure white to deep red and many bicoloured like this one. And for a light, airy bush with some different try the honey lace myrtles, the bees will love them. In the darker aspects of the yard you can tuck brake fern in those spaces to bring them alive and make the site appear more lush.