I think your house could be lovely with a bit of spit and polish! As per the previous comment, a paint job would do wonders. Our house is similar in that the ground floor is brick and the top is (now) weatherboard (over fibro). We lived in the old fibro for years before we could afford to renovate. It gave us more of an idea of what we would ultimately like. Here is our before and after. As you can see, we added a deck and changed part of the the roofline too.

So we've decided to break up the front steps and have them going to a landing level with a planter box and then continuing downin front of planter box (hopefully you can work that out from plan). Given straight lines not going for curved crazy paving but more traditional paving although broken up with plants. It's Canberra climate and East facing but because of large pin oak in street its not very sunny so looking for shade tolerant (so thinking maples rather than crab apple and crepe myrtles). She has a feature pot with a cycad and I'm not so sure that's my cup of tea for a feature plant so would be interested in alternative and I also don't really want a water feature as I find them a bit naff (and husband convinced the maintenance not worth it).

Kate , I guessed that the middle gable over the door protrudes out a metre and a half or whatever , so those flat bits are gutters , while the smaller middle gable will cut back into the main roofline . I don't think they are awnings ? Having said that , looking closely I now suspect that the left side of the house , and possibly the garage too ( or maybe just the gable over the garage door ) protrude out too . This will make the gables trickier , they'll need little gutters going back and connecting with the gutters above the windows you talked about , then there are no downpipes and you'd need about 4 across the front . And there will be little short walls jutting in which aren't shown , assuming I am correct , and then you look at the garage , and theres a couple of poles there . Now they may be incorporated into the wall , or they may be a metre in front , you know , just where you can catch a door on them , especially if you stop to let passengers ( kids ) or groceries out before you drive into the garage , and knock the paintwork . It looks okay , but the more I look , the more I wonder if the OP has doubled the work required ( double the $$$ there ) for not a huge increase in usefullness . Maybe I'm lazy , but if I spend $50k extra and do walls coming in and out and roofs with complicated rooflines and similar , I want it to look like I've spent the $$$ -- this doesn't in its present form IMO .

Agree with siriusky. I would be looking at the overhead roof line that is expected once you have done all your new lifting of ceiling height and new roofing to your single storey home. Then the front facade has to work with that roofline. I do like the idea of a feature wall on the left of home. Will balance out the new garage. But as I said before, the facade you are drawing is not a true perspective of actual building view from the street ie: angled side wall will not be visible from the front. Do it in your feature brick to match feature wall on left. But obtain a true perspective from your designer.