Painting all your trims a dark colour looks beautiful with your brick, planting a hedge around perimeter would soften the look, update the planting using structural plants interspersed with grasses for a modern look.. great house.
Your outdoor blinds .. if you trim the scallop off, paint them the same colour as the trim, we have done this using a roller and Dulux weathershield paint, so easy and they looked fabulous.

Oh cool- I didn’t know you could paint the blinds. They’re pretty ugly but also pretty handy so I had been debating getting rid of them.

I think you’re right on the garden too… it feels like a bit of an old lady garden currently so some more structural plants and some natives (which I love) will help improve.

Would you paint the window frames and eaves etc the dark colour too? I had been thinking white to freshen it up….

So the bits that are the light grey I was thinking white, not daek

It’s really a matter of choice, I think dark would be more modern, this is a comparison, it’s what ever you love, this is how the blinds looked, painted years ago. Just changing a few things will look beautiful.
Don’t forget a gorgeous planter at the front door.

Your said you wanted to update the home. Dark with your brick is the going trend at the moment, which looks wonderful. But if you want white trims then that would look good as well. But still make the roof dark. Personally the landscaping is what makes a home brought into this decade. So choose the colour you want for ALL your trims, but make sure you concentrate a lot of your updating on the garden. Do not use more than three colours, in total on your home. Counting the brick colour as one... example photos of dark and white trims.

Julie and dreamer, really appreciate your input and the reference pics… helps so much imagining it.

Dark roof it is, looking at monument which hopefully won’t be too dark and blue toned. (Let me know if you think it is, and i oils go more of a charcoal).

Painting the trim will come later anyway, so I can decide later on that based on how I feel after the roof is done. I think I’m still leaning toward the freshness of the white, given the more old fashioned windows we have now.

The garden is going to be a big job but I do think it will make the world of difference.

Painting the blinds. Awesome idea. I cut the scallops of some out our rental. Next time I’ll paint the blinds

The white windows above do look good but you seem to be referring to painting the gutters and fascia. If that’s right, they’ll look odd with a dark roof. On your style house the gutters should match the roof colour. And the fascia should match the gutters. Love the garden ideas shown above.

Agree on the blinds Kate, I’m definitely going to give it a go. Had no idea it was an option and if I stuff it up, there is no real downside given I don’t like them anyway!

Bigreader, didn’t realise that gutters and fascia should match the roof colour. Silly question, but is the fascia the underneath bit? Like in the picture dreamer posted with the white windows, it has the dark gutter and the white underneath. Are you saying do the white bit dark too?

I’m thinking a new front porch thing at some point will be a worthwhile investment too looking at some of these reference pics

The fascia is the vertical bit, often wood, that the gutter attaches to. The eave is the horizontal underneath bit and is usually white to reflect light into windows. The house with the white windows looks ok with the fascia painted white because of the chunky white windows and the white iron-work, not to mention it’s freshly done/cleaned. For your house you don’t have the features to tie any white to and it will look disjointed but if you love white then have white.

Ahh the eaves. That’s what I thought you meant by fascia, thanks for explaining without making me feel like an idiot haha.

I’m definitely on board with those being dark. I just wasn’t as sold on the eaves.

I’m down to Monument or Charcoal I think… and the roofing guy has just called to say he can start our job sooner than expected so need to decide quicksmart!

Kelsi, just looking at your photos again, are your windows wood or aluminium? If aluminium I would leave as is until you replace the windows. Too much of a job/expense to change their colour and then you said you were replacing anyway. (Unless you were going to paint them yourselves)

They’re aluminium… we had the insides painted professionally before we moved in (with the rest of the house) but we’d probably do the outsides ourselves (slowly) if the aluminium painting wasn’t too complex.

The windows will go eventually, but we have a million projects we want to do and I know it will be a big expense (no idea but guessing $40-$50k??) so it’s going to fall a fair way down the list unless we find a money tree.

I thought they looked like aluminium frames. Just the photos that I have posted are with wooden frames, therefore substantial frame sizes, so the effect with painted skinny aluminium frames won’t be as good.

We painted our aluminium frames and the eaves in a dark colour, I loved them. But once your roof is done you will get a clearer picture of what you will love. So looking forward to seeing what you do.

You can paint your frames yourself. Katrina Chambers has a tutorial on Insta or website. She also has other handy stuff for beginners. You can also get an idea of the cost of replacements via online quotes, do a Google for your area. Good luck.

Makes sense bigreader, and we painted our last place ourself but it was wooden frames so will check her out to work out the aluminium.

They do look great Julie- I agree we’ll have a better sense when the roof is done about what will suit

I think everyones on a similar thought process about the house colours , and I'd go dark too .

The garden is alright , and is actually more modern than the house IMO -- it all suits . You could go maybe some lancewood and flax and more modern , but I'd keep the older base .

Some things I would look at though -- the driveway looks a bit wonky , and the left side a lot older than the rest . I'd be tempted to dig the left side up ( it looks to be panels so a bit easier ) and redo that side in one pour , and maybe see if you could 'fill' any wiggles up the other side .

I'd probably paint the garage door , monument would be the logical choice but it may be too much / too dark then ? Light tones won't suit , who wants greys , browns are yuck , and even my go-to of an orange or yellow or even red might look too try-hard with your brick .

And one last touch -- I'd add a dark ( charcoal probably ) cap or even 100 x 100 square brick laid horizontally along the top of your front fence , to tie in with the cap on the left side post , but also your house . Just a little feature that will add a finishing touch IMO .

Yeah I like the idea about the front fence, when our kids are older it will probably be replaced at some point with a higher one, but I feel like it’s an easy change to tie things in together. And the garage door I hadn’t even considered yet.

In terms of the garden, there are quiet a lot of roses and flowers and grasses in the front garden that aren’t really my jam (the photos I posted were old ones). I feel like I can attack the garden iteratively and improve it bit by bit over time.

The driveway is out of whack from tree roots from that whopper in the front yard. I pressure washed it the other day and it came up alot fresher but is still wonky 😂