Exterior makeover, so far

This is the FIRST phase of the house's exterior makeover, with more to come next year. 

Let's start with the BEFORE. The house is a midentury (mid 1960s) interpretation of a colonial style house. It had an addition over the garage that (while good quality) was poorly executed from an aesthetic perspective. Problems include: the siding is lower on the addition than the rest of the house, the window is too small, and it lacks decorative features over the garage door making it look "top heavy". The main house is just wrong in so many ways! The windows are the wrong colour and too small on the second floor, the front door is too pale and 1980s style that doesn't work with the midcentury house feel.

I did a lot of thinking and looked at a lot of photos to figure out how to improve the exterior. Ideally, I would have also painted the siding but since it's aluminum it's maintenance free - and once you paint, you have to continue repainting every 5 to 10 years - so I opted to stick with white. Between the white siding and colour of the bricks I was somewhat limited. It also lacked lighting (which is not obvious in this before photo since it was taken during the day).

Let's have a quick look at the street in the early 1970s before I continue. The house it at the end of the street, and that's before the addition.

Here's what I ended up doing for THIS phase of the renovation

- new garage door in black with elongated frosted windows

- new door with multiple glass panels, and large sidelights - the door is oversized as well, so walking through it is a very different experience than a "regular sized" door

- new windows with black frames for the entire first floor - and we had the white surround of the main window painted black which made a HUGE difference

- new exterior lighting

Here's what is remaining for next year:

- matching black windows on second floor, with modern shutters and bottom detail to make them more impactful

- black surround for garage door

- mini decorative pergola over garage door so it doesn't look "top heavy"

- new, modern house numbers

Here's how it looks today, with only the first phase complete (and I forgot to turn the garage light on so the elongated windows are not visible):

The black details give the bottom half of the house some weight and grounding. I think of this as similar to styling fashion. You want lighter on top (like a crisp, white shirt) and a substantial bottom (black skirt or trousers) to create a balanced look. 

The new windows in the back of the house (the ones with black casings) look so crisp!

More photos will follow when I get a chance to get shots in the right lighting. I'll update next year when the final details are added :)