Ideas please...

hi guys. Our new PPOR.
Request ideas to "French provincialise" or modernise this bland boring 1965 Blonde brick house! We are not going to paint or render the brick, so it's to work with what we have. Second prob is the sloping yard. We have four soccer mad boys and it's a triangle block so frontage is 30m. But slopes at back to only 6m! So if we can level and fence our front yard pictured it would be a better soccer play area.

 

Not sure there's that much front yard space to work with for soccer. I suggest getting your boys acquainted with the nearest parks for soccer space. House-wise, the thing that draws my eyes is that lattice work above the garage. Remove that!

 

More pix to show slope.

Also I'm welcome to your ideas what colour to paint garage doors, roof, trims? So far...Thought of charcoal roof, black/white striped awning not green/white, and white window frames. But...trims? White I guess. What about eaves and around verandah...white?

And what french provincial-ish trim to replace lacy ironwork?

Bricks of garage don't match the house. And it's ugly speckle brick. Weird. So...paint bricks of garage?? Or, cover with another vine?

 

Thanks, yes ideally, but they're little and lots of hours when I need to be at home cooking/working etc and they play on the street at the moment. Yes it's such ugly lattice, but the bricks don't match house.

 

I don't know about everything else but I suspect that while a charcoal coloured roof might be fashionable, it will absorb a lot of heat.

Lattice, hmm...

If you are looking to replace window frames, my old PPOR had white aluminium frames, they looked good and were trouble free. (You don't need those extra criss crosses on the windows either imo).

Re: Yard, not sure in what the cost would be to level it. I'd be interested to know how much it costs to do. My old PPOR had sloped yards like yours.

 

I like the idea of vine on the brickwork.

I think charcoal for the gutters and roof wouldn't fit the brief of French provincial.. it would look too modern which I think is on the out anyway.. painting the roof requires repainting in 10years.. the old green looks nice and rustic.

The white fretwork below the fascia looks great.. id put in a white picket fence to tie in with it.

You might be able to powdercoat the window frames white insitu? Might be cheaper than replacing?

 

It's a pretty house - the lattice is awful though so I'd replace that for sure.

 

Remove the lattice & squares on windows (there held on by silicone, double sided tape or sim), render only the walls seen from the front so garage blends in, or just render or panel the garage, paint doors the same color as roof, give the drive & path (+ maybe the gutter) a scrub with acid, pressure clean

 

I agree with other posters' comments about the lattice - garage would look much better without it. It won't matter if bricks are different because if you paint front wall of house and garage, you'll make them look the same.

The house itself looks quite colonial with the verandah supports and the style of windows while the garage has a very "Spanish hacienda" look - not sure how you'd make it look French provincial without a lot of modification and expense, so perhaps start by getting rid of the Spanish features by removing the hacienda roof tiles across the front and replace with something else (lower profile tiles ?? strip of colourbond??? something else ??? (maybe someone on here can advise whether that's feasible)

Painting the garage doors a different colour to the walls will only make them stand out and draw attention to the Spanish influence so I'd paint them exactly the same colour as the garage wall and make them sort of disappear into the background.