Would love to see any photos of the New England style cladding, we have a 1960's house that we are updating and are considering both render and cladding. We are making the top windows deeper and are trying to decide whether to use white or grey aluminium/pvc frames. We have had grey (covered in tape in pic) bifold doors installed but can have these powder coated in white if it is better to stick to white windows. Thank you!

It looks like a good idea if the costs are ok with you! I see there are quite chunky concrete windowsills on your house which are adding to it's dated appearance. They have rendered the vertical brick end on the example you have shown so that would need doing at least. I think opinions would vary but I believe if you change the rest of the facade then you could just paint the brickwork on the garage to match. One option for the stone cladding area would be climbing plants which can be bought pre-grown on a wire support. As long as they get watered (I would recommend an irrigation system on a timer) that will make for a softer appearance. I note also that the nice showroom quality shot of the house which is made over has a tree in the foreground (or at least part of one!) which gives it more depth and a softer effect. There is plenty of room for trees and shrubs in front of your house which could replace all of the grass creating more interest and less work.

Yes, but it also take a special kind of arrogance to override an architect's vision for a particular development. For example, my parents' housing estate was designed with no garden walls at the front so that the houses would seem as if they are almost in a park and there would be an expanse of green all the way along the roads. Then a few territorial types took it into their heads to build piddly little garden walls so now the road is a hodge podge of some green with a few silly walls around some gardens. There is no design consensus so the street doesn't look as good as it could look. Anarchy in design doesn't usually work. Usually it looks better when one person makes the design decisions and one, cohesive vision is expressed. For example, would you employ a different interior decorator with wildly different styles for each room in your house? It might work, but there's a greater chance it will look like the hodge-podge that it is. Would you have one dress designer make your whole dress or would you ask for pockets and collar to be cut by someone else? In some cases, a good result can come of an individual resident on a street making their own strong statement with the exterior of their house (we're not talking about subtleties such as colour of doors etc), but they are definitely the exceptions that prove the rule. I can think of many examples of tasteless 'improvements' made by individual residents to their properties (e.g. the one pictured above, frankly) and only a few good ones.

For me the issue is that you are attached to neighbours and these houses are designed to be different but have a cohesive thread. When you change the color palate this run of houses no longer sits as comfortably together. Perhaps the Coronation Street house I posted had a story line before your time but Vera Duckworth lived there, had what she wanted and blow the neighbours and of course it adversely affected the look of that street and remains like that many years later. In fact a few years ago Sarah Beaney did a programme called Streets Ahead where they brought together whole streets by undoing peoples “improvements” to unify the look and add value. This programs demonstrated the need to respect your streetscape when spending money on your attached house. The trouble is as soon as you start changing your house it green lights all of your neighbors to also do what they like and before you know it your street is devalued by thousands.