Depending on the budget, you could hack a portion of the wall "closed welcome passage" and put up a wall horizontally by the main entrance (creating a passage way to the living area. The window there should be able to shine a bit of light into the house. Replacing the wall between the living area and garage with Large glass panels would also help brighten up the house. At the same time, will give your house the elite concept (of having a vehicle in the living area) http://homememo.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/kop-properties_sky-garage.jpeg Hope this helps. :)

I agree that there is too much going on, however some of the suggestions are costly and in my opinion don't completely take care of the problems. I like the design approach it is fresh and updated. I agree that the chimney cap is out of proportion and just needs a simple band at the top. In order to make the exterior remain timeless over the years, Now Sit Down for a minute, I would make all of the exterior the white color. I know you love red however this will tie the different components of the architecture together more than any thing else. You can still have high gloss red doors and red tile pavers on the ground. It would also be very classy the use white tile in place of the brick look. You could even mix gloss white tiles with matt finish tiles to give an interesting sparkle when you ride by. I like the wrought iron upper railing, but the vertical blocking on the right side looks too heavy. So I would continue the same railing around the corner and back toward the house until it connects to the other balcony railing. This also ties the house together. It would look much more classic to not have a grid in the tall window and instead have a solid piece of glass down to the transom and then from there down be solid glass as well. Glass block in the courtyard column sections with back lights would look unbelievable. I would arch the closed in section on the second level as it would show up more there than the window being arched does, so save the money and don't arch that window. I would either hang a long contemporary light on the right elevation to dress it up or insert a long strip of glass block lighted from the interior to achieve the same effect. I charge for renderings, because I list the materials as well. Best, Leo Dowell Interiors.com

Hi Rahul Satija To answer your question, regarding which material to use for the outsides of your home Terracotta Brick - unless you have used bricks that are meant to be left exposed, ordinary bricks will take in a lot of water and leave the walls damp, and hence not a great idea. You could ofcourse cover it with a veneer of brick cladding but that is something we would not propose. Between wooden cladding and paint, it frankly depends completely on your budget. Wooden cladding looks extremely good but is quite pricey. Our suggestion would be to paint the majority of the home, with highlights in parts in wooden cladding.

pp?