Exterior 1970s house makeover

[Uncertain2019]

Inspiration needed please! I'm hoping that someone has seen a facelift of a house like mine... it is a 1970s "anywhere house" so lots of them about but I can't find a good example of a facelift for my style of house. It is very similar to the photo below but I don't have any canopy or projection over the front door at the moment.. imagine a house on a monopoly board... a super simple box with roof. I can't extend to either side but I could extend forward (planning permission permitting). Ideally though I don't want the cost of extending and would rather put on a canopy type porch without the need for footings etc.

Now with photo

If it’s an anywhere house why not just post a pic of your house?

Have neighbours extended forward? You can't usually build in front of the 'building line'.

Have a scroll though this Instagram account - recent posts show the backs of houses, but I have definitely seen glow-ups of the fronts of 70s homes on there:
https://www.instagram.com/pyramidarchitectural/profilecard/?igsh=MTYzNjkyam9nMXRtaw==

www.cladcodecking.co.uk/blog/post/exterior-wood-cladding Third picture down. Would something like this work? Or use real wood?

1970s houses generally weren't well insulated, so you could put insulation around the upper half of the house, making it warmer and giving it more character at the same time.

Change front windows, door and fascia into modern black aluminium frames. Add exterior insulation as suggested above on upper half (either wood in matching colour or tiles). Certainly no ugly canopy and only extend front if it is to add a toilet in the entrance. Bonus is to paint the bricks in pastel red.

A forwards extension won't deliver much bang for buck because of the demolition costs to remove the existing walls to make current rooms larger. You might be better to move to a house with more options. We had to do this in 2017. Had a similar house back then that wasn't really capable of meaningful extension. Bought a corner plot and double its size for not much less than it would have cost to make a few rooms bigger in the old house.

If it's just a makeover. Silicone render the top half, or cladding. But again it won't really increase value so it's not going to be an investment.

I personally think it looks pretty naff when people clad or really re-do the front of 1960s/ 1970s houses - these are period houses too, just not from the Victorian period! I’d focus on choosing a front door in a colour and style you really like and then growing appropriate plants up the front. Or moving to a house you like more. I personally really like the simplicity of design of 1960s and 1970s houses.

Thanks for the Instagram feed Distantview... it is definitely inspiration I'm after. I tend to agree with you OneDayIWillLearn - cladding and render can look nice if done in the right way but I would need to add something else to avoid it looking naff.
Meadowfinch - my sister clad her house in that way and she did lots of other alterations so it looked good. I like the real wood options.

Moving isn't on the table- the house is really great with loads of potential for someone one day... just not me for now. I could extend at the front, side and back but don't have the budget and actually don't need the space. So, just looking to improve the look of the outside with the house that I have.

A couple of examples of 1970s houses (the ones circled in the photo).

One has cladding on the entire first floor and the other has cladding vertically, just on part of the wall where the windows are above each other. Both of those are as originally built.

I also like the wooden panelling on the "after" photo from @Fortesque although dark blue is quite a stand out colour.

Not exactly the same, but this house makeover is good.

https://www.instagram.com/mishkashoe?igsh=MTQ5ZGt3djYyejhmMw==