Lei Vaught

if the consensus is that a dark color would be best, would you stay with the brown, or possibly a forest green?

not the gutters - just the downspouts?

Here's a few more pics of the front taken from the corners of the house looking either direction, and one from each corner of the property. Sorry about the lighting, The Sun has decided to shine today and there's no arguing with sunshine in Seattle

You poor thing, you sound exhausted!

How about painting the whole thing? Here are a couple of examples of painted brick from Houzz (and some of them are before and afters so you can see what they used to look like). The world is your oyster then and it'll hide a lot of the bits you hate. You could do the dormer in a slightly lighter shade, all the window frames the same (I would suggest white) to unify it, and the door a completely different colour so that the entrance pops and looks welcoming. If the guttering and the downpipes are the same as the walls it'll hide what, at the moment, looks like a bit of jigsaw puzzle.

Then plant away!
Rosewood Before and After
Eastland Road Before and After
Hickory Lane
Bilgola House
ProTect Painters: Exterior Painting in Austin, TX Area

You could always paint the bricks so you don't see the differences in them. It's not my first choice, but sometimes you have to work with what you've got. I would paint the brown wood the same color as the brick so the house looks like it is one entity.

For the blackberries, go to the local nursery and ask about something to kill them. My neighbor who is a hoarder has allowed her backyard to revert to a field with the blackberries so common in the PCNW. Her next door neighbor complained that they were invading their yard so the hoarder neighbor claimed she was going to buy something to kill them. Wheather she did or not is beyond me.