Bringing life to black and white

I'm experimenting with toning in black and white images. One of the best bits of post-processing advice I've heard is to apply an effect slowly until it is just noticed, then back off slightly. This seems to add warmth and life to my black and white conversions that, until this point, have seemed very cold and boring. The image is still grayscale, yet not void of color...if that makes sense.

These photos are from a recent walk around our neighborhood. At a high level there is nothing particularly striking about a suburban scene, but if you can remember to walk more slowly you discover that texture and pattern are everywhere, even in man-made suburbia. One of the best ways to discover this is to walk with children, who are not in a hurry and who do not pay attention to the same things that adults do. "What's that ladder on the road?" "This is bumpy." We trample right by and over these things all the time.