Designing suggests:

Congrats on your new house! I think I would agree with you and absolutely take out the existing front yard plantings. It looks like everyone down the street got the same landscape treatment. Just removing those will let you see the pretty house and be much more welcoming. Even the small tree in the front looks ill-placed and right near the entryway and will grow too big there. It is small enough and might be able to be moved. I think I might plant a small vine on a trellis to the right of the doorway. Maybe a pretty clematis would grow there. Then I think I would make a curved bed going from the left side of the door over to the front left of the property. You don't want to plant where people might have to park on the street. Where I used to live we had to park on the street too. To fill the large curved border, it depends on what you like. You can make a beautiful cottage garden with flowers and roses etc. Or you can make a mixed shrub border and move that tree in there (not sure what kind or size tree that is). I think some foliage variation, variegation, and different colored foliage shrubs would be nice, like purplish and yellowish/chartreuse rather than all dark green. Good luck!

The overgrown shrubs plastered up against the house don't seem like positive results, but you could use some small trees near the house ... close to the entrance to provide a sense of "sheltering" near the door and filling in the upper level blank architectural space, and also toward the left side of house to provide some screening of the upper mass of the next door house. ("Small" trees being woody plants 12' to 15' height.)

Why "raised" planters? If it's a less expensive material -- wood -- it's going to look cheap. If it's stone or brick they might look fine, but will add a lot to the cost ... when they're not really needed. Why not just plan plantings that achieve the levels desired rather than using lower height material that is raised by placing additional retained soil below it? I'd rather see the money go into an improved walk with a better connection to the drive.

My sketch is scratchy, but I hope you can clean some ideas from it. I added street trees, They would improve the overall streetscape and provide a sense of the property's looking "established."

I have never liked shrubs that close to a house. Rip them out and plant a couple of small trees in the yard, maybe crabapple or sourwood, and maybe a couple of witch hazel srubs nearer the street.

You could do some beds where the shrubs are now.

Thanks for your suggestions everyone! I'm a dope and couldn't figure out how to find my post again until just now...LOL.

I'm not sure you can really tell from the original picture, but the window in front is a picture window. There is a parkway in the middle of the street with beautiful trees, so I don't want to block the view too much with street trees.

Yardvaark, I like your placement of the two smaller trees on either side of the window, as well as your idea for the path.

I've been working on this and have ripped out the bushes on either side of the front door...the rest are still there but have been severely pruned :) The hope is to get them all out eventually.