My ideas are soft the driveway straight line and widen the sidewalk and plant small size trees.
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Hi designoline6,
I like your third option.
What is on the ground area in the front and the little tree and shrubs towards the front?
And that bush in the back?
Would these plants grow in Colorado (northern exposure?
Thanks!!!

Black haw is one of the viburnums(prunifolium?), I think. The ground cover could be anything from who knows what to eggs over easy. D-6's exuberant renderings tend to be more fanciful than what you can duplicate with a trip to a garden center.

The knotweed drawn already encroaching on your neighbor's house is probably on the Colorado noxious weed list.

My drawing is pretty pathetic compared to D-6's but what about this taking D-6's ideas. The black is cement curbing/edging but will probably be in gray.
Thoughts?
Again, this isn't to scale at all and I think we will fill the center area with rocks.
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I'm not a designer and actually getting out and doing something landscaping/gardening-wise is somehow easier for me than explaining why I'm doing it.

Seems to me that sometimes an island bed really serves no purpose in a relatively small lawn. And filling another area with rocks that you have to mow or whip around is work. I'm not thinking outside the box, but hostas are good all around utilitarian plants - they come in shades of green, blue, variegated, and in sizes from mini to BIG, and in upright and mounding shapes.

Your foundation is nice, doesn't need hiding. What's on the left - spireas?

I get what you're saying but we didn't want to plant another tree and need something in the front.
I don't know what kind of shrubs are to the left (you're referring to the ones right in front of the house?). The ones off to the right are Albert Dwarf Conifers.
Hostas are good, we used to have some in the walkway but died due to lack of water (my fault).
Maybe if we make the "rock area" not too big, it might work. I'm not too concerned about the mowing, because like you say, it's not a big area, but I do use an electric mower so the cord might get caught up in the middle.

These plants grow in Colorado (northern exposure)
Big plant is Sweetbay or Japonica.small is privet.

Thank you!!!

We were going to get curbing installed around the grass and a section within the grass. Would you do curbing first and then install plants or vice versa?

I would install the curbing then the plants. I would think that during curbing installation, any plants would likely get tromped on.

What's up with the bench by the window? Do you use it? It doesn't look particularly accessible and looks rather neglected. How's the view from there? It seems like it would make more sense to move it further into the yard which is then another thing to take into consideration.

We use the bench daily or almost daily (it's more like a glider). We don't have a patio or porch out front and put down pavers behind the bushes. Not difficult to get there as I keep the bushes in front somwhat trimmed down.
We like the view as we're kind of shielded and just sit out there with the dogs. It's actually nice. While it would be nice to have a porch or patio out front, don't think it's in our budget. We've seen other neighbors do that but it would need to be built up and leveled, etc.

First of all, designonline6 is from China and fills people's yards with out-of-scale things that are completely inappropriate to the climate.

>We use the bench daily or almost daily (it's more like a glider). We don't have a patio or porch out front and put down pavers behind the bushes.

And there is your problem. Right now, the glider looks awful--like someone left a couch out in the rain. It has no context.

Take out the bushes. Add a patio to the left of the entrance as far out 3' in front of the first step up onto the porch.

Pinky-swear that you will never, ever, ever, everevereverever use gravel as mulch again. Please. Unless covenants require it, do not do this!

Then take a swooping line from halfway down the driveway across to about 4' out from the corner of the porch, then across to the edge of the property line where the gravel now reaches.

THAT is your new bed.

Island beds are almost always a bad idea. They look as if they dropped out of the clouds to land--splat--in the middle of your yard. They make your yard and house look smaller. They have no context and no flow.

If you aren't really the gardening type, you should stick with very hard perennials for your area. Look at High Country Garden's top recommendations for long-blooming perennials and shrubs. "May Night" Salvia, moonbeam coreopsis, agastache, galliarda (beware--it's short-lived), echinacea, artemisia, Russian sage, liatris, scabiosa, perennial dianthus, rudbeckia, lavender, columbines (also shortlived, but reseed), blue star juniper, asters, daylilies, German irises, missouri primrose, some shrub roses, daisies, echinops, guara, geranium (hardy), broom, and mahonia all do GREAT there.

Those are spruce, not pines. They are placed badly and must be removed--if not now, then in 5-10 years. They should be replaced with more appropriate shrubs.

My neighbors' is, oh, about 40 feet high. They will never stop growing, and they cannot kept small.