First, I'm very sorry for your experience - not a great introduction to working with a landscape professional :-( I assume you do not have the plans? Or even any preliminary sketches? It is very possible to develop a cottage style garden or at least an informal, naturalistic planting in a fair amount of shade. I am not sure why folks vere away from shade gardening as such a design challenge - it's ony a matter of becoming familiar with plants that prefer those conditions and there are lots. bboy points you in the right direction - include some smallish understory trees and shrubs and fill in with woodland plants and shade or part shade lovers - hostas, astilbe, brunnera, ferns, hellebores, columbine, bleeding heart....the list goes on! In sunnier areas, you can include more sun tolerant plantings typical to a cottage garden, including peonies, iris, delphiniums, etc. Try your local library for a book, "The Complete Shade Garden" by George Schenck. Should provide some inspiration as well as introduce you to a long list of shade tolerant plants. It's a bit of closing the barn door after the horse has escaped now, but should you embark on a professional landscaping adventure again, be sure to protect yourself as best you can by insisting on a contract with the professional that outlines their participation in detail as well as your responsibilities and never pay more than a modest deposit towards work that has not been completed. Personally, I'd have to think a designer was up to no good from the outset if they asked for $10 grand before any plans were completed and delivered and to "reserve" an installation crew and plants for spring. An ethical professional just doesn't work that way.

Do you want help with a landscape design or do you just want planting suggestions? There's a pretty big difference between the two :-) If you want to develop a landscape design, one of the first things you need to do is determine what you want from your garden and how you intend to use it. If you do a search of this forum, you will turn up a recent thread titled "Landscape Design Forum FAQ - Improved" that will present a checklist of issues for you to review that will help you focus your thoughts and clarify your requirements. It involves examining your property in detail and evaluating your lifestyle so that you develop a garden/landscape that "works" for you. Maintenance, budget considerations and the function of the garden are all considered. At that point you may decide that help with plant selection is all you need. That's a relatively easy process and can be approached in just the manner lacyvail outlined. Many nurseries will have staff that can assist in this process. If you are unfamiliar with plants, visiting local public gardens or arboreta or even large garden centers can offer a wide display of plantings in situ that may inspire. Often, it is just more efficient and economical to hire a professional for design assistance. This avoids a great deal of expensive trial and error, escalates the knowledge base and shortcuts the entire process. You can also do a great deal of self-teaching if you can afford the time and are willing to expend the effort - there are tons of very good DIY landscaping texts on the market and most home improvement centers or book stores will have a bunch available. But you are not going to come away from this forum with a landscape plan in hand. That's not how it works. You may get some good advice on how to proceed in the process, you may even get some specific plant suggestions, although at this point I believe they would be very premature, but the development of a "landscape design" is something that will take study, time, effort and careful consideration, either yours or a professional designer's.

I would most likely start it at the jog in the drive and and run it in a single sweeping gentle curve a bit to the right of the tree, approximately where the drive would have been that you are not installing. Make it at least 5' wide so it looks important and visitors don't need to walk single file to the front door. Steps should come straight out from the door so that they aren't too long and put a generous landing where the steps meet the path. Yes to a hand rail, and make the posts (or at least the casing around them) somewhat generous in diameter, not skinny 3" diameter pipe. Plant shrubs along the foundation, but not near the walkway and not so tall that they will block sight lines to the porch from the drive. Perhaps plant some bright annuals either in the ground or in a low pot at the end of the path. Consider some down-lights on the tree to light the pathway well at night.

@greenfish1234 Thank you again for your input. I'm attaching a better picture of the back door area. Our door is currently a slider door - not sure if that will be switched in the future to a french door. How far past the door should the steps/landing go? The further we go, the further we cut into that dead space next to our family room wall (to the right of the door). Also, the deeper the total of depth of the steps/landing combined, the deeper the bed gets to the left of the steps/landing, unless we don't make that bed as deep as the steps/landing, but not sure if that will look right. I'm also attaching a pic of landing/steps I found on line. Not that I want curved steps or that material, but was wondering if I could turn that dead space into a raised planter on the landing. That way I can soften that area. If I did this though, not sure how far to bring out the planter - just to the last step, or to the edge of the back of the family room wall. In this pic, their dead space is probably 1/2 that of mine.