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I stuck your picture up to make it easier. I would agree that the tree is poorly placed, and the trim is a bit stark. Check with the manufacturer of the door to find out if painting it is an option. Sometimes the problem with painting vinyl is going too dark, which absorbs heats and warps the material, but newer materials may be different, or maybe you could at least tone it down a shade or two without doing any harm.

Cottage gardens are nice, but can require a lot of tending if they aren't going to look messy. If your house was a cottage, it might be easier to get away with, but your modern style home might look better with a slight tidier look. You can always go nuts in the backyard.

The first thing I would think about would be shade. Check with your local extension office for recommended shade trees for your area, or post on the tree forum for suggestions. Check the location of any buried utilities before digging. Once you have your tree location picked out you can decide on a hedge or screening shrub border for the nosy neighbor and trespassers.

Foundation shrubs tied into a sweeping bed incorporating framing trees would make a great addition. The visible grey concrete foundation being that is currently exposed can be hidden behind evergreens. The overhange of the bay window can also be blended into or grounded more with foundation plantings.

Privacy hedges and fences seem to be all the topic these days, so you can search on those threads for ideas. But I would add that the mail-person can walk on your sidewalk, so don't let the post office dictate how you need to design your border fence/plantins.

The iron grating alcove seems like an unusual architectural feature. Too bad you can't have a prominent and colored front door there, and turn the alcove into a mud room.

Move the evergreen to the left corner of the house by the small window. Tie your house into the landscape with a corner evergreen (away from the house >10 ft) and to frame it, put in a similar evergreen on the opposite side.

A sweeping bed in front of the bay-window will give you something to look at and hide the foundations like Isabella said.

Also add in some gravel or brick paving at the entrance to the drive way to give it a flare. That will break up the concrete rectangle currently there

I have really been thinking about your house and what would give it more curb appeal, charm, or character. It is just a simple house and has lots of angles, squarish shapes but no curves, except for the wrought iron gate/door. The eye is drawn to the bay window and not to the door. So you would have to consider painting. You actually can paint the brick. And you might want to go with a light color. You can also paint the bay window. If you don't paint the brick, you can paint the bay window a darker color to compliment the brick. I would have a focal point outside the bay window and somewhere to draw the eye instead of the bay. I think all the plantings should be curvey. So maybe a bed coming out from the bottom of the driveway on the yard side and plants going up each side of the drive but flowing over the driveway a bit on each side. Also maybe a drake elm on the side of the house by the small window. That is a weeping tree, very nice form. I would try to save the evergreen, if possible. Maybe move it to other side of drive or nearer the street and to the side. You could have decorative pots or urns at either side of the top of the drive, maybe a curvey topiary form in each one. Or a small planter under each light fixture with a hanging vine planting, nothing angular. In the focal point out from the bay, nearer the street, could be a birdbath or bench or bird feeder. I thought about an iron fence along the drive and some iron planters or window boxes but I really think the place would look better a little bit lightened up and not heavy with iron. I would think about painting the iron door, or replacing with another (not sure the expense) that was lighter color (depending on if you paint brick or not) and maybe had a design in the center like a sun face or flower??? If you put a weeping or rounded form small tree on the side by the small window you could have a curvey, sweeping garden to incorporate the tree and come up to the house foundation planting. I hope this gives you some ideas. You could make a bunch of copies of your picture and draw in some of these ideas, copy it in black and white and try various color schemes.

Thanks everyone for your replies.
I agree with your suggestions to make sweeping beds across the front as I want to break up the angular lines and bring some curves in. I also want to leave only a small patch of grass to mow in the middle of the yard. To the left side of the picture next to the neighbour's property there is a manhole and water valve on my lawn in the easement (about 8 feet in from the front sidewalk) and the sewer line runs there as well so I most likely will only be able to plant a shrub tree in the corner nearest the house. I don't think I can plant anything substantial near the manhole/water line. I would love to plant a weeping tree to frame my house as louisianagal suggested. I think a weeping ornamental crabapple would be beautiful.

I was thinking on putting a small deciduous tree a little closer to the driveway than where the evergreen is now that won't get much taller than the house to help shade it in the summer. I could sweep the bed from the front of the house to incorporate the tree so that the bed sweeps half way down the driveway. Do you think that would look ok? I have attached a link to a garden plan on Better Homes and Gardens that I was going to take the general layout from. My yard is not as big so I would need to work with what I have.
http://www.bhg.com/bhg/story.jsp?storyid=/templatedata/bhg/story/data/gp_LargeFrontYard_032505.xml

Do you think it is also acceptable to paint brick in regards to resale value. Not too many people where I live paint their brick houses.

Remove tree (and railroad ties, if that's what they are - those things are nasty) and replace lawn to right of drive with trees and shrubs. Edge lawn with flowing beds that sweep around from sides to converge near front door, so that you can step out onto lawn fro near front door and lawn then opens out to street (no bed between lawn and street). Bed between drive and lawn left of drive could start maybe somewhat less than half way up drive, bed on other side I would have come down to street.

Mostly shrubs, mostly broad-leaved evergreen if possible, with a small number of deciduous trees placed at widely spaced locations for accent. Except for trees aim for approximate mature sizes about 1 1/2 times as high as beds are wide in those sections. The beds around the lawn on the left would then end up with a large proportion of comparatively low shrubs, those to the right of the drive would be mostly quite tall.

I like the BHG plan, I generally like their site very much. I must say I have seen several excellent brick paint re-do's. You can certainly keep the red brick. I also sold my gutted, Katrina damaged home in Louisiana, and the new owner covered the nice red brick with stucco. There are many options. I also forgot to mention that my neighbor across the street here in Mississippi put fake hardware on his big white garage door. It looks like iron scroll-work type hinges, but it is not real. It looks really good. He also put some new light fixtures, I think like carriage lamps up. It really helped his garage area look less stark.
Good luck with your makeover.

Some things to think about when planning your landscape.

The plan you linked to is a bit busy, and eliminating most of your front lawn is going to create an area that requires a lot more maintenance than mowing involves. Mulched planting areas get weedy if not tended, and mulch has to be replenished periodically. New shrub and tree plantings will need to be watered to provide the equivalent of 1 inch of rain per week if it doesn't happen naturally, for at least the first year, maybe longer. If you want an area to garden in, fine. If you want low maintenance, consider a smaller planting area that serves the purposes you require and no more.

Here is a link that might be useful: link