I have only lived here for 2 years. I've been busy remodeling an old house. I haven't had time to tend to the lawn. The previous owners were elderly and neglected the lawn for the last 4 years that they lived here. So the lawn has been neglected for at least 6 years total. I have no idea what type of maintainance that they used prior to their becoming ill. I have never had a lawn with this number of weeds before, so lawn maintainance is new to me. That is why I'm asking for help and where to begin the process of bringing this lawn back into shape. I finally have the time and the energy to devote to the lawn. I have just never dealt with a situation of this magnitude before. Its not that I'm asking for it to repair itself with no work on my part, I'm asking what am I supposed to do, where do I begin? Kill the weeds first?? Fertilize the lawn?? Overseed, or all of the above all at the same time, any time of year?? Should I just wait until next spring and start then, or do I have a chance of making some progress this year?

ok,,so lets start w/the kitchen. well, paint colors actually. it's ok to do different colors in other rooms,,,if you can see both rooms, slightly, then either do the same or do similar coordinating tones. The rest of the advice is if you plan on keeping what's there. If you're going to rip it out and get a new kitchen in a year, then live w/it if you can. If this is all you can do for many years, then see if the changes, below, are something you can do. if you plan on keeping all of that wood trim (if it was me, I'd prob paint every thing except the beams on the ceiling, and maybe the trim going up the staircase. In the kitchen you have so many dark and heavy elements, I feel you need to lighten it up. I can live w/the black tile, for now, but that brick? hell no. that has to get painted. You can paint the brick on the island, or, I'd cover it up w/panels/trim and paint it a soft charcoal to match the floor (or whatever color you like) Grab some thin wood or mdf panels from HD or lowes and cut to fit the 3 sides. Use construction adhesive to adhere to bricks (or get some masonry screws and screw them in) then get some 1x2 primed trim pieces and secure all around the borders..like so if you want a bit fancy, do the stiles along the back (above,,the vertical pieces) otherwise, just do it like pictured below. see how nice and clean looking it is? More ideas, search "trimming out kitchen island". you could try doing it in this color or if you feel like you want to have a painting party, do all of the cabinets in one, two or all four as they've outlined. This combo would look great w/your flooring. you kitchen ceiling needs to be skim coated and smooth out. or, have it retextured, primed and painted in a flat bright white. if you will be getting some retro fit recessed lights (Costco LED's,,,great price) then wait until the holes are done for those. Minimum of six 6" cans (8 would be better) , and two spots for pendants over the island. BTW, replacing the top on the island is a piece of cake. either check a granite fabricator yard for a remnant piece (you have a slender top so it should be easy to find) or look on craigslist for a remnant or even an entire island, or get an inexpensive butcher block and cut it yourself to fit. Whatever you get, leave an extra couple inches off the back end for an overhang. you could do a few more inches. The brick around your oven? paint it. white, black, gray, pick one. use a satin paint for that. clean and scrub that brick very well before you PRIME it (if using a dark paint, prime it with a gray primer. white for white,,,but don't skip the priming part) as for baseboards, if they're all small and short, pull them and replace w/these. Any questions? and yes, if you have the budget, call in a designer to help you out with what needs to be done, what should be done, etc.

I'm afraid I don't understand some things your drawing. Is this place surrounded with hedges? If it is, are these proposed or existing? Either way, I don't understand the logic behind their arrangement. To get help on planting strategy, I think it would be best to stick with the traditional idea of providing pictures. Take complete scenes of slightly overlapping photos from a SINGLE camera position. And limit the area to something that can be seen completely in one scene. Move on to the next scene after the first one is finished in the thread. (Trying to work on too many areas at once gets confusing.) If you're more interested in site design, provide a plan that has NO proposed elements in it. (Maybe that's what you've done and I don't know it.)

Since your in MN and spring weather is just hitting with the snow finally leaving, there are a few things you can do as the sun starts to be out longer and temps warm up. First priority would be getting on the leaves and sticks out of the yard so it's not smothering the turf. Depending how many leaves/sticks this could be done a few ways. You might need to stick to rakes and blowers instead of a mow and bag. Either way, once the yard is cleaner take a look at the ground, it might be so compact and shady that just throwing seed down won't help much. If you're really serious about getting fuller and thicker turf, you might be be best having a local company that takes care of turfs recommend a course of action for you which could include spring aeration and seeding, and maybe fertilizer. If the soil isn't to bad though it might just need some seed and maybe some fertilizer. It's still relatively early landscaping season in MN, the grass just turned green here in central Iowa within the last two weeks. So you should be able to do some work to get things looking better before grasses really start to kick in.