I guess it's time for the "yes, but's". 1) first of all, thank you for explaining about opening up the view of the house. I took a walk around the neighborhood this morning, and (finally) could actually see the difference between those houses with "opened up" landscaping, and those houses looking "all boxed in". 2) I went to the gardening center this afternoon. Yes, perennials are on sale now, but shrubs are still expensive. I definitely have to do a lot of reading (I went to the library yesterday for some books) to see what plants I can consider. I want to plan carefully first. 3) We're going to move the sand cherry and Japanese yew to the backyard next weekend. 4) Reluctantly I will remove the arborvitaes - I'm guessing we'll just try to dig most of the roots out somehow after the trees are down. However, the ugly roof support columns (with the ugly 1960's metal swirls) will be visible until something manages to grow tall enough to cover them up - ugh. 5) I cannot bring myself to take a picture of the step up from the driveway - it is just too hideously ugly - old carpeting on the uneven concrete porch, ugly railing, ugly driveway, etc. When I can afford to change it, that porch and railing have got to go, but who knows when that will be. 6) I can demolish the buckthorn, but I have to leave a bed there. There is a gas pipe directly under that side of the house, and I can't dig down to get out the buckthorn roots, so we'll just lob it off as close to the ground as we can and put some plants there to hide any little bit of stump still left. 7) Here is a closer shot of that side of the house. The yellow lines show the arborvitaes of the neighbors - tall past the point of no return. The orange line shows their lilac almost touching my roof (which is fine with me, I like lilac). The white line shows my boxwood and the blue line shows yet another arborvitae. If we can get these 2 (the white and the blue) out without the gas pipe giving us a problem, we will do so. But a path has to stay clear on that side of the house so the guy can read the meter, so no, I can't extend the neighbor's flower bed. The green line shows the 3rd arborvitae. We were wondering, seeing as you've drawn in a tree for that side of the house, perhaps that arborvitae should be left in place to satisfy that requirement? Or should the blue, the white, and the green all go? As always, thanks for your continuing help.

Getting about 1 or 2 parts an evening done. Darn rain will not stop around here. Anyway, I keep thinking there must be some way to 'bond' the sand from Oscar's sandbox. Some of these gaps are no bigger than an 1/8" of an inch. Force the sand into the openings and then pour something liquid (maybe wood glue that is really watered down?) into the sand and hope it seeps? If Marlene gives me the go-ahead, I just might be willing to post a picture. All I can tell you is that as was the deck, this is a bigger project than I anticipated but one hell of a lot of fun! Calamity, I thought about concrete or plaster-of-paris, but I think the freeze-thaw cycles will turn either into dust in just a few months, and I don't know how I could clean them off the already sealed pieces. Oh, meant to include this is the last post - anyone ever work with decomposed granite?

be careful with colour-matching caulk and rubbing it in with a finger, per stone tech. There will be a lot of excess mess to clean up. Recommend removing most of it with a soft blade, i use a piece of wood with a suitable edge, it prevents scuffing the vinyl. Then carefully and thoroughly remove ALL residue with a damp cloth. Any residue will dry and stay tacky and pick up alot of grime and soon the entire floor will look like heck. Left over residue is difficult to see and you won't know it's there until the smudge appears. If that happens you need to clean entire affected area using soapy water and mild scrub pads. Just sayin'.

Yes, @Fori, that's what I said to my husband about the molding there--he's a bit of a perfectionist!! I was like, you don't need that there! But he can be a little obsessive about some things! I will pull out the range later and look at the space for that pipe. In figure 3 it looks more centered than to the right where we have it. We'll have to see what we can do about it. Better yet, I will just pull it all out and redesign it. No worries. Lots of time during COVID. Thank you for letting me know @JuneKnow. Although, it's such a little space, not much can be redesigned as there are only the two walls! Better yet @User, I can just leave the backsplash until it scorches too--then pull it all down and put up something else. No different than pulling it down now. Same money and time. :)