It sounds like budget will keep most things from happening, but at least you can have goals and get to what you can. Trimming of trees is a lot easier/less costly if one keeps up with it and ANTICIPATES what's to come. 1.) A branch that's 10" in diameter is hard, time consuming and troublesome to cut. That same branch was once only 1" in diameter and could have been removed in about 10 seconds. 2.) As branches grow longer and thicker they hang down further. So branches that are only 4 or 5' off of a roof now, will be resting on it in a year or two. 3.)There's a store of energy in a tree that is in relative balance between foliage and roots. When the roots contain a surplus of energy relative to the foliage, the foliage will have a growth spurt. (For example, if one cut off all the foliage, the tree would have a major growth spurt. I'm not suggesting do this.) However, the growth spurt will most likely not to be channeled into what was cut... but in what remains. Therefore, A tree can be shaped much better, faster, and more efficiently (less waste of the stored energy) if it is pruned judiciously right along from babyhood. The wrong way is to let it get too out of bounds in places and ways it shouldn't, and then try to fix it long after it was needed. I understand that you are using the maple tree to solve a problem, but it looks like a case of using a hammer to kill mosquitoes. Why not consider some sort of screen close to, and wrapping the corner of the lot that will obscure traffic? It could possibly be combined with fencing that was mentioned earlier. I'm thinking along the lines of lattice or some kind of grill work with wines growing on it or some such thing. There's lots of possibilities. Just a thought. Hopefully, you don't want to grow the globe arborvitae as two separate balls. The house does not seem to be asking for any. I'd move the right-most globe leftward, as shown, to at least give these hope of growing together. The Euonymus coloratus is the shaggy reddish plant. I'd move it over to the Maple and start making groundcover out of it. I've marked up one of your pictures to suggest a bed line. And to show where you should have pruned the Maple.

I had a couple of pink flamingos in my yard for awhile. I named them 'Tongue' and 'Cheek'. They finally died. I think of,embarrassment.

ima, I came across this article the other day. ============= Many unwanted behaviors, including some that disturb parents, tend to drop out on their own, especially if you don't overreact to them and reinforce them with a great deal of excited attention. Take thumb sucking, which is quite common up to age 5. At that point it drops off sharply and continues to decline. Unless the dentist tells you that you need to do something about it right now, you can probably let thumb sucking go. The same principle applies for most stuttering. Approximately 5 percent of all children stutter, usually at some point between ages 2 and 5. Parents get understandably nervous when their children stutter, but the vast majority of these children (approximately 80 percent) stop stuttering on their own by age 6. If stuttering persists past that point or lasts for a period extending more than six months, then it's time to do something about it. There are a lot more behaviors, running the range from annoying to unacceptable, in this category. Approximately 60 percent of 4- and 5-year-old boys can't sit still as long as adults want them to, and approximately 50 percent of 4- and 5-year-old boys and girls whine to the extent that their parents consider it a significant problem. Both fidgeting and whining tend to decrease on their own with age, especially if you don't reinforce these annoying behaviors by showing your child that they're a surefire way to get your (exasperated) attention. Thirty to 40 percent of 10- and 11-year-old boys and girls lie in a way that their parents identify as a significant problem, but this age seems to be the peak, and the rate of problem lying tends to plummet thereafter and cease to be an issue. By adolescence, more than 50 percent of males and 20 percent to 35 percent of females have engaged in one delinquent behaviortypically theft or vandalism. For most children, it does not turn into a continuing problem. ============= Apparently, (if this article was accurate) your SD is just hitting 'peak lying years', so, well, you may have a rough couple years ahead of you, and her mom's example certainly can't help, but she's also probably not doomed to grow up into a pathological liar, she may just be at 'that age'.

Thanks, Barbara and Carlton. Our architect was Michael Olson in Steamboat. I don't mind sharing that info publicly because he has a Houzz page (although it isn't up to date -- probably because he had been so busy -- building is booming up here). Michael is great to work with and really good at collaboration. He really "got" our concept and ran with it. Michael has done several other houses in our neighborhood and they all look great -- and not knock offs -- each one is unique -- some more contemporary, some more lodge like and the house he designed being built next door to us will be more of a Greene and Greene craftsman. But all blend well into the neighborhood. We have been in the house a bit over four months now and it lives great -- better than I even dreamed. Edited to add a link to the Reveal