First question is, what kind of siding is that and does it need regular painting? I see gutters and so are they fully covered with leaf guards? I'd hate to see you blocking the second story interest of the windows . These are important to the appeal of the mult-level roofline. The single window nook between the main house and the garage is begging for not a crape myrtle but perhaps a nice vitex that isn't insulted by harsh pruning should you need to get behind it to paint. It's airy looking in form and wonderful for lighting of the small white holiday type or simple uplighting. The breadth of it's branches provide dappled shade to annuals and it doesn't mind underplantings. Garage wall is begging for some dark lump medium height evergreens (holly rather than boxwood which are suffering from leaf miners/virals). I think it's important to not cover the break between the two grey tones of the garage. It is visually interesting with the stark white break. Is that shredded hay or dormant Bermuda grass lawn out front? Do you have a edging planting bed on the lawn side of the sidewalk? The chairs on the front porch and pairs of windows behind them say you don't want anything even mid tall fronting porch in the beds. But, you might want to extend and curve the left porch bed around the side of the house.

First thing I would recomend is sculpt the beds and get rid of the straight lines. And when you sculpt, you will have a place to plant some palms away from the cage and create privacy without blocking the view too(maybe other low growing palms like the pigmy date). Then when you live there full time you will have plenty of room to plant bedding plants to attract the butterflies. This depends on what area in Fl you are(winter low temps are the consideration there)maybe some ixora in different colors if winter is very mild.

Tough call--I like it more open, which also leaves room for traffic, but I like the bookcase dividers, too. I almost never met a bookcase that I didn't like. ;) Will you have cased mill work where the yellow lines are drawn? Keep in mind that the decorative post is directly in line with the front door, so you might want to make both legs of the 90° grouping shorter. Or make the bottom one longer to match up with the stair wall. I think I'd have a solid wall on the left side of the dining room, so that the kitchen and hall are blocked from the front entry--but I like rooms more closed off. My front door opens into the LR, so maybe I just think I'd like it more closed off. ETA, I like cpartist's drawing with the shorter (narrower) cases, which would work well if you shorten bookcases on the 90° group. Here's an idea lining up the dividers with the 36" pantry and 36" fridge, which flank the kitchen wall, and with the window in the great room: Adding the grid drawing from above--with the island drawn as 10' long (rather than 10.5'), and lined up with the side of the fridge, and the room divider. I moved the island toward the sliding doors 6", which puts it at 4' from the doors. With the middle of the room open, I also moved the island back toward the great room making the work aisle 48" (actually more like 45-46" with the overhangs on the counters.) You don't have to make the island 6" shorter, but I thought you might like to see what it would look like more centered on the opening.

I think a shade of grey in satin or semi gloss. But not too far off from the white of the ceiling so the difference is perceivable but not glaringly so. It kind of looks like something is missing on the beams, have you thought about installing a cross beam, or ridge beam, even if just for looks. Picture of ridge beam and cross beam every third way up high. http://thewhitebuffalostylingco.com/vaulted-ceilings-white-or-wood/ Are you thinking of installing a ceiling fan, it might help with temperature regulation, but beware of the strobe light affect with the ceiling lights. While looking for a example of vaulted ceilings I found examples of painting walls and ceiling the same colors, that might be a good option. http://paintdora.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/paint-the-ceiling-the-same-as-the-wall-color-the-decorologist-painting-ceiling-and-walls-same-color-768x1152.jpg I found a picture of a ceiling painted in wall color. I wouldn't choose this color but a nice example. Wish the picture showed more though. [https://www.houzz.com/photos/modern-poolhouse-west-des-moines-contemporary-family-room-phvw-vp~3868017[(https://www.houzz.com/photos/modern-poolhouse-west-des-moines-contemporary-family-room-phvw-vp~3868017)