I think handprints in concrete is just stupid. No offense, but I also think plaster casts of kids handprints on the walls is also 1950's grandma style. yes I have two kids that have grown up. What did we do when we built our home: I had the kids paint and leave all kinds of messages on the studs and bays of the home before final drywall went up. they grew up knowing their "secret" messages were in there and someday they'll be discovered. To each their own, but personally having some kids handprints in my driveway would be an irritant, looks very unprofessional so in resale terms it's a negative.

Kellienoelle, Re. the sofa, while we don't allow the dog on the furniture (we have a yellow lab) since the fur goes everywhere, I can say that it vacuums up nicely and for doggie drool spots we've had good luck with just warm water and a sponge. We do have a cleaning solution we got when we purchased it, and we were able to use it to get some pen ink off with no problem. The sofa was pricier than we'd been used to, but we have had it for almost 5 years and sit on it every single day and the shape has held up beautifully. I rotate the seat cushions occasionally since DH and I tend to sit on either end. I can also vouch that it is extremely comfy to sleep on, as have several of our guests! We ended up with a dark brown color, but the variety of colors available was amazing. If we allowed Chloe on the couch I may have chosen something that 'matched' her fur ;-) Re. the house: my heart will always be with older homes. I grew up in one, and owned a 1905 American Foursquare on my own for years before meeting DH. What drove us to make the move was the fact that we did not have (or have space for) a garage, and our driveway was one car wide. We also had looked into doing some kitchen/bath upgrades and realized that for what we wanted to spend we would price ourselves out of our neighborhood and still have no garage. So I guess it depends on locale and the lot. While our new home lacks some of the character we loved in our older home, I do tell everyone that my favorite room is the 2 car garage- well, before our new kitchen went in that is! And the more open floor plan and extra baths/guest rooms make hosting our large families (all of whom are out of town) much more comfortable. As we go through and update we are making an effort to bring some character into our "tract" home, but if it were the right house and the right location I would not hesitate to own an old beauty again.

Wow! Thank you for all the great tips/advice. Sorry for such a delayed response; been so busy with work and family and finishing basement projects. Always go, go, go around here. @Yardvaark - WOW! Thank you for putting together this concept sketch! Very nice for a visual person like myself. One thing I neglected to mention was future plan (3-5yrs) to have a shop built in north-eastern corner and driveway extended. Shooting for maximum width, but the wife wants yard, so theres some debate on what the final size will be. Fact is, no matter the size, it will provide some degree of privacy. Unfortunately we'll have 3-5 years of nothing there unless we do a bunch of some narrow, tall shrubs/trees. Thank you again for this design. I like the idea of bunching up the Chokecherry trees. I think we might place those in a non-key spot as they may be a little sparse for some time. @kitasei - Thank you. Don't mind the idea of something at edge of concrete. Closer to the east, we'll be extending the driveway to go further back. Along the patio we might consider some planter type material there. For the time being we like the openness of the yard as we have 4 kids that run around playing soccer, football, etc.. @Sherry_7bAL I totally understand the pitfalls of creating a line of anything which occurred to me shortly after the chokecherries went in. I have since shifted to love the cluster and variety idea. Like the trellis idea but cant commit on something, so it will take some research and reviewing of ideas to see if i can find something that "pops" out at me. I also dig Yaardvark's ideas with clustering chokecherries and think makes much more sense than trashing them. I'll capture some pics from back fence facing the house and post those. Thank you for you're thoughts! @kitasei - Great idea on the perimeter idea. I had planned on creating a border around the back yard. Wife thinks it will be too much to take care of. (weeds, etc..). We have made our other planting areas in front low maintenance by refreshing the top layers with soil-pep every 1-2 years and relying on Preen. The combination seems to keep weeds at bay. Those weeds that do pop through have such loosely packed roots, that they just pull right out. Ultimately, I would much rather have a variety of dense ground cover, but that will come in time. I would prefer that much more than relying on some chemical (Preen) for weed control. I had planned to use the soil-pep and Preen approach, at least initially, for perimeter in back. @NHBabs - YESSS.. I love your variety! This is exactly what I would love as long as I could use trees/shrubs hitting 15-20 ft in height in some points. I think combining what you have done and Yaardvark's awesome design would produce what I am really after. I LOVE IT. @kitasei - Totally agree with you on creating a border with gentile sweeps vs boring, straight runs and hard corners. Will take some effort to figure out depths at points. would like nice border to house our variety of privacy-giving trees/shrubs without taking too much from yard space. :) @Renee Texas Thank you - Will look into holly. At first thought, i suspect these can grow into dense hedges that will remain year round. They produce berries as well? Are they toxic to pets/humans? I'll need to research holly. Thanks again! @edlincoln Thanks! Trellis has definitely been on the list. I like vine idea. Will take some some planning, as you mentioned... don't want to get something too aggressive. There was a time where i wasn't too big on Spruce's, but i love them now. Thanks for the caution on the shade tolerance. Definitely prefer the variety of fast and slow growing pantings. Sort of a "Controlled forest". :) I'll look into Southern Magnolia, American Holly and Hemlock as options. Thank you! You're right about the Chokecherries. They're not terrible, but for what we were looking for, i think we've since identified better options (many of which have been covered here. :) ). Could always have been worse. :) It's a fine balance on space we want to dedicate to tree's. Totally understand there is a tradeoff between space and privacy. We would like to preserve as much usable yard space as possible, but privacy is, in this case, a necessity. By that, I mean a necessity to me for my personal comfort and well being (AKA Decompression zone). My wife is mixed on a private back yard. She's OK with it, and OK without it. :) She's a social butterfly whereas I can't quite say the same for myself. :) @lazy_gardens Yes - Totally agree on the build vs grow approach. Been kicking around the ideas. Would love to see the example you provided, but unfortunately looks like the link isn't working at the moment. Thanks everyone for your help! I really appreciate all of the guidance and advice you've provided. I have some planning to do. My problem is that I have a difficult time deciding what to eat for lunch, let alone decide on what to plant for years out of fear of disappointment. Sort of like the chokecherry idea. Wish we would have planned that out a little better. Another problem I have is when i get to nursery, i get stuck on the vast selection of varieties and without knowing more about the item, I think too much about it and cant commit, so end up leaving without anything planning to do more research then life gets in the way. :) I truly understand why folks hire landscapers. lol. Although I have no problem doing the work, i just need to know what i need to buy and where to plant it to obtain my goals and you all have helped a ton with that. Thanks again!

Thanks for all of the above. Sophie, I don't doubt the described requirements generally, but--per my post--I think our job is a lot smaller than that described in the posted video (for example). I realize I don't have a good photo to share (it's dark now, I'll see if I can do something about that tomorrow). Let me see if I can come at this a different way... This is a remedial project. I could leave things as they are and have a half mud/half stone/half weed (yes, I know) driveway, and keep spraying things left and right. There's adequate manual labor locally to excavate the area in question to a certain depth at a modest cost. Removal of excavated material is a different issue, but I'd deal with it. This is a section of driveway that almost never gets "driven on"; cars occasionally park on it, but almost always briefly, when guests come and we want to clear the 'upper semicircle'. My plan would be to excavate as much as minimally necessary to lay a reasonable foundation (stone and sand with vibration, which I can rent), lay a weed barrier (Costco?), then lay the pavers (per the original post), and fill with stones. This would all be better than what I have now. Is it pro? no. Is it perfect? no. Is it better than what I have now? Maybe. Could it be closer with your suggestions on squaring the circle? That's up to the assembled masses! Thanks for your help!