My inclination would be to define the property edge with a row, or double row of street trees. There is nothing that qualifies as an eyesore needing screening and no projected use of the side yard requires privacy. So why hide a nice view? I'd invite people passing by to look into and admire your yard. Street trees (limbed up so that the view is maintained, of course!) add order and stateliness, mark the property limits, generally dress it up and display your affection for it. How you handled the ground space below the trees would depend on their spacing and shade pattern. It could be grass, groundcover (something easy) or mulch. Because the location is some distance from the house and because you have time, if you wanted, you could use trees that are more unusual, Maclura pomifera for instance. They should look nice, but don't need to reek of high formality unless that's what you want. Where you need privacy for the back yard you could use sizable shrubs placed somewhere near the fence as a hedge or in carefully placed groupings. The end of the house needs a couple of trees to shield some of the blank wall space. They could be shade or flowering trees. They don't need to be jammed up on the house but could be spaced a distance away proportionate to their ultimate size. A few shrubs to fit with the lower level blank space could be worked into the scheme.

Silvia and all, I thought I would give an update. Silvia sent me 18 seeds and from them got 6 seedlings. One was wimpy and died right off the bat. The other 5 are all still alive. There is some variability in the plants. The largest three are mini-trees, about 4' tall. The smallest two are more bushy, 1'-2' tall. I have been letting them assume their natural size and shape so far (no pruning). All have wicked thorns! None have bloomed yet. If they are like key limes, they might fruit next year. If they are like oranges, it may be 5 more years. I will just have to wait and see. When we had two nights that dropped into the teens last winter, I brought three of them into the garage. The other two stayed outside. I put a small one near my satsuma tree, out in the open. I put one of the big ones near a south-facing brick wall. No lights or covers for either of them. Both survived, though the small one in the open took more damage, of course. The bigger one by the south-facing wall only took a teensy bit of tip damage on tender new growth. Both have completely recovered and are now bigger than they were before the freeze. All the plants stayed outside, in the open, for all of the other frosts and freezes. No problems. So, the claim that *mature trees* can survive 10F doesn't seem too far-fetched at all. Still, I intend to plant one or more of them in the ground near that south-facing wall, to give them a little more protection.

So far Ida has the most likes on a single post which qualifies as the winner. The winner picks the theme, any theme they want. The winner creates the post with choice of theme along with posted guidelines. There are a few that are close. On an almost parting orange note I want to add this house I love that I posted on Robo’s thread. It’s an MCM blend of farmhouse. Pretty cool for a small lot front face garage home. The more I look at it the more I like it. This house but in Florida and with an elevator to the second floor would work for me. Oh, and no basement. I would have to greatly adjust interior finishes to get closer to my budget. It could be done. https://www.openlistings.com/p/5336-lyman-ave-downers-grove-il-60515?lightbox=6

@everdebz the washer and dryer are some random white that a family friend is giving her now that they've bought new ones. She's really putting this all together on a tight budget. The walls were cool gray with blue-ish undertones, which I know is popular but she doesn't care for. So painting is a high budget priority. @Jennifer Hogan I don't think shadows are the problem. It's basically a little 7x8 room with a comparitively big window the size of a standard door. But I've got some 4800K lights that were in the living room that we changed out after closing so that I can try those. But when you guys talk about "gray" without some descriptors you start to lose me a little. "Gray" is really only something I understand as a generic or as it relates to light--white is all the light, black is the absence of light and "gray" is a scale without chroma between the two. In paint, white is no chroma and black is all the chroma and the way you get "gray" is to mix complimentary colors, but all the grays when talking about paint are really just muted colors that have been lighted. And when you start adding color in light wave lengths over top of chroma my head starts spinning! ;-) Here's something that might be helpful to someone who is trying to learn to see and work with subtle colors from a non-decorator perspective as well as explain myself better: If I'm trying to mix a puddle of paint on my palette to match a color that's "gray" I start trying to name the color I see using a primary or secondary color: "Very light baby vomit green." I found a color in the description: green. Start with bright full chroma green, add white until I match the value. Now use a the compliment to mute it (red) then push and pull the temperature by using the yellow on the warm side of red or blue on the cool side of red. When someone taught me that process it completely opened up how I saw neutral colors and my ability to make, match and combine them. Chroma, then value, then muting, then temperature. I'm sure you pros here have a way to do it, but sometimes hearing things outside your exact disciple can kindle up something good. Thank you every one again. I can't wait to get over there tomorrow and try some of your suggestions.