Not sure if my photos came through. If not let me know.

Looks like variegated twig dogwood on the other side and both sides mixed with junipers. They WILL grow back - both get to be rather large shrubs in time and if left unpruned and pruning during the growing season simply stimulates new growth. And both the dogwoods and the junipers tend to get quite wide as well.

If you don't want to do this routinely (like at least once a year, perhaps more often), then maybe you should think about relocating these large shrubs to an area where they can assume their normal size and replacing them with something that will stay size appropriate without excessive pruning. Large growing shrubs lining a walkway tend to be intimidating ;-)

I find the shrubs surrounding the walk to be on the oppressive side. They obliterate the sense of spaciousness that should accompany most walks, especially to the entrance, IMO. I would have only low plants next to it. The space seen in the 2nd photo, with gravel and grass adjacent to the walk, looks more inviting to me. That said, one of the reasons one grows dogwood shrubs is for the red twigs in winter time, which are a product of new growth. A good way to keep the plant relatively low and produce lots of new growth is to coppice (cut to ground annually.) Search Google Images for pictures of "red twig dogwood" and you'll see many examples of coppicing.

It is hard to make the road work if you put square tires on the car.

I realize there are differing opinions here and they range all over the map. But in my opinion, I much prefer Emmarene's simpler version that brings lawn next to the walk. If it was not going to be lawn, my next choice would be low, mat-forming groundcover. (I don't know where you live or what it would be.) If you want to add color, I would put it closer to the entrance. I don't think it would be that difficult to remove most of the plants. The juniper could be cut off just below the gravel surface. It probably wouldn't regrow. If it did, or for any plants that would, you can treat the fresh cut surface with undiluted herbicide painted on with a small, disposable brush.

As an approach to an entrance -- a walking path -- it definitely looks more inviting for walking. But it doesn't look resolved and finished. I think this is partly because it was created for one use and now is re-adapted for another. In a sense, it reads as a wide, paved path made of multiple materials.

I wish it was wider concrete with lawn at its edges. Or the concrete was widened by a sailor course brick edge at each side, with lawn at the edges. If the gravel area was planted with very low, mat-like groundcover, I think it could look acceptable. It may be OK with the gravel partially covered with low groundcover. I think it would look fine totally covered.

In what manner? How?

To me, unless you are planning to remove the gravel/peastone and
the
curb separating the grass from the gravel, the two sides visually look
like a garden bed of sorts. Partly because the walkway is narrow as
compared with the width of the stone
area, it doesn't exactly fit with any of your inspiration pictures .
Widening the walkway with a sailor course brick edge (as in Yardvaark's
mockup) would help with the overall look and may take you a bit towards
your inspiration pictures.

But
if you leave the walkway as is without widening it, and leave the
gravel/peastone, then to me it still looks like a garden bed of sorts
that should have some plantings in it. The professional consensus in
this forum seems to lean towards using preferably grass or groundcover
along an entranceway. I personally like garden beds along front walkways
as long as the plants don't encroach on the walkway, and as long as
they are relatively low and well-behaved, and as long as the bed is
relatively simplistic in nature.

Again, this is just my personal opinion based on what I like, but if it were me and I didn't want to go to the effort to remove the gravelled areas alongside the walkway, I would
consider using one type of well-behaved plant along one side of the walkway
(closest to the birch tree), and repeat that plant 5 or 6 times along the bed. Personally, I would choose a small to
medium ornamental grass that is light and airy and place about 5 or 6 of them along the
bed closest to the birch tree. Looks like you might be in Saskatchewan
so some of them are not hardy up here. But I would choose one
where the plumes are really light and airy so that the overall look
doesn't smother the walkway. For example, I have this grass in my back yard and for the
majority of the season it reads as a medium-sized perennial about 28
inch diameter. By August, the plumes make the plant much larger, but
the plumes are so light that the plant doesn't read as a large plant:

So if it were me, I might use this grass repeated along the side of the walkway closest to the birch tree. I would space them well apart from each other so that it doesn't feel like a wall on one side of the pathway.

Then, on the other side closest to the spruce tree, I might take the area closest to the street and place a bunch of very low perennials like a well-behaved perennial geranium or ground-cover phlox, and fill the area with that. And then continuing along the walkway up to the house, I might take another perennial like a sedum or a well-behaved hosta (depending on sun/shade) and place 5 or 6 or 7 or 8 (depending on the length) of them along the walkway up to the house to where that large boulder is.

Again, keep in mind that I like garden beds along walkways, whereas the general consensus here is that you really should have grass or groundcover. So this is what I would do, but not necessarily what you should do!

(I'm not a professional) but, if your husband likes the walkway without beds along it, then I would go with Yardvaark's and Emmarene's suggestions for sure. Remove the stones and that concrete? edging between the grass and the stones. Then just sod up to the walkway. Preferably widen the walkway with the brick edging because it is visually a bit too narrow in proportion to the yard and the house.

Alternatively, if you like the inspiration pictures that you presented, to my uneducated view, the areas with stones should be a little narrower. Right now, it looks like each stoned area is as wide as the walkway, so proportionally it look a bit off to me. It almost looks like a driveway in your picture. However, in your inspiration pictures, the stoned areas are not quite as wide as the sidewalk. Would it be possible to just narrow the gravel/stone area to be somewhat proportional to your inspiration picture?

I wouldn't plant perennials in pots to try to fill in the areas to the sides of the walkway - it looks like you might be in Saskatchewan? SaskTel? in which case I doubt that you could get a perennial through the winter in a pot. But maybe. I personally don't like the look of lines of perennials in pots, unless maybe the pot is very low to the ground so it all mimics a plant in the ground.

Hopefully some other experts will chime in here with suggestions. I'll also google around to see if there are any other variations.

Susan, I'm not sure if I already said, but I want to mention that I DID LIKE your gravel mulch area in the second picture, where it surrounds the boulder near the porch. I think it adds a sense of spaciousness and tidiness around the porch. I didn't find it the least offensive. I can't comment on the overall arrangement/layout of the bed area because I can't see it, but the feeling of the area is nice. Even if you make changes to the walk area, it doesn't necessarily mean to change gravel around the porch.

I agree with Yardvaark - the first two pictures at the start were quite lovely even though the shrubs were too large. The view from the front porch along the path is really pretty and you have a nice house - I love bungalows.

I didn't realize that your yard extended so far! You asked what I thought about filling the area around the spruce tree with gravel (I assume you meant that entire grassy area around the spruce), but I would hold off until you have an overall plan for the full front yard as a whole. Because you have a bunch of different looks going on across the front of the yard, and filling an entire area with gravel would give that area an entire different look and style from the bed that is around the soon-to-be-dead birch tree.

As far as the walkway, I would re-consider Yardvaark's and Emmarene's suggestions above. As Yardvaark said earlier on, after removing all the shrubs, it ends up looking like a very wide paved path made of different materials. So you probably need to decide how to approach it. You might be able to go with your inspiration pictures and make the gravel alongside the paved path quite narrow, and then widen the gravel on the right side up near the house to include the large boulder near your front steps. (You could do the same thing on the left by widening it correspondingly near the house to include the square patio stones that currently are outlined in grass). I don't love gravel/peastone myself because it makes too much of a mess, but it does look pretty if well maintained.

Personally, I would put a big ring of thick mulch to define the circle around the base of the spruce tree near the driveway, and then re-sod or re-seed the remainder. You said you had trouble with grass growing there, but is that because of the junipers? Alternatively, consider whether you want this tree in its position.

I would also take down the birch instead of waiting for it to die and I'd rent a grinder and grind the stump down. I'd then take out those wooden stakes that outline the bed, and take pictures and post them on this forum to get an idea of how to improve the front yard as a whole.

You might also want to get a clear idea of the style that you prefer. I'm no expert in describing styles, but when I looked at the first picture in this thread, it looked like a relatively traditional landscape, but your inspiration pictures seem quite modern. The second picture in the thread made me think a bit more modern and serene with the rocks and gravel near the front step. And then the area to the left of your house is very casual/rustic with the concrete/wooden block border around the bed with the birch tree, and what looks to be a wooden deck? along the front.

If you're trying to pull the whole look together, what needs to be seen is the whole scene in one connected panorama (that is not computer generated.) Given that the birch tree screens a lot of what is behind it out of the picture, it would be better to remove it and then take the pictures that show everything all at once.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but when pyramidal evergreens start spreading wide and just happen to be where their spread is in the way of necessary walking space or a view beyond, then it's nearly an inevitability that they will need to be limbed up into a tree form. I notice that you don't seem to be able to grow grass near the spruce and it seems positioned so as to block the view to the house entrance. It's starting to seem to me that it might be one of those pyramidal evergreens that must be turned into a tree. It seems now unable to make up its mind what it wants to be, with its foliage no longer sweeping the ground ... but not raised up enough to make a difference with other needs. Being a tree would be better than being half way between a shrub and a tree.

After a certain point, there is usually little choice one has about limbing up a tree with low-hanging branches IF it is blocking a view and one needs the view, or IF it is consuming too much ground space and the ground space is needed for function.

I can't answer your question about traditional vs. modern. Guessing though, I think what some might call "modern" would have less appeal for me personally. I just don't think of describing its alternative as "traditional."

I guess I had talked about modern vs traditional - maybe I didn't use the words correctly - I just meant that the inspiration pictures of the walkways look very modern to me, whereas the home and garden in the first two pictures look more like what I traditionally see in my city.

With your house, I wouldn't know where to start to try to make a very modern landscape work as per your inspiration pictures, but perhaps a talented landscape architect/designer in your city would. Or maybe you could go with a very simple design, not really modern like the inspiration pictures, but simple and neat. Actually, the walkway as per Yardvaark's and Emmarene's suggestions is simple and elegant. It is just that if you leave the wide gravel area on either side of the walkway, it looks overall too wide and with too many materials. In which case, you have to preferably narrow it, or if that is out of the question, put a simple set of very low and small plantings along it.

how much snow do you get? How do you remove it from the walkway? The gravel hasn't proved to be a PITA for snow removal?

https://www.houzz.com/photos/private-residence-kerrisdale-craftsman-landscape-vancouver-phvw-vp~16178385

https://www.houzz.com/photos/bonifield-residence-midcentury-landscape-san-luis-obispo-phvw-vp~38612

https://www.houzz.com/photos/private-residence-irvine-modern-patio-orange-county-phvw-vp~58487510

Wow, what an improvement. Beautiful house. I can't believe how much better it looks without the birch (though I love birch trees). Do you need/use the wooden platform near the fireplace - it looks a bit out of character with the rest of the front?

Hopefully you can get advice from the other experts on this forum. I'm just a gardener so I don't know much about how to do what you are asking. But to me, the wooden deck seems a bit out of place and disconnected from the look near the front steps.

If you need to have a patio out front, to make it work, you'd have to somehow connect the pieces together to make it cohesive. Right now, the raised wood patio, plus the diamond shaped grass/patio stone pathway, plus the concrete walkway with gravel edging appears disjoint due to the mixture of materials.

Hopefully the other experts will give you some ideas, but I would guess that you'd have a better chance of connecting the pieces if you at least removed the gravel on the left side of the walkway (closest to the wooden deck) and re-sod along that side. Then you might have a better chance of making a pathway from the front steps to the wooden deck that makes sense.

That said, if I was you at this point, I wouldn't make any changes until you get a plan (although I would start to remove that concrete? edging around the bed that housed the birch tree since no matter what, that bed with the birch tree that jutted out should be removed and sod added in its place)

If you call your electric company they will come out and mark the buried electrical lines so you know where not to dig. It would look much better if that area was returned to lawn. The peninsula bed and the "deck" are both distracting in an unpleasant way.