Hello! This is our first home - a lovely 1980's home in Cary, NC. It's 1500sq. ft. We are doing major renovations to the landscaping in the front yard (these are older photos, but the plants /shrubs we've added can be moved around. We would like to do something with the narrow porch/stairs area - it's extremely narrow, and we would love to widen it somehow. I built 2 square planter boxes, hoping to add them to the front somewhere - and then realized we don't have space for them on the "porch" :(

I love columns, so adding some columns would be AWESOME! Does this sound expensive?

Side note: I hate that there isn't enough space for shutters on the windows :( Any suggestions to add character to the front of the house? All ideas are welcome! The side of the house has MDF siding on part of it -- that will eventually need to be replaced with hardy plank. We were thinking of painting the entire house one color. (not a huge fan of 2-toned brick/siding look)

Note: we did not leave the bricks around Oak tree (as seen in these pics), we built a large raised bed around the house - to hide some drainage pipes.

Thank you in advance for your help! Newlyweds, new home owners, gardeners-in-training thank you!

Madison