I would be thinking not about any hedge, but coordinating individual shrubs with the windows. At the porch, you'd need to do window boxes since there's no place to plants a shrub(s). Fill in the bed space with low groundcover. A circular bed of colorful perennial or groundcover could go around the tree. If it is not large enough to be in scale with the tree, it will end up looking silly.

Yardvaark - the area to the left and right of the sidewalk up by the porch - you don'g have anything there.... currently there is room to plant as the hedges came out - while I am all for keeping everything low - what would you do there? Don't really want just grass as we haven't decided on guttering or not and the water falls off the roof into that current bed area.

The controlling factor about where something is planted is not because there is space or someone planted something there before. It has more to do with, will the plant add something positive to the overall scene ... or will it have a negative effect? Surrounding the porch front with something of a height taller than grass is going to create a curb or barrier effect. Keep in mind that the grass itself is a large carpeted path. The porch is a hard floor. The porch is a receiving area. It doesn't make sense to divide the carpet from the floor with any barrier. Doing so will make the porch seem confined and less inviting. An exception might be if you plant something small (a clump of monkey grass for example) at the base of each column, whereas the plant becomes the column base. It's not necessary, but is an option.

Generally, turf is tough. Grass has as good a chance at surviving rainwater pouring off the roof as do other plants. That said, it's an entrance area. Gutters have a purely practical reason for being there. Neither is a gutter going to destroy the look of the house. I would add it to the porch, at least. Even if you don't have gutter at the rest of the roof, it needs to be at the porch.

There is enough blank wall space flanking the porch that you could add a pair of small trees, like Camellia, if you wanted some height in the picture.

Thank you for helping me better understand!
I appreciate your help - we have a lot of ground cover in the rear of the house that will come out when the deck is installed - perfect for transplanting.

I really appreciate all of this because in my mind - I was TOTALLY going to overplant this entire area!

In addition to tending toward a smothering or cluttered look, over-planting is usually a lot more maintenance.

I would also do all the maintenance and hardscape that needs to be done in this area before planting. It is much easier, both for the workers and the plants.