Is there anything I can add to drum up some interest?

I think the shrubs forum is better for specific plant recommendations. Are you saying you want to tear everything out and start anew? Beds with significant impact will need to be deeper, thus eating into the yard space. Perhaps just take them out altogether, put in your sod, and have a few porch pots with seasonal annuals.

One thing I was wondering is if it would look weird to have a different small tree, but only on one side. Could we get away with a Japanese maple on the side away from the stairs? Kind of in between where the bush and current tree are, but out a little more from the house? I think it would be OK to have something there, just not anything in the middle of the yard, but would it look odd to have something tallish on that side but not the other?

Ooh, I was just looking at pictures, and maybe a Bloodgood? Maybe even in a pot?

If there must be room for children to play, then leave the arborvitae and just remove what's on the "big" side of the steps. Will climbing euonymus grow in your area. If so, plant some against tat wall and the put out pots of annuals, recognizing that the may be destroyed by a misplaced ball of flying child.

Well, I actually want to remove the arborvitae. I don't like them in general, and ours are problematic. The one on the left is actually strapped to the porch pillar, and the one on the left splits when it snows and hangs down quite a bit over our neighbors' walk. And I just don't like them.

I think I also overstated when I said the kids use every inch of the yard. Basically, we can have plantings near the house, just not in the middle or on the edge of the yard. Our near neighbors have plantings just in front of the houses, and the kids can run through the yards.

Hilariously horrible photobucket rendering. The pink and green is a flowering shrub.

I did this a few days ago but forgot to upload. Must have fallen asleep.

I sense the need for a tall, skinny shrub at the left, near lot line, but can't tell from the photo if something like that would really fit. The space is really tight with big houses being so close together. The pair of small trees I'm showing are fairly far forward ... into the unknown really. They would be fairly narrow.

Oh wow, that is so much better. I just told my son earlier to please do a much better mock-up in gimp, which I don't know how to use (photobucket is like fingerpainting). This confirms my belief that the arborvitaes need to go. I like being able to see the columns. Thank you!! I'm not sure about the trees, but will think about it. On the left it would be a space issue, and on the right our ndns have a line of shrubs right up against the property line. We could put a tree there without really interrupting the play space, but it might look weird right next to the shrubs (which aren't in good shape). I'll try to remember to take another picture but from further back. Oh, and the tree in the picture that is between the 2 house fronts is also gone now. That was their tree, and there was something wrong with it. I barely noticed once it was gone as it wasn't very leafy or interesting.

This shows a little more. Too bad it's so dim, but I wanted to take the picture before I forgot. This also shows just how small our front yard is.

I still think it needs a pair of narrow trees framing the yard ... possibly near the sidewalk. If there is room at the parkway, possibly near the street.

Possibly in the yard (might be a hard sell for my husband), but not the parkway. We have a sapling to the left of the sidewalk, and our neighbors have one to the right. I should have stood further back when taking the picture. Over the past 17 years, since we bought, we have watched tree after tree get cut down from the parkway due to emerald ash borer and dutch elm disease. Our block had a tree canopy when we bought, but not anymore. :( The village is pretty good at planting replacements, though. Ours is the newest sapling and it's still pretty tiny, but I have faith. Our neighbor's is doing well after 15 years or so.

Because I can't stop adding pictures, here are some more perspectives.

With a tree already at the left side of parkway, another one at the right side would balance out the scene for framing your house ... but not be so close to smother the house. Raise canopy as tree grows to maintain clear view.

That may be workable. Our neighbor's tree is over far enough that there is probably room for another one. However, we don't own the parkway land. It would have to go through our village. I think if we were paying for it they would agree to it though.

I do miss our ash tree. It was huge, very old, and right in the middle of the parkway, so it shaded the house nicely.

I can't imagine the city caring that someone installed a tree in the parkway unless it was a prohibited trash tree on their do-not-plant list (like silver maple, weeping willow, etc.) Every place I've lived, it's the responsibility of the homeowner to place trees at the parkway if they want them.

Not here. The trees belong to the village, and they care for them. They cut "our" ash down after diagnosing it, they surveyed the parkway to see if it could accommodate another tree, and they planted it. They also maintain the parkway grass. It's village property.

Looking at the neighbors house cracks me up.

It does appear that the large evergreen is planning to consume the neighbor's house.

I know :) we have a few other houses on the block like that.

I think it is actually very important to consider the larger design issue of the parkway. The plantings in the best of them (and yours may be an Olmsted??) are carefully chosen to create a harmonious corridor. If individual property owners disrupt the overall design, it really ruins the effect. There is nothing worse than someone planting pink and blue hyacinths in the midde of a naturalistic green swath. As for your children and their need to play, do they need a soccer field? You may not have time to grow a tree to climb, but gardens can be wondrous places for children.

Yes, children need a field. And this tiny yard is hardly a soccer field. It reminds me of our bungalow growing up in a close suburb of Milwaukee. We played on our front yard and the neighbors- pickle, touch football and ghost in the graveyard (utilizing the front yard, back yard and narrow area between houses.) Keep the yard for the kids!

And I played hide and seek, built fairy and bird houses, planted vegetables, made mazes, climbed trees, played hopscotch on the sidewalk and basketball on the driveway... and went to the park for a field.

I grew up in a somewhat rural/somewhat suburban town in SE Michigan, with a lake down the street (and 7 others just in my town) and woods behind the house. I was a sort of mermaid-wood nymph. It was awesome. We are very urban now, just 1 mile from the border of Chicago, with an expressway and an elevated train half a block away. The kids do their best with our yards, treating 4 front yards as one long playing strip (we are all friends in those 4 houses) and going a few blocks to the school if they need a field. It works well enough. So yeah, we do have to be mindful of that when planting. The house I grew up in had several trees in the front yard, but the yard was so big it didn't matter. Our current house had bushes along *both* property lines when we moved in, but we removed the ones separating our yard from the other yard with kids (the opposite house, that is in danger of being eaten by its tree, has no kids).

kitasei: when you say "yours may be an Olmsted," do you mean the sapling? I would be very impressed if anyone could identify that tiny tree at this point. I have no idea what it is. When they took out our ash, we put ourselves on the "new tree list" and 6 months later came home to a sapling. I think they are being careful about what they plant now, having found out in hindsight that planting a row of just one kind of tree is a very bad decision. I still miss the tree canopy. It was beautiful.

I also had another look at the parkway and don't think there is enough space for an additional tree, because of the placement of our neighbor's tree (you can't see the tree in the pic but you can see the shadow) and the tiny sidewalk to the street. I will make do. At least the sapling is kind of in front of our house. Down the block, where 2 neighbors' mature but dying trees were taken down, the parkway sapling got planted in front of the 2 houses' side yards. Those 2 houses are essentially sharing a tree, which won't provide much shade for either house as it grows. That's unfortunate, but it was the only place on the parkway they could plant a new tree because of where the other 2 had been.

I may have been confused by your use of the word parkway. I am very interested to know how you are using the term. To me, a parkway is commonly owned or public parkland with a road through it. The parkland can be a substantial park enveloping the drive or narrow verges and/or a greensward separating its lanes. Frederick Law Olmsted Sr. was the master of the form in the pre-auto age, executing commissions across America including Chicago. Our most beautiful suburbs were laid out on his plans and have been adapted with sensitivity for the automobile age. I do enjoy your description of your neighborhood creating a common greensward for the children to play. New York City has some beautiful residential complexes designed that way. They require careful balancing of formal elements and upkeep to be play spaces yet garden-like. I would agree that comity among neighbors is the highest landscape value.

Where I am the parkway is just the green space in between the street and the sidewalk. Ours is pretty narrow.

That's interesting about Olmsted. I know very little about that kind of thing - either landscape architecture or city planning (although I do know that the park where my husband and I got married was designed by Jens Jensen).

I want to stick a row of bridal wreath (compact sized if there is such a thing) along the left side of the stoop.

Bridal wreath are just too large for that spot and while there are some compact spireas, the compactness is more a matter of height, but they are still somewhat wide.

I didn't know what that was, so I just googled it. It's so pretty! They do look big though.

Stillpitpat, you might want to figure out exactly how much room you would be able to provide in that bed (width across the house and depth once the edging is removed and the front edge moved out to the base of the steps or however much room you are willing to afford) as well as how big the little triangle is to the right of the steps. Then create a post asking for specific plant suggestions on the perennials forum and the shrubs forum. Give the bed dimensions along with limitations such as the kids' play area, etc. Add your widest overview photo and both your and Yaardvark's sketches posted on 3/5 and your location information. You will get specific plant suggestions now that you have an overall idea of your goals. Before planting you will want a specific plan (1/4" graph paper is good) to figure out exactly how many plants you want and where they will be placed based on the size of the plants you choose.

Something like bridal wreath spirea is beautiful in bloom, but in addition to getting big, it is a green blob all summer and a rather unkempt mass of twiggy branches all winter. I might use it in a larger setting where it could shine when blooming and fade into the background when other things looked better. But I wouldn't use it where it is the main shrub, front and center. That's why I commented a week ago that you want something with winter interest, and you will want plants with a tidy year-round look such as one or more evergreens and you want your bloomers to be long-blooming and tidy when not blooming. But before specific suggestions can be made, dimensions are needed. Since this forum is more about design, which you now have ideas for, I suggested you move to the shrubs and perennials forums since they focus on specific plants.

Thank you so much. That sounds like a great idea.