Nice home,

take this to landscape forum, yardvaark has terrific ideas on that

site.

Before you go crazy with landscape on the right side of your home I would think a little further into the future. I would plan for a garage down the road with the entry into the side of the house done in such a way so it does not block windows completely off on the house.

Not your home style but an example. Pretend this setup is on the right side of your home with the garage doors on end not showing on the front,

Wow justerrilynn, that looks amazing!! Thank you! We talked extensively about putting up a garage and then shelved the idea. One of the reasons we decided not build one, in addition to being overwhelmed by our indoor Reno projects, was because of the beautiful views that a garage would obstruct. But, we aren't doing the views any favors at the moment...I will share with DH.

Yes I understand what you mean. It would have worked somewhat until I added the open but under roof wood storage. I was trying to design that space for a future close-in to prevent another wood shed. However. By doing that you have a view of that from your kitchen window. Maybe make a kiddie play area in the middle or spend more time on the porch lol.

This just kills me. I love what you drew, the storage would be phenomenal, but the view....it disappeared... These are shots from the kitchen window. DH kept the wood shed low for me so that I could still see the neighbor's fence and pond area beyond our property.

This is why I loath a bunch of sheds and pole barns. I don't know why it is but the majority of men never actually use those areas as intended. They use the area all around the exterior. In my last house we could have used another garage. The property was big and by the time you put just the lawn care things in and a few bikes there was no room for cars. My husband and I went round and a round about building an extra garage and one that had a good sized loft where paint could go, hurricane panels...oh the list was long. Husband briefly came up with the idea of one of those huge tin garage sheddy looking things because they were cheap. I told him, and promised him that I would divorce him for extremely bad taste. I meant it!

In the end we moved to a smaller home and have people to mow the grass (no big lawn care stuff in garage) so we are still married lol.

When we were planning a garage, we had something like this as an idea. It might have worked, but we still would have lost the view and some much needed natural light in the entry.

JTL, that looks so good! I looove your house Laughable! And can appreciate wanting to keep site of the views. Maybe the garage can go back farther. Even if you don't have the breezeway, a garage to house your vehicles would be a valuable addition. Just to be able to protect your vehicles from the weather is huge.

Thank you Lukk!

Laughable, what about this? the purple line is a slight extension. Mulch the area between garage and wood bin, add stepping stones and plants and or flowers on other side. Then put some flower pots on the cement area outside kitchen window on end. Now you have pretty stuff to look at.

Not sure of the code for width of stairs leading to loft but I brought it out on the side to make room. Oh, and you might as well do a "future build" plumbing. You don't have to do anything with it, the lines can stay hidden. However, if you ever wanted to make the loft a room... It's only money. Now, where to put the stairs? I'm not an architect I just play one on TV. I think the back garage door outside the basement wood bin will have to move. The stepping stones will have to curve around the corner.

Laughable, you already got some great suggestions. As for landscaping, I'd go with a layered arrangement, with box woods for some structure, and depending on your climate, some variegated ginger, knockout roses, abelia or fountain grasses to provide some softness. And a few annuals in some select spots. Everything other than the annuals will need to be hardy and low maintenance but provide some layered structure and fullness.

Marketing9817, please do not use this thread to push your products. I'm flagging your post as spam.

Just a suggestion:. Plant some evergreen bushes around the front porch as a background for the flowers or flowering bushes. If not, in the winter there will be no type of landscaping around the porch until Springtime.

The first thing I would do is seal off the space under the porch so you don't have animals getting under there. Close it off totally and you can leave some air vents if you want, but make sure they are sealed so chipmunks and the like won't take up residence under your house. Ask me how I know! :)

Landscaping is about solving problems and creating utility, so first think about what purposes you want the landscaping to do. If it were me, I would want my landscaping to SHADE my house in the summer, and block the winds in the winter, and maybe screen my house from the road. Everything doesn't have to be squished up against the house, think about views from the porch or windows. Just some thoughts.

You have a beautiful home and property. I love JTL's rendering of a future garage that would tie into your existing side entry with the breezeway.

The first thing I would do is lay out a couple of side beds in the front using the old garden hose method and a cheap can of spray paint. Use the hose to determine your border and when you have it like you want it, use the spray paint to spray the line. Make it as wide as you can, but at least 3-4 feet and sweeping out, not a straight line. It looks like you already have a small area on the right bordered by stepping stones. Think of layering shrubs from back to front or alternating, using evergreens and adding low annuals or perennials for color in front. I love to use things like chamycaeparis ('Gold Mop' is a favorite), Encore azaleas (I believe there are some hardy in Zone 6), dwarf lorapetalum, something tall and columnar like Sky Pencil holly on the corners.

For your walkway, if you can find some true dwarf boxwood (the kind that only grow about 2-3' high), you cold plant some of those to add a more permanent fixture in your walkway. Hostas are wonderful but deer also like to nibble on those where I live.

I forgot to mention that you should first check out the light that your home gets. In general, the south facing gets the most light, the north the least, and east in the AM and west in the PM, but different structures can cast shadows. But light is key to whatever you plant actually surviving so make sure you know what kinds of things need to go where. That is controlling what I can do with my house for sure. So like for example, if I want my little kitchen garden with tomatoes and herbs, it's going to have to go in front where the light is. And the back of my house faces north and is along a river, so I'm going with the flow, so to speak, and creating a wildflower/shade garden under the trees along the bank. So part of your landscaping plan is what is possible given the lay of your land. Looks to me like you might want a little covered patio area for the grill and picnic table. That was the first thing I did at my last house, put in a brick patio. We really loved that. But if I had to do it over again, I'd just build a very low deck, just off the ground. Much easier to install, although I guess a brick patio is cheaper if you use the concrete pavers. Then, I landscaped around the patio with things I wanted to look at or smell while I was out there. I created little vignettes based on my favorite plants. Anyway, that's one approach to coming up with an overall plan.

So many good suggestions here, thank you. Thank you too, for the kind and encouraging words. We really love our home and location. When it came on the market we were thrilled. DH had been here several years prior to it being listed and done some work for the previous owners. He said at the time that if we were ever to move, this was the location where he'd love to live. We never dreamed they'd list it. A couple of years later we were ready to be done with our farming adventure and here this place was, suddenly on the market. But, when we came to see it, it was sobering to realize how much work it needed. We'd just spent 5 years redoing the farmhouse and outbuildings (and 4 years redoing the previous home, and 6 years the one before that, and...you get the picture.)

It took us a few days to make up our minds whether or not we were willing to start all over again. The location made the difference for us. It's been exhausting, but we're relieved to be this far along in the process. In the meantime our kids are getting bigger and every hour that we spend working on this place feels like a drain on our family, so we really want to try to be selective with what we do. DH is relatively fussy, and hasn't seen the level of craftsmanship he would desire in local contractors, so by choice/default, he does everything himself.

I haven't had much opportunity to talk with him about the garage idea yet. He was pretty tired last night, so I didn't bring it up.

Thank you for the plant suggestions. Some were ones I haven't heard of, so I'm in the process of looking them up. :-) I really like the look of boxwoods, but the one caution I read is that they don't like wind, which we get a lot of here. Is that really a concern? It's interesting to hear that deer eat hostas. I haven't had any issues with that (yet), but they certainly have a wide variety of other vegetation to choose from in the surroundings.

Roses sound wonderful. I do want lovely plants that we can see from our windows.

Here is another thought - buy a couple of state/regional magazines that incorporate landscape ideas for your zone. You can sometimes get some great ideas for plant material and landscape ideas that would appeal to you from those. I go buy a cup of coffee in Barnes & Noble and browse their magazine section on occasion just to see what's fresh in design or landscaping. I do subscribe to Alabama Gardening and Fine Gardening (comes with my local Botanical Gardening membership), so those are a couple of resources. FG includes nationwide information.

Another is to go to a local garden store or nursery (preferably not on a weekend when they are busiest this time of year) and talk with folks there about what you are planning. They are often very helpful and if you happen to talk with one of their horticulturists they can be a valuable source of knowledge about the products and plant material they sell. And read the tags before you buy! You don't want to put a plant that grows 6-8' tall in front of your front window. If it's slow growing, all the better. 'Dwarf' doesn't always mean it stays 2' tall. It might get a little bigger than that.

Wind is death to a lot of plants. But on the plus side, there are a lot of plants that are adapted to withstand wind, like alpine plants, for example, and plants that are drought tolerant.