FinJ, personally I prefer two things with a blank slate. 1st is the view from the street, namely the main direction you drive in and see every day. 2nd is the view from the windows of the house, or areas outdoors you would use the most. If you use your garage a lot, I would add windbreaking things like arborviate or any plant choice shrub with mid level evergreen trees behind on the driveway length, rather than have a single row, you could have yews, dwarf pines, juniper, spruce, arborviatae etc. I have never done a house that needed a windbreak from north winds "being from the south", but thats the NW facing section and should get the most winds unless you have a lake or something flat on the NN side. A very, very distant 3rd is how the areas in the outside interact with each other and the view from them. Needing shade from Sun exposure is my thing. All zones are a broad thing, is it zn 6 costal, mtn, etc? You want fast growing trees and those with a large canopy. In the south we use magnolias, live oaks, pecans, gums, and maples often. I do think with your zone decidious trees would be better on the far back of the lot allowing more sun in winter, and with the lower sun having 10-15 ft evergreens behind would allow for year round green while blocking the glaring view of the sun from parts of your home. Your house design on the back to me looks like it could easily entertain a pergola with climing rose, wisteria, grapes, etc. that would make an enteresting area to entertain, you could then make plans for a jacuzzi just off of it with a fire pit. It is an enterly blank slate, what do you like? I think you need to look at homes in the area plant wise, look at some things you like online, get an idea of a budget on what you want to spend, get it on paper, then do it again on paper after waiting a couple of weeks, then piece it together if your going the DIY route. If thats your house in the picture, I would echo the white in the landscape some. I would use real apples and white blooming cherries, honey crisp and rainier. I would also look at yoshinio cherries and white dogwood/white redbud for the front yard. That would pull the focus off your white siding and draw the inside out and the outside in.

Why are you replacing with triple sliding with double (not single)? I am you have thought through this but.... What if you replaced it with standard single door with large glass area (since you have decided to bite the bullet and replace door and spend the money).... I think this will be fine since you have access to the "deck" from the sliding door in the living room. So you still have double access to the deck. Sliding double door versus single door has the exact same access width. The only difference is the amount of light coming in. I think you have enough light that you can do this. I would not do any uppers between the frig and sink to open up the room a little. You could move the frig to that wall, so you have frig, sink, then range on the L going from left to right. This will give you more landing around the stove. I think you will still have enough room for a table in the eating area. Visually, if you are running the cabinets to the ceiling, you need trim that is as wide if not slightly wider than the stiles of the cabinets. Even if the crown is simple in detail, you still need a little more "weight" to balance the cabinets than what is drawn. If you want more modern clean line look (which would not look good with your 6 panel doors), then you can use slab or very plain doors with minimal trim.

I don't know if anyone has brought this up, but you do not have room for anything behind the island seats - except wall art or a chalkboard or similar. Even going into the studs will be iffy - if anyone needs to get something from it and there's someone sitting at the island it will be an issue. The minimum distance behind seating if there is nothing behind the seats except a wall and only light traffic is 44" - and that's the distance b/w the counter and the wall, not b/w seats. When you start adding cabinets, etc., even shallow ones, you now need at least 54" - and you won't have anywhere near that much. Add to it that it's a busy aisle, and you will need 60". Even with nothing behind the seats but a busy aisle, 48" is pushing it (should be 54" with a busy aisle & nothing behind the seats). If you put something b/w the studs, just make sure it's not something that people will need to get to very often - then you will probably be OK. Yes, in the infrequent times someone needs to get to whatever is stored in the wall, people will just have to deal with it. It's not something I would expect people to have to deal with frequently, though. Good luck!

I haven't got time to find a pic right now, but we put a 7' window over our main sink. I searched and found a 43" sink, and then placed the outlets in the window returns. It just makes the 24" rule on each side. The window returns are flared on a 45 degree angle to soften our thick walls. The inspector was vague about the outlets in the window returns, but they passed it OK. Found a pic- sort of. One outlet is hidden behind the coffee maker, the other one you can see through the glass container. You can see the concept in the other window, just to the right of the mixer.