Congrats on the new home! It is definitely looking better with your current work. Here are some random thoughts that occurred to me while looking at your various photos. I'm interested in seeing the photos Yardvaark requested, and also one that clearly shows the entrance from the sidewalk, when standing directly out from the door. I am another who wouldn't paint the brick since it involves increased maintenance, especially since you have chosen low-maintenance hardie board siding, but you are the one who will have to deal with it. However, I would wait to do this until you have worked out a planting scheme since it may turn out that the current brick color makes a better backdrop for the plants than the light color. Once you have a plan, then if you still feel it will look best, you can do the whitewash before actually doing the plantings. As others have said, I think one of your biggest challenges will be to find a way to make your almost hidden entrance easily seen by visitors. So you will need to keep that in mind with whatever you decide to do with landscaping. For instance, planting an evergreen at the left house corner may hinder the visibility of the entrance from some angles. IME, planting along the driveway edge won't prevent folks from driving off the edge, it will just mean that your plants get driven on. It also presents an issue with where folks walk when they get out of the car; if you have plantings lining the drive, and the cars fill the drive, there isn't anywhere to walk, so grass or a walkway from the street to the door might be your best choice for the driveway edge. Soaker hoses on a timer or with you turning them on as needed will help with keeping things watered. Since they go under the mulch, they won't be visible. Getting the timing right will need to be worked out based on what you plant and your soil, but here (with similar rainfall) I usually don't need to do much if any watering on established, mulched gardens. Rather than just getting plant ideas on line, go to the Chicago Botanic Garden, which is world class and grows research plots specifically to figure out what plants grow well and look good (disease free, etc.) in your area. Go often, like every 2 weeks so you can see what looks good at different times of year. Take photos of plants and their labels so you know what to look for when you have a plan. As for the mulch and paver edging dilemma, I might just add a light layer of a mulch color you like for now, with perhaps some annuals for color, either in the ground or in large pots. Your ultimate plan may have a bed that looks quite different, and once you have a plan of what the planting area will look like and what types of planting and hardscape changes you will plan to make, then you can remove mulch and edging. It just seems a bit of a waste of your time and energy to do much with this area for now. Early fall is a great time to plant, so if you don't get things planned and planted this spring, you can do prep this summer once the plan is in place and plant in September. The annuals will add interest for the summer so it doesn't look so stark.

It would give a tidier appearance if you remove the lower limbs from the large tree, clearing the house. I'm not a fan of raised edging for multiple reasons. The present edging looks difficult to maintain, poorly installed (lumpy & bumpy,) and its layout doesn't fit great, IMO. A properly installed brick or paver mowing strip not only looks good, but facilitates easier maintenance. However, it's obvious why the raised edging exists -- to contain the rock mulch (which I'm also not a fan of because it's somewhat inflexible and hard to undo.) You need to decide if you're keeping it before moving forward. (My planting arrangement suggestions are based on getting rid of it and using groundcover instead.) Given the size of the tree, the bed below it should be expanded correspondingly. Imagine the tree were a potted plant and the bed below it was the top of the container. Based on the first photo, one could see that the tree looks way oversized for the size of the container. The tree is hard to make smaller, but the bed is easy to expand. I'm neither a fan of smothering buildings with plants. A single shrub below the window would eventually be enough as long as you have other plantings -- perennials, annuals, groundcover, etc. to balance out the equation. Around the tree could be a mass of tall, flowering perennial (or even a moderate height shrub. Connecting everything together could be groundcover. All of this equals a very low maintenance scape. Oh, also, I would ditch all the planting that surrounds the walk. It lessens the welcoming quality of entering and makes the walk seem confined. The walk already is too narrow for the house and the entrance opening. If you have in your capabilities, I would revise that (widen) and make it more inviting. Plants there, pinching things off, it not really an asset. Well cared for turf would help the look of everything.

Yes, what you have been told is completely accurate!! Rhododendron is the state flower of WA state - they grow wild here - and virtually every single garden has a selection of them and various other acid loving, ericaceous plants (a great many of which are natives). This is also a large commercial growing area. Soils here are naturally only slightly to moderately acidic (6.0-6.5 with most falling about midway). These plants thrive in our soils and in our climate. It sounds like your area is already in good shape to plant these selections. However, planting within the root zone of any large tree can pose issues with moisture availability and sometimes nutrients as well, so they may need a little TLC until properly established. As to fertilizing, it is not recommended to fertilize at the time of planting. First, the plants have already received a dose of what they need from the grower and the process of planting creates stresses that make absorption of soil nutrients difficult so providing more only adds to the stress. And never add fert to a planting hole!! Most ericaceious plants are not heavy feeders anyway and require very little fertilizer typically. I would wait until next spring before adding more. And the Holly Tone or any other fertilizer recommended for acid loving plants will work fine. They all contain acidifying agents to help keep the soil at an appropriate pH level and to facilitate with nutrient uptake.

My suggestions aren't based on ideals, but on practical attractive suggestions for a new homeowner with a limited budget. I wouldn't choose to barricade the entryway, hiding the walk and much of the door as in the image immediately above, which also uses some plants that aren't shade tolerant and are tightly pruned into unnatural shapes. If you have the time and the inclination, I would move the path out away from the house, take out the worst of the squiggles and make one long sweep of a curve if you don't want it straight as Laceyvail suggested. If not, plant larger plants in the areas of outward squiggles so at least they look like there is a reason for them being there. Certainly remove the ivy from the tree on a regular basis and keep it at ground level. As long as you are willing to manage the edges and keep it from climbing, it is an adequate groundcover as is pachysandra, and either will do better than grass on your shady slope. If there isn't money for a pro to do design, there isn't money for masonry walls which are expensive. For now, I would go to a good garden center with your photo along with some observations of how much sun (if any) the space gets and see what suggestions they have for plants that will stay below the level of your windows and will be narrower than the space between the path and the house by a foot or two so plants are not smooshed against the house. Depending on amount of sun, that might include some smaller azaleas, but I don't really know plants for your area. Then plant a shade tolerant evergreen flowering ground cover beneath it or some evergreen shade tolerant perennials (Veronica Georgia Blue and hellebores are two that come to mind). Hostas in various colors and sizes will provide large leaves for contrast to whatever else you plant as long as deer aren't a problem. If deer are a problem, be sure to tell the nursery where you go for plants. Since you seem to not have a lot of garden experience, spend a bit more to get plants from an independent nursery with qualified staff to help you with design suggestions and appropriate plant choices for your situation. At this time of year, they are more likely to have the time to assist you, and fall planting is often more successful since there is adequate rain and cooling temperatures. You most likely want to get a load of compost and turn it into the bed before planting since the shrubs there previously may have depleted organic matter and nutrients. This is a task you can do now while it is still too hot to plant, working a bit at a time in early morning before it gets hot. Regardless, after planting, mulch the whole bed. Right now, I am not sure you have room for a Japanese maple there unless you place it in the center of the yard away from the house. Perhaps removing the hedge to the left of the house and placing a J maple off that corner would work, but you would need to decide if losing the screening of the hedge would be a good exchange and also would need to choose a small enough cultivar that it wouldn't outgrow the space. Let us know what you end up doing.