I agree with catkim that a "zen" Japanese-style would be great for this house's landscaping, since the architecture of the house has a slightly Asian look as a result of the broad peaks of the roofs, and the double-framed, almost shoji-style windows (actual Japanese shoji screens would have interior frames). Right now the landscape has too many straight, geometric lines to work with this house. The flat line of the lawn and the box-shaped shrubs give the house a somewhat forbidding feeling, and make the less-than-perfect lawn look pretty blah. The straight lines also make the lawn imperfections all the more apparent. The first thing I would do would be to get rid of the box-shaped shrubs against the garage wall, and replace them with shrubs that have a more open, gently arching habit. I would select shrubs that are a lighter green for that spot (the dark shrubs that are there now make the house look too dark). Then I would convert a generous area of your lawn into a landscaped garden area. Keep the shrubs low so as not to block the nice window shapes too much, and to let as much natural light into your house as possible. For the landscaped area, I would definitely use a curving edge that will soften the geometric lines of the house, and make all the trapazoid shapes of the roofs look attractive. The garage door is almost the single largest element of the front of this house. I would keep the garage doors the dark brown to help them look less obvious, but I would plant an area of shrubs and perennials along the border of your lawn and driveway to further play down the huge expanse of garage. This will visually emphasize the house, instead of the garage. The stone aspect of the house gives you a wonderful built-in design element to play up in the landscaping. In your photo, it looks like some of the stone has a slightly reddish color, so that may be a good place to start for plant colors. I would use some plants that echo and play off the colors of the stone to pull the whole landscape together. I would add some ornamental rocks and stones to a landscape area in front of the house. I would select the color for your entry door after you have added some landscape plants. You may be leaning toward the deep bright blue now to sort of liven up the landscape, but after you get some nice-looking plants in there, you may decide the blue is "too much". That particular color blue may actually clash with a lot of plants. You may want to echo the look of the double-framed windows in the entry door as well. You could get this look just with paint, or you could look into a custom-made door with a "shoji look" adapted to a Western door frame size, depending on your budget. I took the liberty of working with your photo to throw a little Japanese-style landscaping from the Portland Japanese garden in there, plus a more Asian-style door. It's just to get a general idea of a a possible look...of course, you will need to find shrubs and plants that work in your hardiness zone, soil, and sunlight levels. You'll also need to leave some room for your walkway! Below is a website that's a nice introduction to the Japanese garden look: Here is a link that might be useful: Portland Japanese garden

You can't realistically put the TV on the wall on the right. You'd have to move your furniture too far forward and back some of it up to the fireplace. Your only practical choices are over the TV (which I normally hate but might be OK here) or in the nook). How wide is that room along the fireplace wall, not counting any part of the bench nook? I doubt you have room for a full sofa facing the FP with end tables and all. You need a lot of room to enter or the space will feel extremely closed off. Maybe 2 parallel chairs, a chair and a half, or a loveseat. How tall is that bench? Is it even the right height for a seat? Also, do you have a pic showing the front windows? Those will be covered by a couch.

Nikki, the picture-framing error hasn't been made on your house yet. It's a builder error that happens when builders install wider trim molding today, which, when done right, is something that I strongly believe improves the appearance of a house and I always suggest. The bottom of the window is supposed to have a sill that is narrower than the side casings and a cap on the top header casing. These can be seen on the third and fourth houses posted above by gypsysalvage. However, some contractors put the same width trim around the entire window, all four sides. That makes it look more like a hole in the wall. The sill on the bottom and proper header casings give a window a completed base and crown on the bottom and top. Here is another photo showing excellent trim being installed. This example looks particularly Craftsman, but if you use a different window itself and downsize the crown, it will be more stylistically neutral and will look good on nearly any wood-framed wall. (Note that windows in masonry walls should not have side casings and the headers should be flush with the rest of the masonry.)

Here's the best I got for 3d design of layout. The fridge area is obviously not accurate but this should give you an idea of all of the other space I'm working with. I am pretty sure at this point that I am going to move the fridge to the other wall... like someone else said moving the line through the attic isnt as big of a deal as I originally thought. Then I will square off pantry and make it a hall closet on other side. The new closet will stick out a few inches past counter depth in the kitchen though, hope this looks ok. I plan to add a wall where the fridge was to close that recessed space and add cabinets/countertops all the way down to where I squared off the pantry since the fridge is no longer there. On the new wall I will have a 24inch wide and 27 inch dept pantry cabinet that will be flush with where the wall ends (wish they had bigger but they dont without doubling up on them) and I think the best spot would be to put the fridge right next to the pantry where the cabinets are in the picture below. And to clarify.. the wall that wraps around pantry not shown in pictures below comes out 28inches. With all that being said do you guys have any opinions on layout with what you see below?