With the overhang level and all the windows and doors, you have a house that doesn't warrant a lot in terms of foundation planting. Whatever it does warrant though is hard to tell from the distant photograph. It would be easier to see if you move in to the curb, staying roughly in line with the center of the house, and take a series of slightly overlapping, panned photos that show from left to right lot lines. (The camera will stay at the same location but pivot.) Given that the street is at a lower elevation than the yard, it would be good for the photographer to stand on a step ladder or in the bed of a pickup truck when taking the pictures.

If there is difficulty growing or maintaining grass on account of the slope or tree shade, it is likely that groundcover would be a part of a landscape renovation. Another possibility is to allow more light to reach the grass. The lowest tree foliage (whatever hangs directly in front of the view of house) could be removed.

here are some more pictures. hopefully they work a bit better. thanks again!

No time now, but these are good pictures.

My first impression is that you are totally exposed, on all sides. This is further highlighted by the presence of two very eye-catching Adirondack chairs that one usually associates with a mountain lake on the front porch facing the street. Do you use them? I agree with Yard that you don't need foundation plants. But I do think you need more privacy. Is this what you'd like help creating?

adding one more pic. cleaned up some leaves.

As mentioned, by nature of the architecture, there are few places to put plants against the house at this front face. The overhang plus the lower windows does not invite foundation planting at that area. A large planter could go in front of the wall just right of the large window set. A shrub at left of the left house corner could help establish a better setting so one's view doesn't run directly off the house to what's across the street. (Maybe there are some plantings at the left side of house that can help with this, too.) Other than that, some large, circular beds around the two major trees could help give some fullness to the overall look and a sense of the patio space being more protected from the public space. The height of that groundcover could be as much as 3'+ to as little as 8", with the taller giving a more protected look. There is some opportunity for colorful seasonal blooming depending on what plants you use. My suggestions are for layout and arrangement. Plants have to be chosen from what works well in your locale. I got rid of the tall evergreen left of the door. It seems overwhelming to the porch/entrance space, IMO.

To clean up the overall picture more, I'd get rid of large-tree foliage that hangs low enough to shroud the roof. This might mean hanging limbs/branches, or removing some lower branches entirely. (It is apparent at the tree at the left that some branches should have been removed way back when the tree was young ... before these turned into a major part of the trunk system and are not hard to remove without removing a lot of canopy with them.)

The grass looks pretty healthy in spite of the shade. It's hard to tell if there is enough hill to warrant complaints by the grass-cutter. If it's tolerable, I'd leave as grass. Later though, since there are more trees on the way, shade could become too much and warrant conversion of those areas to groundcover.

I like the house colors and think they are well suited so wouldn't change anything there.

Sure ... there'd be somewhere you could use boulders. How you arrange them would depend on their size and quantity. It's better to use fewer, larger boulders than it is to use more, smaller ones. It would be better to cluster them as opposed to spread them out. If too small, I would scrap the idea as they're not required in order to make a nice picture. I don't have an idea of what you have in mind, so if you want further opinion, describe what you're thinking.

I was thinking of doing a couple boulders near the middle of the house, almost where the old evergreen would have been.

also, we were considering doing some floating steps down to the sidewalk, not sure if you'd be able to incorporate those for me?

something like this, but in concrete. thanks again for a the help.

The boulder idea seems fine. When placing, you must move them until they are correctly situated.

You are talking about floating steps by the garage (which I can't see) ... or a new private walk that goes straight out to the public walk ...? ... which seems like it would work well. Is it for guests? I would continue with a walk all the way to the curb.

It would take too much time to draw in some segmented steps and with grade change that I don't know details of, a speculative drawing could be more misleading than helpful. One general suggestion, though, is that its path could be an S-curve that "massages" path from being too close to one tree or heading directly toward a tree in the parkway. (The yellow line represents a centerline.)