Gorgeous pics, PK! Lauren, I'm just southeast of you In Waxahachie. I have full southwestern sun in front & part shade in back & on one side. The other side is "ungardenable". Just a narrow strip between the house & the neighbor's wood fence, it's just a walkway for me & a nursery for poison ivy & trumpet vine! I started along the sidewalk & expanded from there; seems like it keeps me from straying too far, messing up proportions, & having to undo & re-do. I put a rosemary on each side of the sidewalk close to the front door; it's evergreen & it smells like Christmas when I get the mail! There are nandinas at the corner of the house, softening the sharp corner, & right now they're at their best, still green & loaded with red berries. Along the side next to the neighbor I put 3 Lady Banks roses, as a hedge of flowering shrubs. They do get sparse in the winter but they never have gone totally bald. There's a Martha Gonzales rose on each side of the sidewalk where it intersects with the public sidewalk that defines the "hellstrip". They're compact, pretty much evergreen, & they have gorgeous blue-green foliage & burgundy stems, & the flowers are a bright cheery red. I widened the beds on the front & side of the house, & they have salvias, mums, flame acanthus, lemon mint (I love it for the "makes you smile" fragrance, but it does spread!), old irises, mistflower, a couple of crinums for proportion, & a lot of "tote & plop" plants, the ones you can't resist bringing home, & then you have to tote them around until you spy a bit of earth where you can plop them! Along the sidewalk leading to the Marthas, there are dusty miller, obedient plant, datura for proportion/contrast, & a few dwarf cannas that I may move this spring...it seems like they're more backyard flowers than front yard. Along the hellstrip on the northeast, I have roses, crinums, tons of irises, & some tall Mexican petunias that have to be watched lest they take over the universe but which bloom in the summer when everything else suffers in the heat. In the shadier areas, there are cast iron plant, Jewel of Opar, pigeonberry, & probably some other stuff that I can't remember right now! Although my little plastic wading pools are no comparison to PK's (I pile up mulch around them & pretend I can't see the blue plastic), I have 2 of them in the back, one for bog plants & one for water garden plants. At the corner, on the small wedge-shaped area defined by 2 streets & the intersection of the 2 sidewalks, there are red yucca, salvia, a four o'clock, & a big group of irises, Scattered throughout the whole place are paperwhites, narcissus, lycoris radiate, etc. Between all of this, I'm working diligently to replace the huge brittle old hackberries with juniper, olive, gingko, crepe myrtle, & loquat, & to lay down brick pathways. The things I've learned about cottage gardens & other lawn-less gardens are: If you possibly can, draw your lot on paper, sketching in the house, fences, sidewalks, utility areas (I keep the compost pile & the trash can in the narrow strip by the neighbor!). Draw in pathways where you generally walk, & keep those areas clear. You will get tired of walking around a planting area to take out the trash! I just happen to know this. Make a list of some things you like, & color code the list for the environments those things need, such as shade or sun, & their mature size (do as I say, not as I did: I'm the person who once planted a Mermaid rose beneath the eaves!). This will also keep you from planting bur oaks beneath electric lines. I haven't done that one, but it broke my heart to see the electric company's "trimmers" mutilating 100-year-old oak trees in my neighborhood, cutting big "V"s in the middle... Pencil in some things, such as rosemary by the front door, lemon mint by the back gate, bird feeders where you can see them from the window you use most-such as over the kitchen sink or in front of the computer desk. Pick long-lived plants, or plants that self-seed, when you can. Plant irises where they can be mulchless, & where the neighbor's magnificent century-old oak tree won't shower them with bushels of leaves every autumn. Plant the things that need more attention close to where you will see them every day. Make room for a sitting/tea-drinking/visiting area, including a table & enough space to scoot your chair back without bumping a flowerbed or smacking the edging. Enjoy your garden, engage with it, play with it, have fun!

For landscaping, you'll need to supply more pictures. Starting at just left of the mailbox, with camera in hand, walk straight toward the house until you're even with the flower pot in the circle island. (The bank of 5 windows will be straight ahead.) Take 3 SLIGHTLY OVERLAPPING pictures from that location, panning from left to right. (In addition to the home itself, need to see the far left and far right surroundings of your house from that viewpoint.) Similar to this:

It is a bit hard to decipher what is going on with your front entry from the pictures. My first question is, is this a townhouse/condo/multi-unit type home? Is all that building on the left side of the courtyard your house? Are there two doors, on both right and left sides in the courtyard? No matter, from what I can see, a redesign of the courtyard is what will be needed to direct people to the front door. Outside along the driveway is easy enough to fix with a new planting that will screen the utility boxes. Get rid of the grass and make the whole space a planted bed. One thing I can see that will help open the entry is to remove the two medium sized shrubs on the front and the left corner of the garage as a start. Once you get inside we see the garage is actually an open carport. Think about removing the short metal railing and closing in the whole wall top to bottom. It can still be an open type wall with breeze block or something else. Just the feel of a more solid wall will direct people in to the door. It is hard to offer other ideas for the courtyard without knowing what all is happening in there. Still, I think that is where you need to concentrate to unhide your door.

A walkway to the sidewalk is always nice. It's a distinguished home, even TPed, and deserves a welcoming walk. When I've done a similar project, I hired a landscape designer that was not affiliated with anyone and she drew up the hardscape and suggested plants. With the plan in hand, I was able to get someone to do the walks and other hardscaping and I could then do the rest at my own pace. So, I recommend finding an independent designer.