First, thank you everyone for being so generous with your time and ideas. Yardvaark - I can definitely see your point about treating trees as sculpture to add interest to the front of the house. And, woodyoak, I really love the idea of gradually raising the height of bushes/trees to bring the eye up to the white pines. Since the spans of brick are larger on that side of the house - it would seem that using taller and larger plants to that end would solve two problems since there is quite a bit more brick to cover on the far end of the house. Yard, I see you electronically removed the much hated bushes. I'm posting a new sketchup image which illustrates one of our biggest challenges with the space - the very significant square footage between the house and driveway. Can we fill the foundation bed to cover the land and if we do - will that hide the architectural/sculptural nature of the trees and bushes? Seems, Yard, you were thinking mostly ground cover plus some interesting tree forms. Any thoughts on what we might plant in the front yard to focus the attention toward the entry? We will be relocating the dogwood that obstructs the view of the front door from the driveway. Other ideas for new plantings that might draw the eye up toward the house? Yard, hubby and I just read your last post. First, the comparison to a Yugo and now Whitney Houston. It is more than he can take. I think we've broken him. Thank you, thank you, thank you. :-) On a serious note - I was thinking we would remove the dogwood but it looks like you've moved it closer to the house. I read on another GW forum the advice "people are drawn to spaces for people". With that guidance in mind - we have been hoping to give the front door the greatest visibility possible. Am I making to much of a clear view to the front door?

I don't see how one could write a book on landscaping the ranch-style home without having some photos of such homes in the book, any more than one could re: Craftsman, Victorian, and so forth. By training and nature, I operate under the principle of "never assume anything," and so I have not yet assumed that the OP even HAS a ranch style home as I understand them. I've seen any number of somewhat modest and likely one-story homes called a "ranch" (or "rancher") even though that home may have a number of features related to its actual height and width proportions, roof line, embellishments, ceiling heights, porticos, verticality and so forth that to me makes it, well, something else, at least in terms of whether any generic ranch-landscape principles could apply. So one can have a generic discussion, but fundamentally each individual offered "visual" of a landscape is based on an associated underlying, assumed, envisioned, particular house.

Yeah, it doesn't show the size of the furnace anywhere in the 1st quote, all I can find is "SL280V 090V60C 2-stage 80%" everything has been 80k or 100k BTU so maybe one of those? I'll call the guy tomorrow and see if he can tell me. I'm really not sure about the house, probably a good 10 years or so at this point. Some of these quotes have a Fed Tax Credit and some have "and/or" Manufacturer Rebate. The first Lennox quote says $400 from Lennox + $400 from the power company. So $6,780-$800= $5,980 in the end. The guy that gave me the 2nd quote had a few other options, one was for a $10,000+ Carrier system but the other two quotes were: $6,912 Carrier PG92SAS60120D 92% 1 STG 120K BTU Payne PH13NB048000 4 Ton Condenser AC Carrier CNPVT4821ALA 4 Ton Evap Coil $8,217 Carrier 24ACB348A003 4 Ton single stage AC Carrier 59SC5A120S24-20 120K BTU Carrier CNPVT4821ALA 4 Ton Evap Coil I don't know why 120K BTU when everyone else was 80K but surely there's similar models that are smaller along that same line. All of these prices are assuming I'm paying full upfront, some quotes give 5% off if you pay in full, others took $500 off the equipment, etc. so I'm showing the lowest possible quote.

I'm not suggesting what plants you use, or their character, but just a simple way of arranging them in order to create more interest. In addition to plants, in order to make the distant entrance seem more inviting, you'll need to make the path to it more prominent and better laid out (so as to allow proper space for a foundation planting. The last place I would place a tree would be at the central area near the window, as it does zero there for "framing" the house. A better spot would be between the two houses, near the lot line (off of the right house corner at a diagonal. A tree is also needed at the left side of the house, but there is no room for it.) I think you'll need to replace the top panel of the garage door with one that has a bank of windows so as to add more interest. Presently, it's too prominent and dull.