It is pretty hard to tell without a closer pic of the brick, but I would stick with a medium grayish color. Trying to match some of the browns and tans is a bad idea, and going too dark will make the roof stick out too much. Personally, I like the weathered wood. I would stay away from the black walnut.

It's not a great picture for getting constructive feedback. It would be better if you move the camera a little to the left so people can see the complete entrance. And then pan the camera from far left to far right taking OVERLAPPING pictures that include the neighbors' houses, which are part of the surroundings for your house. Also, move the camera to the city sidewalk so you are not quite as far away. Landscaping and street appeal is about coordinating all these things together .... not just what's directly in front of your house. That said, I can make a few comments about your existing landscaping: The entrance is weak ... barely a cave-like slit set far back compared to the broad expanse of the garage door. One way to improve it is to create a much larger path to it ... a path capable of allowing two people to walk side-by-side to the entrance. Creating it with some decorative qualities would be a plus. I would change out the plants flanking the garage door to something smaller, possibly more colorful, and something that grew in a more "arrangement"-like fashion. Smothering the base of the house and hiding windoes with a single hedge is not a particularly handsome solution. I think it would be better to coordinate shrubs with architectural features and incorporate some other plant types ... color, small tree, perennials, etc. Need better pictures to explore possibilities. It might be that the foreground tree will eventually not allow grass to be grown well. At that point, it would be necessary to place a groundcover bed around the tree ... a proportionately sized one, not a tutu. I wish someone had cut off the lower limb when it was 1/2" diameter instead of allowing it to grow into a competing trunk. We can't see if it could still be removed.

Following up on Addie's idea, if you want to designate an area for the pool and incorporate it into your landscape, why not? Then in spring and fall it could be your campfire area, and in winter you could put holiday decorations there. But my first item on the priority list would be a privacy fence. Frankly your house looks fine/wonderful to me but if you have no back yard and are wanting to get the most use out of your front yard with kids, etc. then start with a GOOD fence. It is not inexpensive. Then just prune a bit or refresh what you have. And for what it's worth, I think the tree looks like it is hugging your house, in a good way! Plus if I was a kid I would be up that tree in a New York minute. :) You don't need to do it all at once! And you can get a lot of plants and other things bit by bit as they come on sale or even for free from friends or neighbors who are cleaning up. Do the big important thing (fence) with a lot of planning and don't skimp on the money and the rest will come from your enjoyment of your private space as time and cash allows.

We are now ready for landscape design help. We have removed all of the shrubbery on the left side of the house. And all of the pavers have been moved to the backyard for future use. ( unless someone has an idea of how they could be used up front. Although I understand that a curved sidewalk would be an improvement over what we have, there is no budget for that right now. The plan is to resod in the spring. This is north facing, so very shady. I have so many design dilemmas! To the right of the front porch: If you look at the second and third pictures in my original post, you’ll see that the area to the right of the sidewalk is huge. I purchased a green Japanese maple ( smallish weeping Viridis) to put in there somewhere. Should I leave room for more grass on the right side of the side walk or just plant the whole thing? Also on the right side of the porch, there is only about 39” between the ground and the bottom of the windows. Need suggestions for what to plant there that wouldn’t need constant pruning ( don’t like gardenias because the brown flowers stay on the plant). If I plant low shrubs under the windows does everything else planted in there need to be as lower lower or can I punctuate with some taller shrubs as I get further out. Any suggestions for a mix of shrubs, or even forms, would be appreciated. To the left of the porch. If you refer to the first picture in this string, You’ll see that a very large bed of shrubbery was in front of the house. Once we cleared that out, there is now an extremely have extremely large area (about 28 feet from left to right and 36 feet from front to back.) . Because the house is small, I’m thinking of that bed somewhat narrower so that it isn’t so much in front of the house, but more to the side.I already purchased a Japanese stewartia to plant there ( sale at the nursery).Etsy sale I purchased 234 limelight hydrangeas. Also, to the left of the porch, there about 5 ft between the bottom of the window and the ground. Looking for suggestions on what to plant there. If I plant something different here than on the right side, would I want to somehow use some of the plants from the right side on this side as well to create balance? Any ideas for plantings in this area would be appreciated as well. I I did see some soft touch mahonia that I loved and wondered whether they would look good under the windows on the left, with maybe whatever we plant on the right side in front of those. Additionally, I would really appreciate suggestions for what to plant in that left corner. Thanks for your ideas!