The house faces West - so afternoon sun. I should have included that in my first email. The house faces west, and the busy street i'm concerned with borders my house on the north. There's a good sized side yard and a brick wall. So, it's angled, and we don't need the whole wall. It's just hard to visualize without the Photenia's! Thanks for the note on the Photenia's! That's exactly the kind of advice we need. Could you explain what you mean by curve the bed near the street, so it's deeper? I'm trying to visualize and having a hard time. With the photenia's gone, I'll have a semi-circle to work with. You're suggesting a more random smattering of bushes, with ground cover in front and back? If I'm in the street looking at the house, I see ground cover, then shrubs -- behind that is the drive way, and on the other side of that the tree on one side and crepe myrtle on the other. God thought on the planter boxes. There are a lot of creeping/spreading plants that would go perfectly there. Do you think I need to build beds out in front of that, then That's where I really get confused, planning multiple levels/layers. The way the planter boxes are situated, they're nearly full sun with the roof extending completely over. I can have something that drapes over the front but doesn't get much height, so as not to cover the windows. Thanks for the door comment - we do in fact have white sheets (no rod on the bottom), but we're still looking at curtain fabrics. So, there are white sheers with nothing in front of them - and you still wonder about dark windows. That says something about my shade situation! It's definitely brighter with the live oak. How does the tree look otherwise? Your root flare question concerns me. I've raised the soil level perhaps 1-2" in aggregate. I lost a lot of soil over the summer during a series of rains between the house and the tree. My gutters weren't functioning properly, and I ended up with a small stangnant lake between the base of the tree and the house. I had some guys move soil from the front to the back, which helped some, but with rusty gutters, there's only so much you can do. I've been reading up on soil amendments and plantings, and have added compost and expanded shale and topsoil down 6", and mulched over. Net result is more soil around the tree, but every rain since then has taken more away. I was hoping that the wintercreeper would creep out and work to contain the soil. Alternately I've considered building a brick border around the 'bed', to act as a mini retaining wall. the bed is big and I'm not sure I like seeing no break from house to driveway. The circular driveway splitting my yard into thirds is really throwing me off! Thanks for your great tips. K

Stove, as a symbolic hearth, rules; sink slinks as much out of sight as possible because, IMO, not only is it not nearly as handsome as many are encouraged to think to justify expensive hardware, but it tends to collect uncharming detritus around it. Let the eyes just pass on by, which is happily an era-compliant look. They didn't know a sink was supposed to be, even could be, a wow! feature back then. BTW, they also didn't tend to know about large, deep 1-sink sinks into which a whole dinner's worth of mess could just disappear. I LOVE mine. BTW, the stove doesn't HAVE to rule, of course; that's a more current idea, and it actually often wasn't a feature at all in those days. Your kitchen might benefit by letting it also disappear into a handsome unified design meant to rule as a whole. My own (sort of traditional kitchen) is a drop-in cooktop with drawers beneath--so the counter and counter line are straight and uninterrupted. The oven's under counter elsewhere where it's not very visible from outside. (In my case, attention goes to the decorative wood vent hood above the stove and the windows flanking it.) I'd definitely keep to a simple open galley, as symmetric as possible--most attractive and space efficient of all layouts when it must be totally open (except a very symmetric U, which takes more space and may have function problems if not equipped with an island). A galley is also among the most highly functional of all layouts. If there's nothing going on at the right end of the island, why not slide a stool around there? Then someone could sit without presenting his back to everyone else in the room. I love white kitchens and have one, but if you're going to do flat-panel simple cabinets to go with the architecture, wood, even very light wood, I think is more handsome than plain white, which usually seems to lack something, even for me. (There is a higher-end high-gloss that looks very good, though; my DIL is trying to talk our son into it, and I'm on her side.) In any case, although I've never wanted wood, in your case I'd at least consider seeing just how light I could go with Ikea flat-panel wood for the lower cabinets, blending with a similarly pale honey-colored maple floor (one of my very favorite features from that general era), and then go white or off-white for the uppers to blend in with the walls. BTW, I don't remember her name offhand, but someone just posted a picture of her simple modern kitchen with green stone counters that's just gorgeous. Shot my "I-would" wad. I'll enjoy seeing your personal vision for your new home develop.

Where does each front door lead? To me, it looks like the door in the middle was the original front door and it would lead to living area. The door to the left looks like it leads to a utility area. Have you changed the interior uses? Agree with housegal that the landscaping needs to be trimmed way back, it is serving as a barrier now rather than an open landscape plan to bring people to the front of your home. The high contrast white trim on the doors against the red siding draws all the focus. Changing exterior doors needs to relate to the interior floorplan. Where do you want people to come inside? Most don't want to have the utilities areas front and center; however, the owners inadvertently lead people right to the utility areas by highlighting that entrance (such as garage doors and side doors). Right now, your utility doors are bright white against a dark red siding. You can change that by blending your garage door color with the siding or having it darker than the siding so it doesn't stand out to accentuate your garage door. Same with your utility door. Color works wonders. You can use an accent color for your intended front door. And landscaping that works with your home.

This is a nice color with brick. It would work well with your house I think even for the garage and window frames, IMO curved walkways do not really suit MCM style homes, the windows on the right were very common on that style of house. You will need some sort of containment for the lawn and I honestly don't hate the railroads beams. As for the walkway first you would need to change the porch and I might be tempted to do a 2 level deck entry for something a bit nicer . No to roofed front porch IMO does not suit the house and will be expensive to do since the roof would need to be reconfigured at the front. You could run that deck across the right side of the house too,