What a nice space for a garden. I like the rock wall. What kind of light does this area get? Dappled sun and shade all year like in the photo, or either more sun or more shade during the growing season? What is your soil like? I find it difficult to tell how large the area is, so a ballpark estimate would help to tell what there is space for. I'd start with removing any non-garden plants growing here and then mulch (cardboard with cut-outs for the hosta with an organic mulch like chopped leaves or wood chips on top) and weed a lot the first year so that when you add plants your weeding and maintenance will be minimal. Since this area will be visible as folks go in and out of the door, having plants with year-round interest and/or some ornament such as sculpture or a birdbath will be important in making this area appealing. I think I would try to plant mostly lower growing items in the front part of the garden, or at least airy plants so that the stone wall is a visible feature. If some of these are evergreen/gold/red, they will provide interest in the winter. In the upper part behind the stone wall, if there is room I'd add background plants with year round interest such as a colored foliage evergreen, and /or variegated red-twigged dogwood, ones that would stand out well against the light walls. With any woody plants, check the ultimate size and be sure you have room to paint or do maintenance behind it if it isn't a plant like the dogwoods which don't mind being cut to the ground. If there is enough light, a pretty trellis with a clematis that gets cut back in the winter (type 3 pruning) would feature the clematis in the growing season and the trellis in the winter. I would probably put a row of low-growing or easily pruned evergreens such as one of the smaller boxwood varieties under the window to provide winter interest and then plant the rest of the area with perennials to give you more interest in the growing season. Particularly in a smaller garden such as this that is in such a prominent place, thinking about varying the foliage color and texture (as you are doing in thinking about adding coral bells) will help add interest to the garden when there aren't many blooms. In addition to the library as a resource, Pennsylvania has public gardens that might give you inspiration, both for plants and for design. Here is a link that might be useful: Pennsylvania public gardens

Thank you all, again! Les-I love your idea...it was one of the first plans that I tried when we got the new furniture. The EC was a bit large for that corner unfortunately. (It's been in both corners and along the couch wall already!) I also tried the couch on the wall where the EC is, but that wall is shorter and the couch pretty much went from end to end (from what I remember), so no room for a table. But I'll measure and try again. While this is the room that we do watch tv, I agree with you...I do not like it looking as though it's the center of our lives, b/c it's not! I'm wondering if maybe I put the tv on a smaller table (I have one or two that may work) and put it in the corner you said, then move the couch, either to the windows or the back wall, if it works. Thanks for your help! kswl: I love your idea about chairs with legs, for a more roomy look. That never occurred to me. I like the idea of a slipper chair as well. I'm considering turning our DR into a reading room, since with small kids, we don't use that room much at all! We have a morning room with a table large enough for us and more, so losing the DR is not really an issue. So if we change the DR, the overstuffed chair would go in that room. I don't love the EC...it's a Sauder piece that we bought years ago. The *only* nice thing about it is that is has great storage for dvds/cds/kids puzzles & games and even the sides have tons of storage for books etc. Our plan is to send it to the basement, if and when we ever finish it. In this market, we don't want to do it, b/c we may move in the next few years and would never recover the $$. One more question?? Can I do decorative curtains on the two far ends of the windows? So the middle window would be open? I do want to add some color, softness, coziness, but it seems like curtains on all 3 windows is way too much. I've tried valances on all three, but they did nothing for the room and made it seem very choppy to me, if that makes sense? Thank you again, everyone...I wish I knew what I was doing...this is really helpful. At least I know for sure to measure next time before I make a purchase this big. :)

I like the mock-up a lot. You're off to a great start! I also prefer the style of outdoor light that rockybird suggested. That's a great MCM style. You might enjoy poking around at RetroRenovation. It's a website devoted to MCM design. There are tons of great ideas there and links to other good resources and vendors who sell period-accurate items. I bet you'll get more ideas if you do that. Re the carport: Yikes! If a Honda Fit doesn't fit, what would? Maybe an Old Beetle, or a Metropolitan Nash, or the first teeny Honda Civics that came to the US, or an original Mini Cooper (much smaller than the new designs). And I bet even some of those wouldn't fit. Must have been for the kid's bikes? Here's what I'd do with that carport. Even though it's not original, I like the roof line the carport gives your home. It's very in-keeping with MCM style. Remove the side wall. You may have to put in a couple more pillars for support. And then cut out an opening in the roof for more light. You could leave it open or put in a skylight, depending on your budget and the type of weather you have where you live. You might be able to get by with some clear plastic instead of an expensive skylight. Ya know, like the old corrugated fiberglass that they now make in a nice, clear plastic. You could also add some extra light fixtures in there for evenings. This would add so much light to that space and make it more open and friendly and help bring in light if you put in a new window on that side.. Then treat it like a covered front porch. Put some outdoor furniture there, maybe even a porch swing. It could even be a great place for outdoor grilling when it's raining outside. Oh, I would build a wall on the back for more privacy for your side/back yard. It could be a solid wall with a doorway or it could just be some lattice. If you have sufficient outdoor living space on the back of the house and don't believe you'd use it much, you could still do something like that just to make the most of a space that is currently unusable but make it smaller by building a wall where the wall next to the front door is. If you wanted some privacy while using the space, you could build a half-wall across the front. Planting something like Wisteria to grow across the top-front of the roofline would look amazing. Anyway, just some random thoughts. I hope some of them are useful to you. I think it could be quite a charming space with just a few simple changes. Here is a link that might be useful: Retro Renovation

Do consider that you are going to be waiting a long time for a 6' tree planted even as close as the center of one of your lawns to provide any significant amount of screening or shading of the house. But which particular window are you thinking about? A tree lined up just right with one of them and planted close enough could provide an adequate level of screening pretty quickly - maybe even immediately if of the right size and shape. With it also casting a moving shadow over part of the house some day. Otherwise you could block the street with solid fencing and/or hedging/screening plantings consisting of or including dense shrubby kinds. Usually river birch is not affected by bronze birch borer, with up here anyway it being the European, Himalayan and paper birches that are being hit now that the pest has come this far west. For instance the next door neighbors to a friend that lived near Seattle had two cut leaf weeping European birches and one river birch in their back yard. When the borer came to their neighborhood the European birches were being drilling out and dropping branches on his side of the fence in no time. Luckily the neighbors were quick to have these cut down. Providing in addition a much better view of the river birch, which as of the last time I was on the friend's property was still standing there looking intact.