Sense people have already hinted on the grading, I thought I would throw in some ideas. I would see if I could get a climbing vine for the neighboors fence to the right, obviously checking with the neighboor, something like confederate jasmine. I also would look into some red roses to echo the red theme, and check into the new bright red stunning crape myrtle, it would give summer red to the house. I would plant four 2 on one side near the back hiding the siding on the side and 2 on the other kind of staggered with the first one at the front of the porch and the next one behind it. That would hide that hole and add depth making your house look bigger as well as complmenting color. I know you cant get ride of that chain link, but the more you can hide of it the better. Peronsally I think repainting chain link is tedious but worth the effort with oil based rustoleum. I just got through painting a slightly rusted vegtable garden fence in white and it looks insanely good for chain link. I am not recommending that for the front, but possibly for the sides and back, black wouldn't draw your eye to it as easy. You don't have room for shrubs to cover it so thats why I mentined a climbing vine. Keep whatever you plant in the front yard low. Personally I would bring in some bags of soil, about 30$ worth of composted manure, 1 10$ bag of peat, and 2-3 bags of loam, and would plant annual flowers all across the front the 1st year, and then slowly add in perinneal. Its such a small area that wedding would be easy. This would save you from having to mow the weeds. Also 3-5 bags of mulch would go a long way. I mean for under 100$ you could have that entire front bed looking amazing and it would do tons for curb appeal. Maybe its just me but I think a dark purple with hint of red picket fence around the front would look great, You could get a vinyl picket fence and custom paint from lowes. http://www.lowes.com/ProductDisplay?partNumber=202842-77007-73000930&langId=-1&storeId=10151&productId=3159825&catalogId=10051&cmRelshp=req&rel=nofollow&cId=PDIO1 Its 3ft by 8ft. Guessing you would need 4 pieces & gate x26 a pice so thats 140$ish with gate, then about 30 in exterior paint. That would take are of the entire front for 270, new fence, annuals, soil, mulch, and 120 for 4 red really nice crape myrtles and a couple weekends of time. So for about 400$ you could have the entire front street view, side view, front beds, and side beds done with great soil and tons of color/seasonal interest. I am currently doing an area twice that size for about the same price :)

If the driveway and sidewalks have yet to be installed and you have control over what materials and shape are installed, then you have a great opportunity to enhance curb appeal. Consider the shape of your driveway and how to make it interesting. It will be wide because of the 2-car garage so some type of brick edging or brick lines will break up the expanse. Also consider concrete or pavers to stay with a masonry theme.

OK. Last Wednesday I added topsoil with a bit of compost mixed in to the area around the concrete slab in the last photo, graded, lightly tamped/walked on it, seeded with 50/50 Blue/Rye mix from Lesco, lightly raked it in, sprinkled a thin layer of compost on top (1/4" or so), and have been keeping it watered (morning and evening with the hose the first few days, and then mother nature has been watering for me since then). I also applied 18-24-6 starter fertilizer yesterday. No sign of germination yet, hopefully something soon. The seed was leftover from a 10lb bag I bought last fall, hopefully it's still good? It was kept dry in the garage over the winter. I also discovered that the township recycling center sells compost for $20/yard, so I got 5 yards to topdress with. I've got about 1,500 sq ft done so far. I've just been filling a wheelbarrow, dumping it in a few piles spaced apart (the easy part), then spreading them around with the back side of a bow rake. Once it's spread into a nice thin layer that is mostly on top of the grass I just run the backside of the rake back and forth at a very shallow angle to work it down between the blades, until you can barely tell it's there. Seems to work OK, although the compost does have some small bits of sticks/mulch in it that tend to not want to fall down between the blades very easily, and it can be somewhat clumpy so I spend a good bit of time breaking up clumps larger than 3/4" or so. Although, I suppose that if core aeration plugs disintegrate on their own after a few weeks, no reason clumps of compost shouldn't do the same, yes? Anyway, I'll be keeping at it as time/weather permits -- wife says the pile in the driveway has to be gone before Memorial Day :-) As I mentioned before, the back yard has quite a bit of moss in it, which I presume I should remove before topdressing back there. What's the best solution for that; just remove it manually with a rake (plastic shrub rake, metal tine leaf rake?) or by hand? Better to do it when the lawn is wet or dry? Oh, dchall -- your question re: the dirt below the window in the last photo. There's a fairly steep hill along that side of the house (right side of the photo) from front to back since the yard is level with the first floor in front and with the basement in back because of the walk-out, and there's a planting bed along the entire side of the house down that hill, which is what you're seeing below the window. Halfway down the hill in the bed there's a concrete slab where the AC compressor used to be (before the PO moved the furnace to the other side of the basement and moved the AC outdoor unit with it); you can see that empty slab in the photo as well. Anyway, I don't think there's any drainage issue here; it would be impossible to not have dirt up against the wall, and it is all sloped gently away from the house perpendicular to the wall, as well as very steeply down the hill towards the back yard. Unless I'm completely missing something...

I have posted to the other forum as well. I just recently found these forums and am so happy I did, I love all the input. The builder will be putting some sort of sound barrier to the master. The upper two bedrooms will be for my daughters, ages 8 and 14. We requested a bathroom not be in the middle of the rooms upstairs and that a jack and Jill style bathroom not be put there just so that if one girl Wales up to use the bathroom, it won't wake the other. As some have mentioned, I do think with two girls, the bathroom needs to have a bigger vanity area for sure. It's hard to see from these plans but there is a dotage area between the stairwell and the garage downstairs. I will utilize this area as our "school station" where we keep the book bags, extra school supplies, a tack board for school calendars, ect. There will also be a walk in storage built into the side of the stairwell. We originally were going to add a fairly large bonus area to the upstairs but recently decided to do away with that. We felt like if we did that the kids would tend to try to be up there all the time and we would not see them much. All the kids currently have their own tvs in their rooms but of course, they aren't allowed to watch tv for extended periods of time. The back patio will also be large. We will mount a tv out there also and we will spend a lot if time out there. It will function as an additional living area with deep seating our door furniture. I'm thinking that in about 4 years once my 14 year old is moving away to college, the 5 year old may want to move upstairs by then. Of course the downstairs bedroom would then be her room for when she comes home on weekends and holidays. The kitchen was my first primary concern as the concept in these plans is what I want but with a larger pantry. Then, once we felt like we would like to switch the kitchen and living room that became our next big concern. We did meet with two architects and builders before deciding to use the one we did. We have seen and been in multiple houses he has designed and built and we fell in love with them. We live in Louisiana so we told the builder that we didn't want a coat closet because we actually do not use the one we have now for that purpose. Ours is being used to store crafts which we plan to store elsewhere. The attic will be a walk in attic that can be accessed from the garage and from the second story.