The house could easily stand an enhanced pedestrian approach to the entrance, as it is presently, not truly inviting. Are cars typically parked in the drive and people need to skirt them in order to get to the front door? Then you may want to widen the drive, flaring it to include the walk to the front door. If cars are not usually in the way, then you could just extend the walk partway along the drive edge. keeping the rest of the drive the same width as it is now. What you do will depend on needs and budget. It would be backwards to make calls to contractors for rejuvenating the yard, before you have a landscape design. Getting ideas here might be a start, but those ideas must be converted to a PLAN before they are meaningful. Either you must make the plan, or you need to hire a landscape designer to make it. That may be a service offered by a landscape contractor (some can and some can't) but then you'll be paying them for the design service, even if the fee is hidden in the construction work. One function of design is getting the proposed work to fit within the budget. If you want to make hardscape changes, the cost can add up quickly. Be sure the designer knows what you're trying to accomplish with the allotted budget. It's best to know up front if the desires are possible ... or unrealistic.

Would replace the countertops -- solid color and smooth ... no raised feature atop the countertop on the living room / dining room side. If the "island" -- ?the long row of cabinets on the right?-- is crooked at about the dishwasher, as it appears to me to be, then would straighten that -- even if it means ending the cabinets at the dishwasher and making the rest of the cabinets to the right of the dishwasher a separate base cabinet or rolling cart cabinet. If, however, it is just the dishwasher that is angled, would straighten that even if it means replacing the dishwasher. Would replace the cabinet hardware. To me, the cabinets seem too large for the knobs or the knobs too small for the cabinet doors. But I'm not a pro. Like the rest. Nice kitchen. Great space. Great beams and window trim. Have you considered a more dominant mantel with a straight front edge? If you can separate the tall base cabinets from the shorter base cabinets and create two separate islands, each with a level countertop, consider doing that. Likie all that natural light. coming in.

Correct! We are painting them. The cabinets themselves are in excellent shape. For the island we will be using cabinets that match the base of the rest - raised panel. We are redoing the floor (removing the stick on tile and just extending the hardwood) so it's all the same as the dining room. We are on a raised foundation and have a full unfinished basement underneath. Since we've lived with it, what bothers me is that 1) there is not enough light coming into the home and 2) the oven door is directly in the way of the door leading to the outside. Having a sliding patio door would solve for both of these problems as it would let in 2x the amount of light and would guarantee that since only one panel would be used, there will never be anyone in the path of the oven door.

The uneven surface of your pergola and patio will make it difficult to maneuver chairs around a dining table (as others have noted on Houzz). I would make the area outside of your back door, where the pavement is level, your eating area, grilling area, etc. And reserve the pergola area for lounging. A fire pit could work on the patio area to the left leading up to the pergola. Under the pergola I would have a seating area, coffee table, and then twinkle lights strung under the pergola for night time entertaining.