I would make friends with your local nursery, take photos of the house with you and simply be honest with them. Tell them you are an very happy new home owner, overwhelmed, don't know anything about gardening/landscaping but you really could use some help to come up with a 3/5 year landscaping plan. A lot of nursery owners will come to your house free as long as you purchase a plant or two. (huge help) Start with a tree in between garage windows. Plant it at least 5 feet from house. (make it an anniversary gift so it starts memories/roots for the two of you) Plant other trees or more expensive special plants on important dates as they come, children, promotions, birthdays... Definitely go slow, but you will be amazed at how far a couple hundred dollars can go. Hang some plants on the porch it will fill in and soften the porch area. Don't forget winter color too, like red twig dogwoods, willows, --- Lastly, paint that front door a fun color that you love! ;-) Enjoy & Good luck!!

Yes MamaGoose that is a wonderful thought provoking image. You and LL have been rung through the mill. I also had a few issues with medications for Joe. This is when I started to keep a detailed journal. Some thing that could not just be heard from me but written so the doctors and nurses would see I was keeping details and when he was told to take this or that med is showed up in his food journal as barfing his guts out. Stop the meds he was better. And even though these meds were supposed to keep him from getting sick they did not work that way. I was also very frustrated on the way they were taking care of him in the hospital. His skin was horrible and his toe nails were awful. No one even bothered to look at his feet but me. Interesting the first thing the home health nurse looked at was his feet and she was pleased I had cared for them She said it is common in hospital to neglect the feet. And when they brought him food they did not open the container even after notes taped to the tray and written on his board in the room. I would get there and everything closed up. He could not open the containers so he would go hungry. He was too out of it to ask. I had to spoon feed him for a couple weeks after we got home. Sometimes he fell back to sleep eating half a cup of custard. LBD sounds like a horrible disease. Spiders coming from the ceiling is more than enough to make a person go over the edge. Feeling so bad for your and and Hubby. MG and LL. We did get some sun. We canceled the dentist appointment yesterday AM. too much snow and emergency weather alerts saying stay off the roads. I think we got 5 or 6 inches of snow but at some point in the night there was a bit of rain so it laid down an ice slick under the snow. This morning we woke to sun and about 13 degrees. We did breakfast then out to put the snow plow on the ranger. Joe had about half of it done then I went out to help him do the rest. I know he wanted to do it all by himself but it is good for me to refresh my brain on how it goes on and comes off. Then I went off to the post office and Joe plowed the driveway. LOL He even plowed a swath across the back yard for the kitties to travel on their adventures.

You might like our Triangle Lounger as seating for your child's room. Always a favorite for doing reading, watching TV, having friends over, etc. Comes in a Sage green or sage/brown which might look nice!

I would change the current shutters to properly fitting shutters or remove them entirely. Your current shutters are too small (skinny). To get the right look, size the shutters so they look functional (each shutter would be half the size of the window) and add hardware. Read this article for details: Old House Guy on Shutters ^Different style house, but you can see the impact of properly fitting shutters whether they are functional or not, they look like they could close over the window. Since you have white siding you could go with any color shutter. Black is classic. A deep green works. You could even go with something brighter. What colors do you like? Your choices are wide open. As to the front door: not sure I would use red because of the brick surround on the entry. You could go with a black door or navy for an understated elegance. Or use another brighter color to bring the door out the shadows. I happen to think a wood front door on your home would be stunning. ^If you want to really make your front door pop from the recessed entry, a bright green would work.