Thanks everyone for your help. Ok, I'll leave the yews. They were pruned in that weird shape before we bought the house. You can't tell fom these pics but there is a cherry tree in front yard closer to driveway. We ripped out some old ratty looking shrubs when we moved in and easily 12 inches of much and leaves. I know new shrubs will take a while to grow to size, but the sooner I get them started the better. My winter project is going to be learning a landscape software programs, for now I am making do with graph paper, and all of your help. pls8xx: The extended landing looks good, it helps to see it done this way, and the shrubs near it look nice also. So this will be my next big, project. aegis500: The extra tree is a good idea, and the shrub placed near large picture window is perfect. I think 2 more similar but not necessarily the same shrub would do well on either end of house. karinl: Thanks for the compliment for the work done near the house. I admit I started there because it is something we see everyday. And I liked the shoes & clothes analogy. There must be something to it - I've always enjoyed shopping for shoes more than for clothes. jant: Well, we just replaced all the shutters, so to keep peace at home, they have to stay as is. Door color can be changed. But, WOW, what a difference when the big white vinyl siding matches the house color, and I did like the door color, would have never tried that on my own. Not sure how it could be done, can vinyl be painted? It is the eastern side of the house and the winter sun is strong in this part of the house. I don't get why that siding is there, the rest of the house is aluminum siding and brick. brent in nova: I ran out at bought that magazine, had to go to 3 stores to find it! It was good, they added a lot of box wood for winter season interest. I think I can use a lot of what they showed. busyd95: That is a good way to put it: with no front walk and plantings so close it doesn't feel welcoming. There are no sidewalks along the roadway, so people either use the steps from the driveway or cut through the front yard. I did plant the Nellie Stevens holly to help block that view. I think I'll plant 2 more so there is a grouping of them. Thanks again everyone.

MUCH MUCH NICER! Still a few things that could be improved tho... 1) Those windows in the two upstairs closets (for bedrooms 2 and 3) won't work well. While you do need windows over the porch for the exterior facade to look right, you don't want them on a closet wall where you will want to hang things! Wondering if there might be some way to use the space with windows for bathroom space instead and move the closets to interior spaces. Maybe bedroom 3 could have a reach-in closet like bedroom 4 and the closet for bedroom 2 could move to where its bathroom is currently. Then both bathrooms could be back to back in the space between bedrooms 2 and 3. It's a great idea to have a full bath downstairs so that, if you ever have someone unable to climb stairs (temporarily or permanently) the study could easily become a bedroom for them and they'd have a full bath to use. I rather like the exterior door for the downstairs bathroom. Easy to run in/out and not track mud into the house! Sure the garage door is not that much further around but when a kid's gotta go, they WILL take the route that they perceive to be shortest. NOT having a door directly into the bathroom from outside makes it more likely, I think, that they'll decide to come in thru the patio doors cut thru the living room. And, I wouldn't worry about someone trying to come in while you're showering. You're going to be out in the country and that door is well hidden from the driveway. So the only folks who'll ever know it is there will be family members. Having one of them try to open the exterior door while you're showering is no different than family members possibly walking in on one another via an interior door. Not something to freak out about. I do think you should flip that downstairs bath tho so that you don't have a view directly into the bathroom from next to the fridge. I know that would put the plumbing into the wall shared with the study which isn't the greatest but you can greatly reduce the sounds of flushing water by using cast iron drain pipes so I don't really think that would be a huge problem. I don't like that there are no windows in the master bath upstairs and I also think it would be better to move the laundry a bit further away from the master bedroom. Wonder if you could move the laundry down to where the toilet and shower are and make the masterbath more squarish? If the vanities were then put on an interior wall, maybe there would be room for at least one window in the masterbath. I don't know about you but when I'm getting ready in the mornings, I really like having natural light in the bathroom. It helps me wake up! Plus, its easier to get one's makeup looking right and make sure one's socks actually MATCH under natural light. A dark blue sock and a black sock can look identical under artificial light - especially when you're half asleep anyway. LOL! You may get some negative feedback about the dogleg-shaped island in the kitchen. There are folks on this forum who think that that particular island shape is overdone. I like it however. It gives you a nice large work surface that is easily accessible on the kitchen side. And the bar seating on the back side allows for conversation between folks sitting there...unlike a long straight island that forces everyone to sit in a row like birds on a telephone wire. I love the way the staircase is open to the dining room. That is going to make that space feel very spacious. If you hang a pretty chandelier in the dining room, you'll get to see it from the staircase as you descend and maybe even be able to glimpse it from upstairs. I don't like that the laundry is right across from the stairs from the dining room tho...especially since the design shows an open railing between laundry room and staircase. If the door to the laundry room is left open, you would be able to stand downstairs in the dining room and look up and see into the laundry room. And, if you're doing laundry and leave the laundry room doors open while you have dinner, you'll be able to hear the washer and dryer running from the dining room. So...Another reason to move the laundry room down closer to the bonus room. Overall tho, this is a terrific design. Simple, classic, space efficient, and organized. I'm so glad you and NickE found each other on this forum. You're on your way to a lovely home and NickE is probably thrilled to have a chance to create a real life design for his architectural portfolio and see it actually get built! I doubt that there are that many architectural students who can show potential employers pictures of a house they designed and the client actually built. Keep us posted on revisions and I can't wait to see you start posting pics on the monthly "How is your build going?" thread.

So many good suggestions here, thank you. Thank you too, for the kind and encouraging words. We really love our home and location. When it came on the market we were thrilled. DH had been here several years prior to it being listed and done some work for the previous owners. He said at the time that if we were ever to move, this was the location where he'd love to live. We never dreamed they'd list it. A couple of years later we were ready to be done with our farming adventure and here this place was, suddenly on the market. But, when we came to see it, it was sobering to realize how much work it needed. We'd just spent 5 years redoing the farmhouse and outbuildings (and 4 years redoing the previous home, and 6 years the one before that, and...you get the picture.) It took us a few days to make up our minds whether or not we were willing to start all over again. The location made the difference for us. It's been exhausting, but we're relieved to be this far along in the process. In the meantime our kids are getting bigger and every hour that we spend working on this place feels like a drain on our family, so we really want to try to be selective with what we do. DH is relatively fussy, and hasn't seen the level of craftsmanship he would desire in local contractors, so by choice/default, he does everything himself. I haven't had much opportunity to talk with him about the garage idea yet. He was pretty tired last night, so I didn't bring it up. Thank you for the plant suggestions. Some were ones I haven't heard of, so I'm in the process of looking them up. :-) I really like the look of boxwoods, but the one caution I read is that they don't like wind, which we get a lot of here. Is that really a concern? It's interesting to hear that deer eat hostas. I haven't had any issues with that (yet), but they certainly have a wide variety of other vegetation to choose from in the surroundings. Roses sound wonderful. I do want lovely plants that we can see from our windows.

If you do decide to add shutters back to the double window, you do have room to make them the right size so they appear functional even if they aren't functional. The shutters on the double windows need to be much, much wider than what you had before. Here are two brief articles about the wrong and right size shutters so you can see why it makes a big difference on how your house appears - either finished or off. Adding hardware to the right sized shutters helps too. https://www.lifeofanarchitect.com/residential-architecture-101-shutters/ https://thecraftsmanblog.com/why-fake-shutters-make-me-angry/ In the examples below you see very wide shutters that appear to cover the windows. Notice the shutters are only on the windows where they look like they fit and not on the windows where there isn't enough room. The house is balanced. You don't need shutters on every window when they are decorative shutters. IMO placing too small decorative shutters on your windows only enhances the feeling that something is wrong with the house curb appeal. Your mind's eye see's the disconnect even if you don't recognize what it is that is throwing the balance off. Your original question asked about dark brown cedar on the bottom half of your house. I don't think that will enhance your home at all. I do think changing the shutters to the right size and changing the walkway to be wider and more welcoming will be a big help. Landscaping changes as mentioned are critical to improving the front. I like the idea of a proper portico like littlebug shows in her second example OR the big change that suezbell mentioned across the front (shed roof). But those changes are personal preference for you and not required at all IMO.