Our house faces the west so we get a lot of afternoon sun. The front yard is average size for our area even though our lot is almost an acre. Our back yard is rather large and another story! ha ha My wife loves Hydrangeas so we're thinking about planting them down the side you can see in the pics. Our neighbor has planted azaleas and hydrangeas down their side and they're doing pretty good. I do like the idea of the bean shaped island even though I see that a lot in our neighborhood. Adding a few red knockouts out there may work. About the shade tree...I'm not sure if we have the room. The maple is supposed to grow to 15-25ft so that may be a little too much up front. What I would really like to do is transplant all the hawthorne's to the rear and plant either knockouts or encore azalea's in their place. I would also like to add two of whatever I plant on the right side in front of the ligustrums. I'm not sure if this would look okay or be too much. I've been cutting back the ligustrum but I guess I could let them get a little taller depending on what I plant. I would like to keep with the same size, 2-3ft since I like the natural shape of shrubs. We started with a bunch of dirt a couple years ago but we're getting there..here is my nightmare of a back yard, It goes back over 240ft. We did add some Crape Myrtles down both sides and will be redoing all the beds in a couple weeks in preparation of our privacy screen, chindo viburnums, that are supposed to "play nicely" with the myrtles.

Thank you all for your amazing suggestions!!!! Love them all!!! I'm sorry for so much confusion with this space and for my limited time to respond at this moment! The glass table and most of the plants are presents, so I'm aware of the crazy space I created, wanting to keep all... :( The purpose for the glass table was to have an area to maybe have some drinks and listen to the piano.. below is the area showing the piano.. hoping this gives you a better idea of the space. The bench is a recent acquisition (but I may return it).. just because I thought something was missing in front of that glass table, places to sit... then I thought about adding a cowhide rug underneath.. but I love all your kind suggestions, rearranging the furniture around the fireplace.. I do not have much space to the right.. because it is sort of a walking space where people enters from the garage..also, on the left the entrance door is kind of wide.. I'm attaching some more pics after I semi-rearranged the furniture following some of decoratingdilemma's suggestions (I do not have a place to put those two heavy chairs, for now..).. and of course missing some of the other suggestions since I just came for lunch and have limited time. The last picture shows the table moved however the bench looked kind of too small against the wall.. or what do you think? Thank you all!!!

Here is what I am working with. Thank you!

Need ideas for curb appeal! Brick? Flower boxes? Shrubs? Door color? Thank you!!