Great choice to widen your walk! You've asked a couple of times about the pavers. I think that if you can find brick that matches the color of your house bricks that it will add a consistency that is appealing. It may be difficult to find a gray paver that looks good with the gray of your house. I like bluestone, and it might work color-wise, but it also has a reputation for being slick in wet weather. You are also making a good choice to avoid yews if you have deer issues. I have plenty of deer, but also plenty of alternate food sources in our woodlands, and the one plant that the deer consistently nibbled down to stubs when I had them was yews. One other thing I noticed is that some of your current plants (such as the hydrangea behind the J. maple along the garage or the plants between the walkway and the garage) are planted too close to the building so that the plants are misshapen. When you replant near the building, be sure plants such as shrubs or large perennials have at least a foot or two from the expected ultimate size of the shrub and the building so that the plant isn't leaning out or rubbing up against the building once it is grown.

I would speculate that the overwhelming majority of landscaping that homeowners create is on account of their seeing and copying various commonly used landscape solutions .... not because they've thought through the effects of what they're doing. They're 'used to it' so that's what they think they prefer. Because they do not know a better alternative. With bringing the bed alongside the walk and visually in front of the entrance, you need to be careful that none of the plant material in this bed has much height. The higher it is, the more it makes the walk seem confined and the more it hides the path to the entrance. The more the path is obscured, the less "welcoming" the entrance seems. This is the most I could stand to do that, as I believe that doing more is crossing the line into bad effect. (BTW, the drawing does not purport to show everything you could do, It shows the basics of what you should do. There is always room to add a little more 'spark.' One just has to be careful that they don't add so much that the effect becomes cluttered or busy.) What is the literal difference of a shrub below the window vs. a hedge? The hedge would take 3 plants in a line to make, instead of just one. And by what I'm showing in the drawing, I'm making a suggestion to trim it rounded. The tendency of a hedge in front the foundation is, at some point, to look smothering, as if the plants, instead of decorating the house, are oppressing it. I don't really have concise way to explain it, but I've spent many decades observing it and find the smothered look to be less good than the non-smothered look. If we were to draw an interior decorating analogy, there is a style that lines the walls of a room solid with furniture. You might commonly see this in people's homes, but you're not so much likely to see it in Architectural Digest, which aspires to higher design standards. To me, the hedge is blocky and looks clunkier. Don't misunderstand ... am I saying it's evil? Not hardly! It's something I've used myself at earlier times in my professional career. But I rarely use or recommend it now because I think it's inferior to the alternative. There would be times when a foundation is ugly and must be hidden. But that is not much the case with most houses built in the last few decades. One other point about shrubs and hedge, that I am reminded of by looking at your first picture, you need to learn to trim these properly. Their bottom are always wider than their tops. Or at the very least, they are not narrower. Keep in mind ... we are still working in PERSPECTIVE VIEW. By looking at the above drawing can you tall exactly how many feet out the bed extends from the house face? No! you can only speculate about it. In plan view, we could tell exactly to the inch.

Cut the bushes down, and do a nice landscaping detail, other than that you don't need anything else...you have a beautiful house as-is and the porch looks great. Good luck

Love technology when it works ;) I'll keep trying - IPad app keeps closing on me.