There is a stunning combination in Christopher Lloyd "Color for Adventurous Gardeners" page 39. In the picture are fuschia purple garden Phlox, bright orange asiatic lilies, orange/red Helenium, chrome yellow Euphorbia & some Allium seed heads. Maybe if you try bright orange lilies, something yellow and the new Helenium that Bluestone is offering......I might throw in a few Larkspur seeds as well.... :-) Gorgeous lantern, by the way. What a find.

I lived with a small patch of goutweed, (sometimes also called "bishop's weed") in my front yard. Every year it would start out great and then get scraggly looking. I read in a random landscaping book that if you weed whack off all the tops AFTER IT FLOWERS, it will come back and fill in and look lush again the rest of the year. I started doing that every year, when the flowers started to go to seed, I weed whacked them and got rid of them. That will also keep it from spreading via seed to nearby area, somewhat. However, the issue you have around your spruces is probably a lot more than just shade. A lot of decomposing spruce needles can affect soil nutrient availability. Also, the roots of the spruces will compete for those nutrients with whatever you plant there, even goutweed. It too may get straggly. I struggled with straggly groundcover plants growing under a tree in my yard for years. Eventually I got big pots and filled them with impatiens for color. In that way, I was able to provide the nutrients the plants needed to grow. Vinca, lamium, or ajuga might also do well, but in general, I have found that groundcover under pines tends to be sparse. If it were me, I'd experiment with a plant called partridgeberry or squawberry first, scientific name Mitchella repens, mixed in with maybe Christmas fern, Polystichum acrostichoides or one of the smaller leaved heucheras. I've seen all of those doing reasonably well under pines. YMMV.

I suppose I like the light colors and relaxing vibe of the farmhouse look, but would opt for traditional over trendy. Would wood trim and white walls still allow me to accomplish a farmhouse look?

You are the last person who should be building a house in a subdivision. I'm not saying that as an insult, either. I am saying that you have an individualistic mentality that does not go well with having rules or neighbors. You will never be totally happy in that environment. I can see that because my husband is very much the same way. He doesn't look for controversy, though , and likes a drama-free life, but he still wouldn't like being told what he could and couldn't do (either by a HOA or CC&R's).