We bought this house six months ago. As you can see by the photos, the yard is a beast. Previous owners never maintained anything, and as such, there was a ton of overgrown trees, bushes, and now weeds, everywhere. Believe it or not, we removed FIVE huge trees from the main yard, so the attached photos are AFTER those tree removals. We've also gone through and removed a ton of unnecessary and ugly bushes, and plants. We left three of SIX rose bushes that used to be there. It's all very overwhelming. As much as we'd love to find the time to hop out there and chip away at it, we have a 1 and 4 year old and life is just too busy, apparently, to make that an easy feat. So I'm sure we'll have to hire somebody to make it pretty. But $$ (as usual) is a big obstacle.

What we want out of our front yard: No lawn, we don't want or need green grass in front. Maybe the back, but that's a whole other can of worms. It would be nice to have a sitting area of some sort as the sun hits the front during the last half of the day. It would be nice to be able to sit out there to watch the sun set sometimes. The ground is covered in old, ratty black plastic tarp-ing that was (at one time) meant to keep the weeds from surfacing. Now it just looks trashy and gross, shredded everywhere and popping out from behind the weeds that grow without impunity. My wife isn't interested in weed control with chemicals that might be harmful to us (which I appreciate of course) but that makes me wonder if there's anything that's nearly as effective at eradicating the weed infestation that doesn't contain those chemicals.

Some ideas:
-wiping out that edgy sidewalk leading from the driveway to the front door and doing something less angled... maybe lined with some nice bushes/flowers/shrubs.
-Maybe create a sitting area along the house that extends the front door stoop outward in someway, creating a place for a few chairs for relaxing.
-The yard will likely need something to cover the space (around appropriately placed plants of course)...Not sure about wood or rubber chips. What about nice large river rock? Stone slats?
-Maybe a stone wall structure out front near the sidewalk that can enable the yard above it to be raised in some way? If that happens, do we kiss the rose bushes goodbye?
-DEFINITELY get rid of that huge juniper bush spaceship on the left side there. Goodbye, smell ya later.

Honestly, this world is now YOUR oyster. What would YOU do with this blank slate and where on earth to even begin? Getting rid of the massive infestation of weeds seems like step one, but how?

Help me obi-wan-ka-houzz. Your my only hope.