Here is another picture:

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Now that you've reduced, removed, and recycled, ; ) I suggest you live through the seasons with your remaining landscape, observing how things fill out, what you like, what you don't like. If you must dig in the dirt (I often get that urge), fill in the blank spaces with some colorful annuals. Let the garden speak to you. Observe the shapes, forms, textures and how they complement each other (or don't). Spend some time absorbing garden books and magazines, and next spring you'll be ready, and know what to do. No rush; although your initial result is somewhat sterile-looking, at least you have some decent trees and grass and much of what may become your foundation plantings. I would encourage your desire to deepen and extend the beds (and read about 'tree circles' while you're at it). While some gardens are made in a season and then forever manicured and maintained, the best gardens are built over time, layer upon layer, with continued editing and re-selecting, additions and deletions sometimes done by nature, sometimes done by the gardener's hand.

OK, you have some plants and want to add to them. You have some idea of what plants you like. You want to put it all together in a pleasing landscape, right? First, you need to know what you want the end product to look like. Formal, japanese, informal, etc.
Then, research those plants that you liked at Menards and the ones that you have existing. See how big they get, water and sun requirements, etc. (You also need to know how much sun you get in these beds.) How much maintenance do you want? How about flowers? I would suggest you keep with shrubs for low maintenance, but lots of shrubs have a flowering season.
You also need to think about winter, and how much and where you want evergreens.
Then - think about shape. You don't want all rounded mounds. Make sure the plants you choose have different shapes (round, vase, pyramid, etc.).

OK, now that you have done some research and have an idea of the plants that would do well for you:

Take the pictures of your house. Put a clear plastic overlay on it and 'draw' in the mature size and shape of the shrubs you have now that you want to keep. Draw in the shrubs you like (and have the right requirements) to see if the shape and mature size is pleasing.
Next, use a different overlay to draw in a 'winter' landscape with only the evergreens showing, and see if that is pleasing to you.
Lastly - figure out if the blooms of these plants (if there are any) are going to compliment your house and each other.
Your flowering tree is absolutely gorgeous, but I would hesitate to enlarge the beds around it right now. Perhaps later. :)

First...porch? Might be too expensive now, but that's the biggest thing I see a need for. If you want one in the future, then you'll want CHEAP landscaping for now.

I think reyesuela is on the right track, although it may be taking you where you don't want to go and you may be thinking, "I just want y'all to tell me what bushes to plant!"

It's not so much, porch or no porch, but just taking the time to brainstorm about curb appeal and inviting entry. Look at some books on that--entry ways, Exterior Makeovers, that kind of thing--to see. Your home has a neat tidy exterior. The front door style and color and landing stoop are not its best features, however. You might find a design or concept that is affordable and that complements the rest of the exterior, and usually these type photos will also include "landscaping" (meaning plant material, here) that complements that and show you the shapes, colors and placement that would go with, say, a broader entry landing, or a front porch or portico. So the main point is, give some thought to your front entryway itself before trying to pick shrubs and place them around the existing entry and foundation. If you find a great idea that might work, at the least you could try to avoid planting stuff you would have to rip out soon.

This approach would be even more important if there are functional problems with the entryway, such as, if you and your family use it often or if visitors usually to enter there and if there are any annoying aspects (weather, negotiating the swing of the door) that would be useful if corrected, and not just a curb appeal issue. Meanwhile you can play around with some annuals or shrubs in containers.

I think it would be helpful to take a single picture of the entire width of the house and yard. If it's not possible to get a panoramic view with one shot, then assemble a picture of the entire house from multiple photos. You need to see how the various parts of the house and landscaping interact with each other.

Re. the entrance, if you aren't enlarging the porch/landing -- or even if you are -- consider widening and deepening the area of the walk in front of the porch/landing. That will give you room for decorative containers (or something else) to help emphasize the entrance. It will also allow more space for arriving guests (more useful if you entertain people who use the front entrance). If it were my house, I would deepen the bed to the left of the front door to balance the walkway.

Thank you so much for the advice! I like the porch idea, but have noooo idea what type of porch would look good on this house. Anyone have suggestions?

We eventually want to paint the door/shutters black and someday replace the front door (I really don't care for the design).

As far as the style of the trim around the front door... I have no clue what to do with it all! Our last house was just a little starter home... a small cottage with "additions"... so there was NO curb appeal whatsoever. Now we have this huge house and I have no clue how to design anything LOL!

I will work on getting a full picture of the house.

Re. porch designs -- at the risk of making a fool of myself, I will go out on a limb and say that your house is a garrison Colonial. The way the second floor extends beyond the first floor (which is all I know about garrison Colonials) means the vast majority of porch designs won't work on your house, and it will take someone fairly knowledgeable about construction to understand what will work on your house.

Go to Google Images and search "garrison Colonial." Only a small percentage of the pictures show porches with roofs, but there are zillions of pictures of garrison Colonials, so you'll find a lot of porch roofs eventually.

You could also check at your public library; they probably don't have any books on garrison Colonials -- or even a book on New England architecture that would have enough pictures of garrison Colonials to be worthwhile. BUT they might be able to Interlibrary Loan you a book on garrison Colonials from another library system. [I'm a retired librarian, so I gotta do the recommend-Interlibrary-Loan thing.]

Another possibility is to try one of the Home Forums. I rarely use any of those forums, but I've heard they give good decorating and design advice. Post your whole-house picture as well as a view of the center, garrison Colonial portion of the house, and ask what kind of porch or porch roof they would suggest.

At the top of this page, mouse over the heading "Forums" and choose "Home Forums" from the drop-down menu.

The most likely forums there look to be Home Decorating, Remodeling, or Porches & Decks.

I'd paint your trim something like a evergreen green , something with a little more brightness than what you have..
Also what about a taller evergreen .. I think you need some height at the "points" or corners of the house
Good luck!
Lynn

This is probably going to be an unwelcome comment... my apologies, but the house triggers my roofline obsession again...! This is a perfect example of a house that could be so much more than it is and no amount of landscaping and porch addition is going to fix the fundamental problem. The problem is the addition looks like a separate house attached to the main one rather than an integrated part of the whole. The main reason it doesn't fit together is because the addition roof did not continue the line and style of the main house's roof. So there's this big void on the left above the addition's roof that no amount of landscaping is going to fix. It would have been so simple for whoever renovated it to have built it right!

If this was my house, the first priority for significant inprovement would be to modify the roof of the addition. I'd probably have an architect draw up the plan for a 'false' roof - i.e. build out over the existing roof rather than tear off and rebuild from the walls up. A good contractor could likely do it without the involvement of an architect but I'd want to make sure ventilation was properly addressed as well as consistency in style and balance of lines; I'd rather trust a good architect on that than just a contractor. It wouldn't be difficult and shouldn't be too expensive to do but it's likely not a priority for spending if you're in the process of financially 'digesting' the cost of the new house. Changing the roofline would make a big improvement in resale value - a lot of people might not be able to identify what it is that is 'wrong' with the house as it is but would shy away from it because it looks 'odd' somehow. With the right roofline, it would look large and attractive; very marketable. (I agree that a porch would be nice. If the roof of the porch had the same pitch as the house roof - a good idea - and extended out to match depth of the extension, the roof would start probably about halfway down the second story windows. The windows would cut into the roof sort of dormer-like.)

If you plan to stay there awhile, think about changing that roofline at some point. I think you'd love the improvement it would make to the house and its resale value.

Woodyoak: I COMPLETELY agree with you! The addition is the garage (below, obviously) and a separate apartment (above). Eventually, we'd like to renovate and make the apartment a master suite (its about 500sq ft) with a doorway going into our current "master" bedroom. I would, ideally, like to have an architect redesign the roofline and also extend out the back of the house a tad to add on a 2 car garage. (Currently, the garage is just 1-car.... they took part of it and made it the stairwell/storage up to the apartment and the other part a mudroom).

I agree... the roofline is jacked up over there and funny you should mention it, but at first I didn't want to look at this house when we saw it on the market because it looked hideous from the outside (the landscaping took over the bottom half of the house and the top half was the windows/jacked up roofline!!) Thankfully, my husband convinced me to go inside and we do love the floorplan (traditional colonial style, center staircase). It has so much potential for us in the long run so we're trying to slowly decide what to do with things as many of the things we want to do are big money changes and we can't afford that right now.

For now, we're focusing on just getting some decent looking plants/shrubs/whatnot out front so that the house doesn't look so terrible. I'd like to get a new front door and paint the shutters/front door black. Eventually... the huge garage/master suite renovation LOL!

Thank you for all the wonderful ideas. I did take a full frontal photo of the house and will attempt to "draw" in some plants to see how things might look.

Does anyone have any suggestions on moving "settled" plants... we have 2 spirea and 2 holly bushes that I'm assuming have been there awhile but I'd like to relocate them. Is that possible?

The spirea should move pretty easily in a couple of hours (do it in the fall). The hollies may not be worth the trouble. They can be moved but it would be so much work, for a not so valuable plant. But I tend to make these decisions based on paying for labor so...
The house seems to be screaming out for some flowers. No offense but you sound like a total newbie so here is what I would do. Go to maynards or better yet a real local nursery. Buy things that can be divided in a year or two. Buy several different types of day lillies a couple of iris's buy a few ajuga's order a bulb set or two on line. Buy a big ole bag of daffodils in fall. Plant the ajuga along The front walk it will spread and can be divided as soon as next year. Plant the various day lilies between the shrubs (slightly in front of). I would recommend a climbing hydrangea to mask that hideous corner where The vinyl meets The brick. I would go with some sort of gold evergreen on either side of The front door, Chamaecyparis  pisera or C obtusa should work nicely. I think a pair of obtusa's on either side of The door would do a lot to take the eye away from that corner. I am a firm believer that shurbs should fill in The areas that aren't flowering. Ever greens should keep The place from looking blank in winter.

If you start with a base of evergreens, then fill in with some shurbs for volume (hollies sperea ect) than you fill in The empty spaces with flowers that bloom at various times through out The season. I hope this helps