It looks great!

Your house is so pretty! I know you are so excited to be able to move in and make it your new home.

I have a hard time thinking of it as pretty.
I love my lake house best, the folks that bought it
can't even begin to know the love and hard work that
has gone into this house. I miss it already, but it's
time to move on.

I'm trying to figure out the design for a new garden
at the new place. I plan to take some of my flowers from
this house to the new one.

What do y'all think I should do with the front yard?
I'm debating on whether to get rid of the straight walkway
to the street and then take out the walkway to the driveway
and put in a curved wider walkway. I think it needs some
trees in front.

It looks great! And I'm sure the neighbors also appreciate all the improvements you've made. The front walk definitely needs to be widened & depending how people get to the front door, maybe connected to the drive. Around here people tend to pull up in out drive vs. coming up from the street, so that's where my mind goes.

Besides a couple of trees - maybe of the spring flowering variety? - I'd put in some curving flower beds to ease the geometric severity of the front lawn. Since it's January, you can spend some time planning - half the fun of gardening.

Your house looks very appealing! I, also, think connecting the sidewalk with the driveway would be a good idea. When/if people pull into the driveway, they'll probably walk across the grass to the front door, anyway. Might as well make it easy on them and the grass. :>)

Jan,it's a great house and to be able to have Katrina there is just the best thing of all. I can only imagine how you must feel about the lake house and you've also mentioned a mt. house which sounded really nice. I think this house is pretty and clean looking if you know what I mean. As for the front yard or any other gardens,if it were me I wouldn't do anything until I lived there for awhile and watched the sun come up and the sun go down and really get a feel for the property. Then decide what you want to do. Maybe I'm the wrong person to advise on that because it took me one full year to finally decide where I wanted the rose garden to go and what shape I wanted it to be.

{{gwi:140447}}

This is what it used to look like.
I am planning on taking out both walks, doing away with
the one to the street and changing the location, building
a curved wider walkway to the driveway.
I want to add some trees in front and enlarge the planting
area to include some more color. I'll probably do a sod
in the front but cut down the size of the grass area.

I want to do a patio and flower gardens in the back along
with evergreen trees and berry producing plantings for the
birds. I'm not going to put in a pond because it is a
small yard but a birdbath with a dripper will be great
and the birds love it.

It needs some curves for sure.

Wow! Jan, you've made great choices. I don't care what Jaz says, your paint makes it stand out. I think it's as dignified as you need while still being warm and inviting, much like yourselves. Awesome. Yes to all your plans, especially the plantings. Curved is also especially good for someone cutting the grass, less to have to weedeat.

What a difference! Your "new" version looks lovely. You should be on HGTV!