I think I might use cast iron plant and fatsia japonica as the "foundation" plants. Throw in some hydrangeas along the side, pink would be a great color for this house. Instead of any kind of "lawn" I'd probably put in a patch of the very narrow leaf or dwarf mondo grass on each side of a walkway up the front stairs. Maybe a square on each side, to represent a lawn. Frame the "open" side of the yard in some evergreen azaleas and I think you'd be set.

GGG

The house has such strong horizontal lines - the roof, the porch railing, the porch floor, the steps - that I think I would continue the horizontal lines with a low, fairly formal hedge at the sidewalk. I can't think what would do that in shade except saracocca, but I'm sure there are other choices. That would give the yard some enclosure without hemming it in. I might also stop the hedge short of the sidewalk to the porch and put a couple of square planters there to echo the posts at the bottom of the steps. It looks like that spot might have enough sun to put some color into the yard to brighten it up. Or at least some caladiums in the planters to lighten it up.
I'd definitely make the sidewalk to the door the same width as the stairs. This house is so symmetrical, that whatever I did one one side of the yard I would repeat on the other. I would line the sidewalk to the porch with something that spills over onto it a little to soften it - hostas or annuals. I'd keep all the plants in front of the house low. I like GGG's idea to use dwarf mondo for a lawn - saw a house with black mondo once for the lawn. It was gorgeous, but don't know that it would go with the color of this house. Hope this helps.

Three words for ya.
White
Picket
Fence
It doesn't grow but I think it will look great there. Just for decoration.

I'd put in some ordinary stuff like dwarf hollies and some narrow junipers on either side of the steps. Maybe a serviceberry or dogwood as a small specimen tree. I know, my ideas are boring. But they work.

What a great little bungalow. Seeing this picture made me think of a walk I took on Catalina Island once on streets where the homes were set only maybe 3-5 feet back from the sidewalk (which should make the space available with this one look real good). As I recall, there was a lot of use of vertical plantings (!), but the creativity in developing these artistic and memorable mini-landscapes was outstanding, and every one was different.

I'm sadly short on that sort of creativity, but one thing that occurs to me would be to set a very short retaining wall just a foot or two inside the sidewalk to create some division, with a simple ground cover next to the sidewalk. If the setback would allow, maybe even that fence on top of it. In addition to greater separation, that would hopefully give some feeling of further distance and privacy by creating near ground outside the fence, middle ground inside, and far ground at the porch, and vice versa. ??

Talk to someone who is knowledgable about installing NATIVE plants; ferns etc. There was a cover story a couple of years ago in 'Fine Gardening' magazine about this sort of problem...