You might want to try the landscape design forum, they are pretty good at giving suggestions, although they will probably ask more questions first.

Hostas of course will do well with part shade and stay short and mounding with good looking foliage and low maintenance during the season.

I LOVE the color of your cabin/cottage!

Very small shrubs that might do well there are things like dwarf rhododendrons (I love 'Purple Gem'), Euonymus (like 'Emerald and Gold'), barberry, dwarf mugo pine, creeping juniper, etc. They require very little maintenance and all but the barberry will retain their leaves through winter.

For a flowering shrub I would suggest a dwarf viburnum.
Remy

Hi guys! Thank you so much for your compliments and suggestions! I'm busy looking up all your recommendations online! Have any of you tried the dwarf globe style blue spruce? I'm thinking that might look very nice with a few others mentioned above...

Define part shade - spruce don't do well with lots of shade.

Look at Mountain Laurels. I have two in zone 4 and they are doing OK. Well, one is, the other was devastated by deer. The flowers are beautiful in spring. Shiny oval green leaves would be a good contrast to the maple. There are dwarf types also.

HI! Thank you all for your suggestions, they are very helpful! I've been seriously considering a few Potentilla mango tango, and mixing that with a couple other small round bushes (from the suggestions above), and then adding something informal and a little bit taller than 1-2' just to break it up a bit-maybe grass or a slightly taller (3') evergreen? Decisions, decisions!