I'd install sprinklers and put down sod. Your driveway dominates that space. You need green lawn to soften as best you can. I had to look this up, but you have mild winters and hot, steamy summers, right? Add a straight line of miniature boxwood/ spruce for year round green. I'm pretty sure that deck railing planters are not an original feature of a Craftsman home, but it is a way to soften facade with green. There are Craftsman inspired planters.

Gorgeous house and you have some of my favorite glazed garden pots. You need DWARF evergreen shrubs along the foundation so they don't have to be trimmed a lot. You can vary the colors with plum leafed Chinese fringe flowers, youpon holly, blue rug junipers, and other shrubs or perennials like irises and mums. If you have enough acidic soil( pine needles) and some shade azaleas are beautiful. While you wait for the shrubs and perennials to mature and spread use some wildflower seeds and annuals to fill space. You can use herbs like creeping thyme or invasive mint as a fragrant ground cover and harvest a bit for cooking. See what perennials and herbs you can get from gardening neighbors and friends as pass along plants. Arrange your native rocks and pottery so the the plants spill over them. Once you have the shrubs and perennials establish you will only need to replant the pots from time to time.

This house is beautiful and I love that little breezeway on the side. Is there a lake in back? OMG!

Actually, yes -- a 980-acre, crystal-clear lake. Love life here! From our back deck last fall:

Sigh....