First, keep your eyes open as perennials may be there that have not come up yet.

Watch for peonies and such.

It looks like you need a few shrubs.

Not a row of meatballs, but on either side of the porch and on the corners anyway.

Thanks, msloolue. I agree that I need shrubs - if I'm going to add any though I want them to look more natural than meatballs. I love the image!

So far I've seen four each of daffodils and red tulips.

Congratulations on your first house! I am a hydrangea lover.
I would plant a bush under the large window or if you want to keep the light in
the years to come plant it in-between the two smaller windows that I assume are
the bedroom.

This! YES YES

Thank you both. Yes, the two small windows are bedrooms and the large one is the living room. There's a concrete slab below the large window. Miacometlady, thank you, Kerra and I were talking about exactly that, meandering beds. I especially like the edged bed with the hostas. I'm considering how hard it might be to move that Japanese maple over to the area in front of the living room window.

May I say that if you are game, this house would be darling more bold in color - a barn red house with white shutters and trim and door would feel pretty cute. Especially in rainy oregon, this would be nice to come home to and make a great backdrop for your new garden. You could go more modern and take off the shutters, add fatter trim in off white and paint your front door eggplant. You didn't ask about this - but the siding you have is wonderfully contemporary. Earthtones are fine .. but you might as well have a neat front door color - blue green, eggplant, mossy green ... all good with your light trim color.

Thanks for the input, Libradesigneye! Yes, barn red would be awesome. Not sure we can do that right now. The white door you see in the photo is a storm door- the door behind it is the same color as the trim.

I thought it might be - painting the whole house is a big job or big bill - congrats on your new space. The white storm door looks good with the shutters you have going now - if you were going to be brave with a garden color for the door with all this taupe . . .a dark coral / orangey pink might be fun - bm fan coral . .http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-color/fancoral

me, i'm an eggplant fan - bm tulsa twilight or one shade up http://www.benjaminmoore.com/en-us/paint-color/blackraspberry

A sample size of paint will get two coats on the door behind the storm if you want / willing to do a little personalization. It should be fun, represent you and possibly carry out an accent color in the house (you don't have to paint the house side of the door!)

I did a little playing with Photoshop, found a front walk image I like and squished it into my photo. Moved my maple over to fit in where they had a slightly taller tree. I like how this looks but don't know about execution. It might be too ambitious for me. Also doesn't address the boring blank corners to either side, but I really like the dry creekbed and curved walk from the driveway. Only negative is not a lot of height variation, but that may be because of my squishing. I'll see if I can find the original image again to link in here, it was from a discussion about a year ago - here it is: http://st.houzz.com/simgs/ccb2ab10011fb3a8_7-2107/home-design.jpg

You have a ton of potential. I'd recommend meeting with a local landscape designer and getting a master plan.

The wonders of photoshop!! What a great idea.

The most "ambitious" part of that particular design appears to be the curved walk from the doorstep to mid-driveway. Which you could do with pavers or stepping stones instead a cement walk. You could widen the mulch bed on either side of the dry-bed and add a few azaleas or grasses. Meander the dry-bed away from the drive-way midpoint of the walk and create a raised bed to put a lilac or hydrangea in between the walk & the mailbox. I envision a few more soft curves than this representation.