We need to see details in a closer up complete scene. Stand in line with the front door, about at the edge of the birch island (nearest house) and take a series of slightly overlapping photos beginning at left, showing a portion of the garage, and then panning the camera rightward until the front corner of the right neighbor's house is captured. Then move to the curb, in line with center of house and capture another scene, panning from left curb to right curb. Post the individual photos, not a computer generated panorama.

In fixing the walk, I'd make it wider -- at least as wide as the arched opening. Adding brick in the driveway paving could improve overall appearances, even just doing a border around the edges, maybe 2-3 ft. wide, and horizontally at the expansion joints. That may not be in the budget of course, but it would step up the look.

About the heavy-looking birch trees -- honestly have no experience with this particular tree, but purely from a "pretty picture" standpoint, taking out the 2 trunks closest to the driveway would lighten up the view. It's never an easy decision to remove mature trees, and local wisdom should prevail, not advice from 1,000 miles away.

Thanks Vstavay. I don't need much arm twisting to buy boulders.

Here are some more pictures of the front of the house and one of the NE corner of the back yard just for context. Large wooded back yard 25 or so feet lower than front edge of house.

Neighbors to the west, hickory trees (2) between drives

Emperor II maple, small yellow tipped cedar (2 years old and not really thriving in this spot) and some wild geranium showing.

yews under window, pot with heuchera, crepe myrtle, small rose, and annuals surrounded by sedum, blue atlas cedar, and groundcover (plumbago)

Partway down the slope between the houses is a redbud and then a Norway maple.

From curb. Neighbors redbud and our white pine showing part way down the slope. Grasses surround utility boxes. These are just starting to grow for the season and they belong to neighbor.

I do mixed container planting in big pot in front of garage and pot on porch each year for color and interest. These change every year and won't be done for another week.

Three birch surrounded by ivy and a little geranium.

kiminpl- Thanks for the idea. I'm not sure that the HOA would let me use brick on the drive. 25 years ago it was against the rules, but that may have changed. We will be redoing the drive along with the sidewalk. My husband is interested in stamped concrete for the drive. I'm not sure that will look good. I was thinking that if we widened the sidewalk maybe I'd leave the stoop brick and then basically band a concrete sidewalk with brick. That way we'd still have the old brick that matched the stoop. You can't see the door color in the photos. Now it's green but I'm repainting it this year - maybe brick red.

I would smother the stone siding with an ivy, climbing roses, or just about anything.

That's surprising. I once had pyracantha trained to five equally spaced wires against the stone left of the maple tree. But after working on that for maybe three years I decided that it didn't look good enough (the southern most branch never filled out. I should have started with five plants, one wire per plant instead of making them branch). I would worry that ivy could damage the mortar, but something else might work.

If it were me and I was going to redo the front walk I would just do poured concrete in an oval shape to mirror the bed around the trees in front of the house. That's the least maintenance. Yes, remove the yews, they should not be trimmed in an unnatural box shape for a home as natural looking as yours. Don't know what the tree is next to the yew shrubs, maybe blue atlas cedar or blue spruce? Either way, it is going to get big so you may want to move it now while you still can. It's a "specimen tree" meant to be viewed from afar, so I'd put it in the back yard, "afar" from the house where I could take it in while sitting on the back patio or looking out the back window. You could take out the front set of birches with two trunks, that is the one that blocks the view the most. I wouldn't do that, but I am a tree hugger. Where the yews and that blue green tree are, I would put some flowering trees or shrubs that would remain small, and maybe something that smells nice to greet me as I walked up to the front door. You don't say your zone, but it appears to be a 4 season area so I'd put in some rugosa roses (but that's just me) maybe mixed with hydrangeas. That's what I have in my front entrance way. Roses can get buggy, so if you want something even less maintenance, shrubby cinquefoil and low growing spirea are just about as easy peasy as it gets. "Knock out" roses don't smell as great as a rugosa but are more foolproof, depending on your zone. BTW, there are small evergreens you could put next to your house. There are some small junipers that would fit the bill, or a bird's nest blue spruce (which I don't particularly care for but some folks love). But like I said, not sure what that is by the yew hedge, it may be a dwarf for all I know but it doesn't look like it from my casual glance.