The house could easily stand an enhanced pedestrian approach to the entrance, as it is presently, not truly inviting. Are cars typically parked in the drive and people need to skirt them in order to get to the front door? Then you may want to widen the drive, flaring it to include the walk to the front door. If cars are not usually in the way, then you could just extend the walk partway along the drive edge. keeping the rest of the drive the same width as it is now. What you do will depend on needs and budget.

It would be backwards to make calls to contractors for rejuvenating the yard, before you have a landscape design. Getting ideas here might be a start, but those ideas must be converted to a PLAN before they are meaningful. Either you must make the plan, or you need to hire a landscape designer to make it. That may be a service offered by a landscape contractor (some can and some can't) but then you'll be paying them for the design service, even if the fee is hidden in the construction work. One function of design is getting the proposed work to fit within the budget. If you want to make hardscape changes, the cost can add up quickly. Be sure the designer knows what you're trying to accomplish with the allotted budget. It's best to know up front if the desires are possible ... or unrealistic.

Thanks Yardvaark! I like the walkway renders, I hadn’t considered shapes like that. Could I ask what software you use to do your mockups?

Unless there are multiple visitors we usually don’t have a vehicle on the front door side of the driveway but do park on on the polygon slab on the opposite side.

Totally agree on needing a plan but since I don’t have a creative bone in my body I was going to just aim to hire someone who could also help with that, until I found this site and decided to reach out for help here as a starting point.

It's fine to use the LD Forum as a starting point for creativity. The mistake people make, and what I'm trying to warn you about, is hiring a contractor with the expectation that THEY will come up with design. Some can. Some can't. You need to make sure they have design skills or better, hire a landscape designer whose portfolio you've reviewed. That designer may be part of a build team, or have build contacts. You have to place the horse before the cart. Your introductory sentence suggests it's possibly going to go the other way.

For the graphics, I'm using MS Paint, with a stylus on a touchscreen. If you don't have that kind of computer, you're pretty much limited to the line and shape tools.

I would also caution that unless you do a lot of the work yourself, your $15K budget is not gonna go very far.

Probably one of the biggest eye openers for folks new to the process is how much landscaping costs. Not with the design - that is a minimal expense for what you get - and not so much even with the plants and materials. The biggest price tag is labor, so the more you can do yourself, the farther your budget will stretch. And a qualified landscape designer can help you maximize that.

I agree with both my colleague's comments. All good points.

It's unclear what is happening at this area -- near the house ... and if the neighbor's house being screened is one or two story. If it's two story, we should be seeing it. (It would be helpful to post sharper pictures of everything.)