Hollies are very amenable to hard pruning. If it's to your taste you could keep them clipped as a squared off formal hedge to act as a backdrop for the maple and the rounded box(?) bushes. Yew is often used for this purpose but holly would work fine.

I'm concerned that digging out the hollies would damage the roots of the JM. Another vote to prune & keep the hollies.

Thank you so much! Excellent points. "I think the evergreen hollies as a backdrop will highlight the bare maple’s branch structure."

I actually looked back at some photos from when we looked at the house and you're spot on.

I will bring them down in height and then shape them.

Any ideas on what to do with the left side of the house? It's a bit unneat right now with some hollies, a few different other shrubs and an Azalea.

For plant recommendations you need to tell us your location (nearest big city & state). Thanks!

Sure thing, Raleigh NC. Here is the left side that needs work. Ideally would just be cleaning things up / removing / transplanting etc. The lower left hedges there actually flower white in summer.

I would not shape them into meatballs as in the old picture. I'd keep them as a hedge, not individual blobs. And I'd do both sides the same.

If you post close ups of the foliage of the left hand shrubs which flower white we can probably tell you what they are.

The type of hollies you have are too large to be foundation plants under the window. Here some suggestions to put your landscape in balance & scale:

If kept clipped, they are not too large to make a formal hedge. Much larger species, such as yew, beech or hornbeam, are amenable to such treatment and holly is smaller than those.

The good thing about the hollies is their evergreen-ness, which is really appreciated in winter. The Japanese maple will be just 'sticks' for 4-5 months out of the year. Sure, there are other broad-leafed evergreens (BLEs) that would grow more slowly, (and be less spiny), but Chinese holly can take a LOT of pruning. I'd do hard pruning in mid-winter when they are more or less dormant. Then they'll shoot out in spring.

What is the low-growing BLE in the front of them? Another kind of holly?

The maple is beautiful. The hollies are boring but maybe useful. Hack them down and live with them for a couple years. No meatballs. I’ve never understood the builder habit of planting bushes in front of windows that want to grow thirty feet tall…

Thank you!

"What is the low-growing BLE in the front of them? Another kind of holly?"

I'm not sure. The lighter yellow ones appear 'Sawara False Cypress'? The darker green ones that flower white I wasn't able to identify.

"No meatballs." - what does this mean?

Everything on the left is squeezed into the narrow bed. Consider deepening the bed on the left side (to the same depth as the bed on the right) in order to move the front row of low bushes further out. It would also make room for any annuals you wish to plant as the one that is there is squeezed in.

https://www.plantdelights.com/blogs/articles/how-to-prune-plants?srsltid=AfmBOoql7MFrSsfDb6uAfxAQ0TpuVkozwOa841MZPpUfNR0G96SEbC0j

Your hollies appear to be Needlepoint holly https://www.wilsonbrosgardens.com/ilex-cornuta-needlepoint-holly-1g.html or Burford holly.

The white flowered shrubs appear to have opposite foliage, so they're not any kind of holly. As to the tall hollies at the back of the beds the pictures are too far away to give them a specific id.

the white flowered shrubs in front are possibly dwarf gardenias.

If you keep them, prune them lower than the window sill. I did that at a previous house and the new growth was too tall immediately. I wished I had cut it lower to begin with to allow space for new growth at the top. I did eventually get rid of them because the sills were too low for that plant.

@Matthew R Last month you asked ”"No meatballs." - what does this mean?” No one answered you. I’m late to party here but in case you haven’t figured it out - meatball pruning is the result you have in your pics of shrubs pruned into an unnatural round ’meatball’ shape. Shrubs pruned this way usually indicate pruning with power hedger - fast, quick, no thought to best appearance. Pruning this way usually causes dense growth at ends of branches & nothing but bare branches inside the shrub since no light can pass through the dense outer layer.