The garages are on side of house & the driveway connects to street? Or are they at back of home? The only path / walk to front door is the small circular stepping stones? Will circular drive connect to existing (if it’s on side) or will circular connect to street at both ends of drive? And, it will be primary guest parking? Just trying to orient house on its lot.

Correct, driveway is on side of home and connects to the street.

Correct, only current path to front door is the stepping stones

Circular drive way connect to both ends of street and tip of current driveway, and yes it will be primary guest parking, see below:

Patrick, your answers & especially the drawing of lot are very helpful. One more thing please. A straight shot of front entry so the door & full entry set up can be seen. This should help generate useable / realistic suggestions & ideas for connecting the top of the driveway to the entry for guests as well as suggesting updates to entry. What are the evergreen plants under the bay windows & do you like them - are they staying. What’s your general location - nearest large city? That’s helpful for plant info. It’s obviously winter but no snow - ever? Are those solatubes on the garage side roof?b That’s just a curious question - I have 5 on my house! One thing I would want to do is paint the downspouts the same color as the brick so they disappear. Gutters are a function & not usually a decor feature. I would never suggest painting the brick (but some others might) but are you open to painting the bay window surrounds & the garage doors? You might also want to cross post this to the design / decor topics. Houzz allows posts to 3 & there are some good Pros on those topics. You can edit your post to add a topic to the 2 you have.

ETA - try adding this post to Home Decorating or Design Dilemma

A large driveway in the front yard is not going to enhance your house. Plants enhance, asphalt detracts. Put a much bigger path from your front door, add some flowering plants, paint the downspouts to match the brick and powerwash the brick.

Hmm - not sure if I fully agree with Sigrid on the driveway statement. A circular driveway really feels like a different look than the typical straight approach drive. And, from pics posted, it appears the home across the street has circular drive so that begs the question of whether CD’s are typical in your new neighborhood of what looks like larger lots? The challenge I see for this house & that a CD would overcome is guest parking. I see no sidewalks & my guess is that street parking isn’t done. Guests must park in your existing driveway but I don’t see a path for them to walk to front entry. If there is one & it includes stairs, that’s likely another challenge. Back to the CD - landscaping between outside edge of CD & the street certainly will enhance your front entry. Your drawing shows a tree - what kind is it? Your drawing also shows sidewalk but I don’t see one on either side of street.

Use a graceful solution to access the front of your French Ranch house. See below.

The French Blue/Gray paint color might be the perfect replacement for all of the home's white trim.

There are several circular drive ways on my street and correct to the note regarding current front door access - it is non existent. The drive way allows for much more parking, easy and direct access to front door for anyone needing it, and generally these are quite the value add. The dirve way also costs about $2k less than the paver walk way that I am thinking as an alternate. Hence the driveway seems like a no brainer to me at first glance

You could have a shorter paver walkway from top of circular drive to front entry. That shouldn’t be too bad $$ wise. It might be wise to get a Pro designer to lay out the front driveway & landscaping. It’d be nice to add landscape lighting too - incorporate it around the driveway & planting beds. If you’re able you can DIY the landscape & lighting from the plan but in my experience, it’s so well worth the $$ to have a professional designer plan drawn. Any landscaper can then follow the plan to ensure the driveway is laid in exactly the right place. It would be great to see your front entry - especially if you think it needs updating with new door(s) lights etc.

I would extend the window hoods on the two wings down at least to the lower edge of the brick, if not all the way to the ground. (They look chopped off as they are.) Then paint all window surrouds and downspouts a limestone-ish color to speak to the brick, window frames gray (maybe darker than shown) to speak to the roof.

The house's center section then looks like it needs interest/focus. Maybe flank the bow window with ornate, full-height black iron panels reminiscent of Parisian balcony railings? Paver walkway to the entry (which we can't see to know what else it might need). Driveway could be stabilized gravel with edging instead of asphalt if you don't need to plow/shovel snow. I would center the new driveway arc on the house (the tree doesn't have to be centered). Can't see enough to speak to the relationship between existing and new driveways. Then add landscaping (treat the wings symmetrically, center section differently). Something like this?

More options

Pretty house. Your reasoning for adding a circular drive makes sense as long as you have enough room for it to look natural. Spend some bucks (actually a lot of bucks) to make the drive attractive. A brick surface to match your house would be classy. Or paver blocks.

I agree with KN PNW Z8. You should hire a professional landscape designer ( or archiectect) , but I think designer would be fine, to draw up plans & renditions . That’s what I’ve done for three different homes. Well worth the money. Might even save you some money in the longrun. That is NOT a small project.

I agree and honestly 1/2 circle driveways are onlty appropriate with a much grander house you have ahuge driveway alresdy adding more to that house IMO would be a really bad idea I need to see the entry to your home and that IMO is the first step to getting curb appeal not adding another driveway just because someone else has one I barely see how to access the house from the street so that needs a ton of attention and IMO you will need a really good landscape designer right now

All of the rendering of a circular driveway make your house look worse.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback!

Regarding the note that half circle driveways being moreso for 'grander' homes -understood, but they're 100% common in my area, there are a number of smaller homes on my street/in my neighborhood that have them. For the area, my home is abnormally far back from the road and the lot is abnormally wide. It isn't a crazy idea here. I am in the most expensive spot of my section of the state, it would not look out of place in this context. I do have some parking space on the side which is indeed nice, but have no choice but to get something leading to the front door. HCD quote being $2,000 less than the lowest quote for a half decent walk way definitely opened my eyes and thee practical benefits of it are significant, hence the lean in that direction currently.

Here are 2 pics (the ones with snow) of the home as it is today to give a better sense of the front. I have also included a pic from last summer shortly before purchase - the landscaping gut of desd or far too overgrown trees and shrubs began in late fall when I got a great price on some removal, hence I am planning next steps with the landscape design team currently.

For the record, the current team is advocating for the black half circle drive way, the bricks to all be strained white, the door stained black, TBD on trim and vinyl color, and A LOT of different evergreen type plants in the front for a white/green/black heavy visual look.

Is the drive going to be wide enough for 2 cars to pass? otherwise its kind of a pain if more than one car is there. how much space in the yeard will it take up. does the quote include edging of the drive and the walkway from drive to house? edging will be important to keep it looking like an afterthought.

That’s great plan! I do like the black but would hesitate on ’staining’ bricks white. I’d wash / clean first. My thought is once you use paint on bricks you’ve added an ongoing maintenance chore. Cream that you said it is sounds so much nicer

I wouldn't want the expense of a circular driveway when I could spend those funds on a better landscaping plan and walkway to get from the drive to the front door.

Thanks for the feedback, any other ideas on how to bring attention to middle of the home?

The entry is smack in the middle. Only one of your pics shows the entry & it’s not a close up & can’t be enlarged enough for a clear view of doors. But, these are what I’d think about in no particular order.

*Paint downspout same color as house so it disappears.

*Add upgraded light(s) . Looks like there might be an overhead light - is there enough clearance for a statement type overhead light or, can a statement light be added on wall to right of entry - between window & corner?

*Add large house #’s on the same wall

*Doors - look like double. Is that a storm door over them? Are they in great shape or need replacing? They should be a color/ finish that pops - Look at me! I’m the front door!

*Landscaping - that wall space between corner of entry & window is crying for a evergreen focal plant. Size / shape / color TBD after getting lighting & house #’s figured out as you don’t want to block them with a plant

* Walkway — need to decide on CD for start of walkway - from CD or a walkway from street sidewalk (I see now there is a sidewalk) The walkway should be as wide as entry at least the end that’s at entry. If you don’t add a driveway, you need 2 walkways - or 1 that splits & goes 2 directions. The walkway needs to connect to the existing driveway on side of house & I don’t know where that point would be. The reason for 2 end points for walkway is you don’t want guests who don’t drive to your home (& get to front door via driveway) but do walk to your front door to have to traverse part of driveway to find the walkway start point. If they’re on street sidewalk they’ll just tramp over the grass & flower beds. So, 2 walkway starting points ending in 1 walkway at front door.

The tracks in the snow clearly indicate the preferred route for people walking up to your front door. Putting the walk elsewhere wouldn't stop them continuing to take the shortest route.

What are you trying to accomplish? I am getting serious vibes that you are approaching this with solutions looking for a problem, or a preconceived idea of how things 'should' be. Either one is a recipe for spending a lot of money, but not really solving the original problem.

^trying to accomplish best possible curb appeal and function of bringing people to the front door properly. money is a factor but not everything.

@patrick r Just looked at the 3 extra pics you posted & paid attention to the summer view with the ’before’ tree removal landscaping. Wow! The house wasn’t even visible from the street with all those trees & big shrubs. The front interior must be totally changed with all the natural light that must now be coming in. That was quite an endeavor taking all those old plantings out but what a good decision!

It has been many decades (at least) since a large expanse of asphalt has been considered at all attractive. I don't think it was nearly the negative mid-20th century that it is now, but now lots of asphalt and curb appeal are mutually exclusive. In this setting, a circular drive really needs to be at least concrete, and preferably pavers, and the existing drive should be redone to match. $$$$

Most places with sidewalks also accept street parking. Years ago, there was a regular poster who strongly felt that guests should not be parking in the drive, but should park in front of the house, and approach the house head on. I don't think it is always appropriate, but in this case it makes sense. Install a nice, straight, wide paver sidewalk from the front door to the street, and urge guests to park on the street.

As for landscaping, without a good picture of the house, and some input on location, there isn't a lot we can do.

Thank you, there is definitely more natural light coming for sure.

Curious if anyone has any thoughts on what could be done with the exposed concrete around the garage which visible in the side pic, it is a very different color than the brick and really sticks out negatively IMO, would love something which blends in more

Paint it to match the brick. Use that paint on the downspouts also.