Perhaps if you look at your outdoor spaces as outdoor rooms, it may help you personalize and organize the areas. What I see in the photo is a small front yard divided in half, and a tree placed exactly in the center of the other half, within a little square of bed. I expect you would not do that with an interior room. A visitor will be compelled to race down the hallway to the front door, and probably not even notice the tree, since it is not part of a composition, a furniture grouping. You enter your living room to a welcoming composition of a furniture grouping, lamps, pictures on the wall, drapes (I hope) on the windows. You get the idea. Would you put a post lamp in the middle of an empty room? It would tend to diminish the size of the space and it's usefulness as a space. Would you put a carpet down the center of a room? -- only if you were creating two separate scenarios of equal size. You need some on-site advisers, whether they be landscape architects or interior designers, someone or more than one who will offer their experienced suggestions for you to consider, but not immediately act upon. You need to live with your new spaces and walk through their ideas for weeks, or months, before making a decision on how to proceed. Perhaps it would help you to read the thoughts of some international designers like Bunny Williams, with her book, On Garden Style, where you will get the feeling that the views of the outside rooms from within the house are as important as the views from the street. You will want to move the maple out of its central location, remove the central path, - and the conifers scare me. You really have a very small space up front here. Take a look in the park at the size of a mature conifer. They will occupy your yard and that of your neighbor, as they develop as nature intended. They are very beautiful, a work of art, but space-consuming. You may have room in the back yard, but be careful when blocking the magnificent views from within the house. Perhaps you will provide an entrance to your outdoor room over to the right, near your property line, with the tree, the lamp post, a small chair or bench, a bed of small plants that have beauty and fragrance throughout the seasons - a space you would like to sit in yourself, perhaps have coffee with the neighbor, or the kids hang out with a pal. Then have the walk work its way over toward the entrance area - not the door, but the welcoming area before the door, slow them down to enjoy the sequence, while providing a most pleasant view of this area from within. Make the plantings permanent, with no soil or mulch to show, after two years, as the groundcover plants mature and cover the beds. Keep all the annual plants in containers, to be stored away if empty, so the views of your spaces are not distracted by an open area in the bed where the annuals have departed, or an empty pot. Consider excluding your auto from your outdoor room, your welcoming area. You don't have room for a real screen, so just a suggestion, as a small hedge or plant bed to stop the eye before it gets to the drive. Perhaps the view beyond the drive is attractive, so all you need to filter from the view is the driveway pavement itself, as the car belongs in the garage, yes? Sometimes a little perimeter fence with a gate says welcome to my special space. In your case perhaps a darker color, not the typical white, which would be a high contrast to the house and not appropriate here, grabbing all the attention. What I have offered may be of no use to you, however, the intent of my words is to provoke you to analyze first, then plan. Consider alternatives from all viewpoints before deciding how to proceed, as these spaces and plants will be a part of your life for many years. Good luck to you. Continue the process at the tortoise pace, not the hare.

hi there thanks for the update. The one flaw in this beautiful bathroom? There's always one thing! Thank you for letting me know about this detail, because I was seriously thinking of doing it this way myself. In terms of your bathroom, I wonder if a very neat bead of silicone on the top only - of the join between the glass and the vanity - could help? This way the underneath is still fee to breathe and not gather gunk. But I guess then you don't get that lovely clean glass feeling from inside the shower.....

I have honestly lost count of the number of projects I have worked on with exactly this brief - 3bed+1bath upgrading to 4bedrooms +2 bath (usually due to growing families ;)............ultimately the solution/advice will come down to the budget available. When you say the builder came back with a quote too high, I"m guessing it was in fact most likely realistic for what you have proposed, and hence rather, the design solution sought is mismatched to your particular budget. It's not necessarily the quoting builder's fault.... Generally, unless the existing house is generous in scale, extended building is required to achieve this sort of overall project Brief requirement....and this in combination with the usual accompanying renovation to existing scope, compounds to a significant project.....I have found they generally end up being in reality something ballpark starting at min $300K+........If $120K is your budget you need to be super disciplined and clear about your priorities and work with someone who can provide you with experienced answers as to what particular ideas/changes will cost and are realistic to consider for your context......my advice, clarify and prioritise the most important needs. You also often find that the option of rearranging everything to squeeze/fit everything in within a specified perimeter will cost similar (for a somewhat compromised design solution) to that alternative option of minimal renovation + a "clean" extension that minimises any make good/changes to existing. Without knowing the condition of existing (or site conditions/scale/context etc) it's difficult to provide accurate advice but as a general idea I would suggest consider an option that archives a living/kitchen dining in a concise new extended area, integrate a new entrance in-between the old and the new with possibly the existing living becoming the master suite and not touching the other part of the home. You may be able to achieve a better overall value/m2 end result, but it will involve a larger budget. $120K will struggle to cover much more than cosmetic upgrades/minor reshuffling of existing areas essentially maintained in current scale and position....the other option is considering a Master Bedroom/Bathroom extension and keep existing living/kitchen dining zone, but again really need more info/understanding of your context to provide detailed advice in this regard. Hope this helps with you thinking it through.....it's rarely a straight forward process :)

I planted a row of five Manchurian Pear trees along my front boundary and love their changes through the seasons. They are very hardy once established and are often used as street trees for their hardiness and good scale for a nature strip. Beautiful red/orange foilage in autumn, white blossums in spring, and lush green foilage in summer provides good shade. They look great as a single tree, a group of three, or a row of five trees. Best of luck, Dr Retro of Dr Retro House Calls.