Your garden may have been done by now. But here's my bit of inspiration for you. Presuming your desire to keep path is because it is the entry to your house. 1. All along the front boundary, planting a living screen/hedge edged garden bed ... Murraya Panniculata (Flowers have tropical orange blossom scent) 2. The garden bed (under window) on the left hand side of path to become your tropical oasis of planting - consider mass for extra drama and lights along pathway leading to door. 3. Other side - the right hand side pathway ... Using width of "porch/pillar"area as guide, create an edged new garden bed and plant it up to your heart'[s content with tropical style, and in front of that and up to the Murrraya Panniculata hedging pave and create a usable courtyard - with table and chairs to enjoy a breakfast, or afternoon tea - and why not include a daybed for reading pleasure? 4. Imagine the view into the garden area from inside!!

No-one can help you unless we have visuals with photos and some description of the area sizes, which state/town is your home, and where north is in relation to your front and back yards. Do you have existing plant material that needs to be factored in, or children, animals that will have a bearing on the advice?

I like the length of the lawn to the road - it makes your property look bigger The letterbox doesn't work with the period of the home - sorry I would remove the garden bed completely, allow the lawn to grow and then plant trees into the lawn - around 3 depending on the varieties Don't whipper snip at the base of the trees unless you know how to use a whipper snipper and don't use Round Up at the base of the trees - the constant use of glyphosate that is residual will kill the trees in time These comments are based on looking at the photo provided without seeing the site in person. The suggestions are based on a low-maintenance garden but you will need to take good care of the trees, otherwise poor specimens will drag down your property.

@Emma I, What you're suggesting is a pretty bold move and irrespective of whether you are permitted to do it in the end by your respective shire and other authorities, I can't stree enough that for all the money you are thinking of spending on this project and the lengths to which you are intending to go with removing windows, dig a huge hole for the pool etc... that you use some of your finances to employ an architect as suggested by EmileECLC to make sure that this massive transformation becomes everything you dream it will be!! You must be absolutely sure of regulations surrounding pools like mentioned by mazgardiner about not being able to directly enter a pool from the house for example. Hubby and I are building our own home and we decided to have an indoor pool. We were originally having a sliding door leading outside of the pool, only to find that we were not permitted to have this access from the pool outside and I expect it was the sliding door, as with mazgardiner that was the issue, as it would be far more difficult to make it a self closing and lockable door. Fortunately we had already decided to change the slider to an awning window instead and just as well. The access into the pool from inside the home is a hinged door with a self closing mechanism and has the handle positioned at 1.5m from the floor. Furthermore, we were told by the window manufacturers, that any glass near a pool area had to be safety glass by law, so your stacker doors or any other windows that form part of the new pool area, will need to be upgraded and be much more expensive just so you know, about double the cost of a standard window. Another safety feature with our awning windows was that the wind out chain could only open to a maximum of 100mm, again law, just like the bars in a safety fence. Our building inspector tried to tell us they would not be allowed and that we would have to have external bars fitted and have the windows permanently screwed shut but further contact with our state building commission deemed the 100mm gap to be safe and adequate. Don't just accept something that seems wrong, if need be, take it higher as we did and succeeded, so again another reason to have a professional helping you through the maze of regulations.