Garden Room in Draft Phase

Well, here I sit, in front of my computer. By now I am sure that comes as no suprise to anyone. I am in desperate need of spring. We have two new inches of snow here and I can honestly tell you that fact does not thrill me. I am trying to remind myself that water is good here. I just happen to think it's better on the mountain at this point. Oh drat, I just looked out the window and it is actually snowing again. Like how I said drat and not some other word?

I have recently added myself to a site called Blotanical. So far it seems to be like Facebook for garden geeks. I like it. I have spent the better part of several days looking at other people's garden blogs and getting ideas for my own summer projects. Kind of like driving through neighborhoods and taking pics without leaving the warm comfort of my house. Or, getting out into the dang old snow. So in keeping with the theme of developing next season's garden list of things to do, I have put a very rough draft of a possible garden room up. My scale may be a little off but I am not going out "there" to measure for anyone. The bed at the top of the page is already in place in front of a big window on my home and travels left to a small bed in front of the porch area. My husband tore out the cement walkway a few years ago and although he seems to be ok with an ugly scar in the lawn there, I am not. So all the other objects and lines on the map are new. The funny little outlines are the new flat rock path I would like to make to the garage. Maybe even have some big potted plants on either side of that new walkway where it meets the existing walkway. I like color and that seems like a nice way to add it. Dogs can't lay in that way. So here it is........

The patio I have in a recent post would be to the left of that left-hand walkway. Currently this whole area, save for the top bed with the Maple tree, is grass. Obviously there will still be grass but I would like to mow less grass and have "rooms" in my garden. I will also likely need another job to finance all of these planned trees and shrubs, but what the heck.

So comments and suggestions are welcome. I am open to all possibilities. I would like a flowering crabapple, which I have added as a possibility, but all other ideas are invited. Also, the garage roof sheds snow into this area so I cannot have hard stemmed or shrubby things in the right hands side of this plan. Most other perinneals are possible. Another idea would be to have a garden bench or small reading nook in this area. I also like to bird watch and will be able to see this area from the large window at the top of the page. I just want cozy and petty. We are set back from the road quite a ways and seperated from the traffic by a huge expanse of lawn cordoned off by a large circle drive. Always trying to hide the old house with pretty yard.