Front lawn landscaping?

 Well, now that summer is hotter than hell, I can finally get around to planning the front landscaping! HA!

I had hoped to get this executed before DH moved out here, so he would not put a wrench in my works, but he's here, so now I have to compromise...

I am in desperate need of FLOWERS.  I love perennials as well as  bulbs and even annuals.  I have the perfect palette...My front lawn is naked.  It is also an awkward shape, sitting on a curve of our street and having as much square footage in driveway (3-car width) as the rest of the "lawn".  As it is on the curve, coming from one direction you see virtually nothing (not only due to the curve but also the neighbors park their cars on the street and block part of our drive and make executing the curve difficult, so all attention is on the road), and from the other direction you see the entire side of the house, as well as the front lawn.

Coming from the South, you are really watching the road and don't notice much.

Coming from the North, you see the whole side of the house and lawn.

The only time anyone sees it straight-on, is if you live across the street.

SO,  I have had some ideas, and husband has put qualifiers on...  He doesn't want it to be difficult to mow.... but it isn't exactly easy to mow, now.  My initial idea was to create a crescent shaped garden bed, going from the left side of the tree, across the front and tapering to a point again at the front beside the drive.  Too difficult to mow....  So then I thought about a border along the North side and across the front along the sidewalk.... but I think that is too boring.  DH has also outlawed plantng anything along the drive as that is where we usualy have to pile 3-4' of snow all winter...

Ideas:

Here you can see a hose laying along our property line along the side, and it continues along the front sidewalk.  I could start at the corner where the utility contact is, and gradually build out from there, eliminating all mowing from the property line in to the inside edge of any garden bed.

Here I have set out a few pots and lawn ornaments to show an area on the SouthWest portion of the lawn where I could possibly start a bed.... Possibly with a shrub (or 3) in this SW point?

And here I have used the same items to show a possible bed location, spilling out from the front door walkway.

POINTS to Meniton:

Utility lines traverse almost the whole lawn, and while I really want to remove that hard maple tree (it is too close to the house), there is almost no other place to plant a tree.

Ideally ALL of these beds would come to fruition, but gradually and expanded over the years.  I would like to feature drought tolerant plants, but I also have some favorites that I want to include, as well.  We DO have a sprinkler system and have turned it on....albeit after the lawn started to go dormant due to hot dry weather conditions.  This does give us an idea of where the drier places are, so I could plant accordingly.

Any ideas or suggestions are welcome in the Comments below!