Hedging my bets

I finally had it with the front yard.
It was a disaster.
All the trees in the front of the house (a very large sycamore, two Japanese maples, a big yew, and a dogwood) had become so overgrown they had completely obliterated all sun from the front of the house. It was an all shade yard, which would be fine except that it was causing the privet in front of the house to get all scraggly and woody. Years ago it was a nice full, thick hedge that you couldn't see through. Now it was so sparse you could see right through it...what's the use of a privet hedge that you can see through?
And the small front yard was no longer able to grow grass. What was once two pools of soft green grass was now a patchy expanse of MOSS. That's how little sunshine got to that area.
I finally said 'enough'.
I had to take action.
So I said to Jayson, my yard guy, "2016 is going to be the year of the front yard and we're starting NOW." I decided we needed to give all the trees a major haircut. They needed to be severely pruned and cut back. Basically they needed to start all over, practically from scratch, especially the privet. I told Jayson to be brutal. Sometimes with yard plantings you have to be cruel to be kind. I even toyed with getting rid of the maples altogether but Jayson said if we took them way down (and keep them in check) they would turn into smaller bushes and not cast so much shade. I had him cut the dogwood away from then house, too many branches were touching the roofline and the railing on top of the screened-in porch.
We're having a professional tree surgeon come and take care of the sycamore. It's no small affair, I had it pruned once before. They come with a huge truck that has a basket on a hydraulic lift. I'm still waiting for the estimate on that, but in the meantime they tackled all the other trees and privet. It looks great and SO much light is hitting the front yard now, it'll be perfect come next Spring to kick things into high gear as they start filling out.
The two Japanese maples look the worst, but they needed it, now they're just some stumps! LOL.

The privet was trimmed WAY down. It had to be done so that it will grow back fuller.

The privet in front of the house and along the driveway; look how much sunlight come in now! 

The privet looking down the driveway and into the backyard, much more uniform.

And the yew is gone for good. It totally opens up the that side of the house. It was too big and woody, just not attractive anymore. Now it's gone, GONE!
I can't wait to see how it all looks next year!

Right side of the house, look at all the light!

Privet on right side of house...chopped!

The yew stump, it's gotta go, looking too Beverly Hillbillies right now,  LOL