What to plant in a Front Garden?

I am reading this thread with interest as I am hoping to do the same sort of thing this year with our front garden, it's only titchy with a small patch of grass surrounded by thin beds and a few shrubs.  I got the Joy Larkcom book and it is really good, full of inspirational ideas, but I am still struggling to decide just how to change it, it slopes slightly as well which doesn't help.  I don't know whether to take the lawn up and divide the garden into four beds with gravel paths inbetween or leave the lawn and just make the beds bigger, and then what do I edge the beds with?  I am flummoxed!