African Garden + work

Help, My House Has a Green Mustache!

This month's topic for Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop at Gardening Gone Wild is front gardens. This is such a timely topic for me because I promised myself last year that this would be the year we got rid of the "Green Mustache." This Yew hedge came with the house, and I've made various efforts to shape and control it, but enough is enough.
I have no problem gardening out front; I had my garden in the front yard at my last house instead of in the back, and my current house is on a quiet street. On the other side of the front door is my mini faux-prairie garden.

Here's the view from the driveway:

The simplest thing to do would be to plant a mirror image of this garden in place of the Mustache. That won't work, however, because the Mustache is much shadier than the garden. I think I would like to leave the upright Yew at the corner of the house (that is, if it evers recovers from being a deer snackbar this past winter). Otherwise, it's a clean slate. Any suggestions would be most welcome.