Help with Garden!

[Murzo]

Moved into my new home back in October and have did absolutely nothing with the front and back gardens. Don't even know where to start .

This is how the front garden sits at present:





I would like it to look like my neighbours because it really ruins the look of the house. I would like to tackle the font first, should I dig out the weeds then hit with roundup or something similar? Is a rotavator a must to get the top soil right for grass seeds?

There are lot of loose stones in the front and back garden should I try to get rid of as much of these as possible?

Here is the back garden:





As you can see again my neighbours garden looks quite well. All I want to do for now is tidy both gardens up and put down some good quality grass seeds. Want to get it sorted asap for the my 2 kids so any suggestions/help greatly appreciated .

 

[Hyburnate]

You want to look at this.

 

[Murzo]

Ok my back garden now looks this:



Attacked it with a Strimmer and 5 litres of Round up. Looks like it might need another hit of Round up in some places.



I am stuck on what to do next. Do I need to removed all the dead weeds? Any easy way of doing this (i.e. Lawn rake/Scarifier)? Or should I go straight to rotavating? What about the smaller stones in the 2nd pic, will they cause any issues?

 

[Nightglow]

Straight to rotavating, then roughly level & walk up & down to break up all the lumps, might be lucky & the rotovator will get it fine enough then rake to fine tilth & get it level.