Thankyou both for your suggestions! We have the garage right next to the bottom of the deck, it's so weird to have the garage in the back, but that's what they did. So I don't really need to think of storage. Plus, I don't want people traipsing in and out of there. I am thinking of putting a latice or something similar on the far right side, because there is a mound of soil where grass doesn't grow. I'm going to use the same natural stone to build up a bed and put a climbing rose. Either Ice Berg or Climbing Peace... I will have to think further about what I can do with this space to make it more decorative, but I don't want to screen it all off. Perhaps I can find a way to screen off part of it though, but I do hope to use natural materials to do this, plants or stones. Because of the woods (which includes a creek), I want things to look neat, tidy and deliberate, but still fairly natural. It does need to connect in some way with the pond though, or else it looks like a pond out it the middle of the lawn, sort of floating there. But this is what the pond looked like a year ago! I still can't imagine why they put that there, but that is the reason for the pond. I am trying to make everything look purposeful and not "hodgepodge-make-it-up-as-I-go". I really appreciate your input, and further reccomendations are appreciated!

I'm not sure I understand. Since they're t'ed together, I can turn them both off together from a valve at the pad. I'm debating whether it's worth it to run them both separately to the pad with individual valves. With our prevailing winds, I expect one to get more stuff than the other. As it stands now, in order to boost the suction from that one, I would have to turn of the other one completely. If I have individual control, I could reduce the flow in the secondary skimmer without shutting it off completely. This should result in higher flow from the main skimmer, but still allow the secondary to get stuff that floats by, correct?

I don't know about building codes in your area but here is something to consider. My sister-in-law has a pool with 3' of decking around the diving board, no matter how hard she trys, when her kids are playing they end up running through the grass, the grass turns into mud and it all ends up in the pool. When we did our pool this spring, we had them do a semi-circle around the diving board. We had the stamped concrete decking come out with a 6' radius from the bolt furthest from the pool. It has worked out great, when kids or adults are waiting they are not standing in mud & it is large enough for an adult to set up a chair if he is doing life guard duty.

the terra cotta isn't meant for freezing, so you may have to find some ceramic look-alikes (wayfarer has ceramic tiles like this) but I do like tiling the stairs like this the true Talavera Mexican tiles are made from terra cotta (like the Saltillo tiles) and aren't meant for freeze/thaw areas. but you could look into substituting the ceramic glazed tiles If you want the prints, look at some that Tilebar has, or other tile stores. Etsy or Ebay carries the mexican tiles. they aren't that expensive. (out here in SoCal I can get them for a buck each) maybe order some these? https://www.etsy.com/listing/565588168/25-assorted-mexican-ceramic-4x4-inch?ref=shop_home_active_3&crt=1 this is a basic patio cover frame so you can see how it starts. Really not that difficult to do. the beam gets attached to steel faster brace to keep the water from wicking up into the beam on concrete. (diff types. ) pergola base setting: On the spanish one I showed you, we built it up on a concrete base so that water won't collect around it