Run the fence from the brick wall to the front corner of the screen porch. You can have two doors on the screen porch. One that opens to the driveway and garage side and one that opens to the back yard.

I would choose the paths last. Install the fence and porch door. Then, use all three entrances for a few weeks, wear down the grass, and see what paths you naturally take. Pave those areas. The one U path to the garage door should stay, if it's used regularly, and the other's are likely going to stem from that or the end of the drive. We are creatures of habit and also like taking paths of least resistance.

The university I attended spent thousands on cement pathways for a new area on campus. They looked nice and were landscaped well, but students used them only half the time and wore out shorter, more sensible, paths to the buildings. The school took notice and redid the areas.

For the same reasons mentioned by cd7733, I see extending the driveway to incorporate the garage door. Then one path to the back yard with a spur off to the end of the screen porch.

If the fence is located at the front edge of the screen porch, the door to the screen porch will now be inside the fence. This feels more private to me.

Yes, we find that the instinct is to have the screen porch door on the front leading edge, that is where you naturally walk to...but then that adds to the issue of the too many paths from the driveway, one to the porch, one to the backyard, and the one to the garage side door. That is the perplexing bit, how to make it all work. DH just had an idea to maybe go ahead and concrete from the stub of the driveway over to the house, which would eliminate one of the pathways. (We already had plans to concrete the gravel area in front of the retaining wall)

Thoughts?

But if we put the porch door on the side instead of the front, then the pathway greatly reduces...

:) thanks Sofia!

Isn't there a main door to the porch that faces the back yard? It looks like you have steps there. If there is such a door, why do you need another door? Will there be any more than occasional traffic from porch to drive/garage? There are disadvantages to having too many doors to a room. It can screw up how the room is arranged. Squeezing a path to the front exposed portion of the porch is going to disadvantage the plantings around the house. Seems like you're trying to incorporate too much access when it's not really needed. Everyone else is going to solve this by having one main back door to the porch and that's all.

Where you're showing the fence on your plan is the logical place to put it.

Is the "frog pond" proposed or existing? It's in a bad location for carrying a walk to the back door (that, so far, I'm imagining exists.) :-) If it doesn't exist, I'd make the porch door on the backyard portion of the porch ... not bring it to the tight space near the house corner.

Excellent point, Yardvaark! Saves $ also.

Currently we have no doors and no screens on the porch. We had planned one from the patio to the porch, maybe just that one will be fine? We've been in paralysis mode for a while, as everyone who visits immediately cuts onto the porch at the front edge. So that led to the "well we need a door here as well"...but of course, at the moment there is no pathway to steer them around to the patio steps and no plantings or anything to soften that corner and stop them.

The frog pond is in existence but is up for being eliminated. It is a "water feature" that the previous owners put in, consists of a hole with rocks plopped around the edge. The rocks are covered with juniper and there is a japanese maple as well. I'll go take a picture. Its nice but at the same time very awkward looking; I have filled it with water lillies. It is in a very bad location for pathways, as you noted.

The pathway from the driveway needs to go to the patio steps and also down to the opposite side of the house, there is a door to the basement where the garden supplies are kept.

Our property backs to forest; the four trees that are identified in the survey are at the edges of the open space. I'll take pictures of those as well. Thank you so much for your help!

Pictures

Standing to the left side of the porch.

Standing left side of porch, turning rightward, on the right side is the "frog pond"...there are tons of frogs...

Rotating rightward more...this is the entire Frog pond, plus the steps to the porch, and the side of the porch. The distance between the frog pond rock edge and the porch is about 3 ft. The porch steps are PA bluestone, about 12 ft long.

Frog pond from the porch:

Standing on the steps looking toward the rear left corner. Jap maple and Kousa dogwood as noted on survey.

Standing on steps looking straight back. Kousa dogwood is noted on survey, and so is the oak tree.

Standing on steps rotating right...this is the rightmost oak on the survey

Rotating right, side of house. Yard slopes down to basement storage area.

Hope this makes sense!

Thanks Jean

You didn't show us a good shot looking at the porch with 12 foot long bluestone steps. It seems this is a separate porch on different level with steps and a door to get to the lower unfinished screen porch from inside? How do these two porches relate? How will they be used? What room in the house does the new screen porch open to?

I don't see the frog pond as much of an issue to walk around to get to the porch with the bluestone steps. You can make the frog pond and plantings outside the screen porch one large bed for bug free comfy viewing. Unless you are planning on pouring concrete paths, doors. gates and grass to walk on should be perfectly fine.

Here you go! Please ignore all the lumber trash and the ladders, scaffolding, etc everywhere.

Standing on the right side of patio, looking at frog pond (and dog drinking the yummy dirty water)

Standing on the patio looking straight into the yard. Flooring on patio is not installed yet, that is why you see raw concrete. The big hump of dirt was dug out to build the steps.

Standing on steps and looking at our un-screened porch. You can just see the door into the house on the left. The posts are 10 feet high and 4 ft apart.

Closer - still standing on patio, looking into unscreened porch. You can see the door into the house, it opens into the kitchen. About midway in this picture you can see the brick column and retaining wall from the initial post.

We were thinking of putting the door between the porch and patio in the space between the house and the first post... but maybe the center bay might be better...heck, I don't know.

Thank you again!

Yardvaark, Christopher C - what do you think of something like this? Pink=walkways of some kind; purple hex = some kind of center area just to join all the pieces together. Scale is probably horribly off...

You could configure to skirt the edge of the pond with a walk. Or, you could move the pond (if you want to keep it) or eliminate it. It mine, I would prefer the pond be part of the front of a backdrop (and be larger), rather than an obstacle in the immediate foreground.

Very nice, thank you! And then we can fill the area between the path and the porch with pretty plantings. Also put some plantings in the area to the right side of the driveway, where we were initially going to put a path. Maybe a small tree? That is west, shady until about 300 each day. Then blasted with sun. This path gives visitors a nice journey to the patio/porch destination...

To get to the basement, do you think we should just do a similar path on the opposite side of the landing? DH says we need a retaining wall...maybe just very long steps to take care of the height difference? Looks like frog pond is moving or eliminated, fine with us!

For the basement walk, yes, I would extend it in a similar manner from the other side of landing.

So did you figure out where you’ll put the doors on your screened porch? It seems you need one between the screened in part and the old open patio, correct?
If people are walking from the left driveway path, I’d maybe want doors on both sides of the screened porch. Whether those are near the house corners or yard corners idk. But I’m thinking you may want to think about what furniture, etc you want out there and that may help decide.
Initially I was thinking close to house but that could block some seating that looks out towards the lawn. So maybe yard corners.

Yes, that was the original thought, doors on both sides. Then Yardvaark had some good points and suggested we just have one screen door off the patio, so that is the current thought. Having said that, hopefully tonight DH & I are going to move ladders and scaffolds and such off the porch and play with the furniture arrangement with respect to the doors. There are a Lot more options if there is only one door from the patio.

Ooh, that's beautiful, Yardvaark! Thank you!

I meant to mention, in case you make an arbor ... the opening should be 5 1/2 or 6' wide, and at least 8' tall. Otherwise, it will seem cramped, which equals 'not inviting.'

ok. How wide should the pathways be, 4'? 5'? We will also put plantings of some kind in front of the fence...thats the privacy part. We like the hidden garden thing, revealed only as you enter...

At the drive side of the fence, since it is a short run from the end of drive, and you'd want it to look inviting, there I'd make it in the 5' to 6' width range. At the backyard side, it could be 4'. If you're not expecting much use, and usually by only 1 or 2 people, it could shrink to 3'. To the basement entrance, it could be 3' if for only occasional use. If heavy use, make 4'.