I've been going up and down and up and down just taking in all your lovely flowers. The garden shots are great, since there is so much green in addition to the flower colors. Those of us in the no-rain zones are pretty tired of burned out brown. I do love all of them but I'll just mention Dancing With Sandra, Late Round, and Pinhill Claret Symphony. Hope there are still more late bloomers to come. I'll be watching. Avedon

Slope frequently does not convey accurately through photographs. It's hard for us to tell exactly how much you're dealing with. To me, it looks like you're going to need some retaining walls and cannot convert it back to slope. Keep in mind that slopes are like slow moving glaciers. A slope could stay in place for awhile. But over time they move, working their way downhill. After a bit, if just slope, I would imagine you'd be constantly cleaning soil off of the patio. There would likely be erosion problems coming, too. To replace what is there, I would recommend you use a concrete or masonry material due to its being longer lasting and its potential to be simpler. The existing wood walls look very busy and poorly constructed. I would recommend that you get someone on site to design something simpler, within your budget. It would be nice to make the slope toward the patio, including the stairs, less steep. I would use plants that didn't get too tall flanking the patio. Right now there are large bushes at each front corner of the patio. To me, they encroach too much in the view and would be better placed closer to the house, but not in front of windows. Directly out in the yard are a couple or three trees that will eventually be smack in front of the main view. I'd consider doing away with these in favor of trees pushed more to the side of the view.

I'm with Yard on the paver size. Large format pavers are hard to work with, even for experienced crews. One 16x24 weighs 72 lbs, according to the Menards link. Keep in mind that you're not just plopping them down and moving on. Odds are, because you'll be learning as you go, that you'll be pulling pavers up and putting them back multiple times to get a smooth, even surface. Plus, I don't know what the quality of the pavers are, but generally box store pavers aren't the greatest. That can mean being slightly out of square or other issues that are magnified when using a bigger paver. I'd do a 4x8 border and a 4x8 in a herringbone or running bond pattern. In terms of your questions: 1. suck it up and make the cuts. Go slow and take off a little material at a time until you get good at it. This is another reason to use smaller pavers if you're not confident about the cuts! It's way easier to piece together a curve with several smaller pavers than to try and cut a clean arc in a slab. 2. Rectangular is fine, but if you feel up to it I like Yard's concept. I wouldn't waste time putting curves against the planting bed. Soften the edge with plants and you'll be fine. The curves in that inspiration photo are a terrific example of what NOT to do. Squiggles aren't good design. If it looks like a roadkill rattlesnake, don't do it. 3. border the whole thing unless you have a compelling design reason not to. I don't see a reason not to. 4. if your house has red brick avoid pavers w/ red in them. The red pigments in clay bricks and the red pigments in concrete pavers will never look right together. Don't skimp on your base, and don't forget to pitch the patio slightly to shed water. The biggest thing is don't rush. Stand up and step back frequently, because your surface can start to get "wavy" and you'll never see it from 2-3 feet away. When I built my first paver walkway in 1995 I tore it out and redid it 3 times because I was impatient (and, at 20, kinda stupid).

What people can get here mostly is suggestions and inspiration. You are providing "inspiration" pictures so have some idea of what you want. It's a matter of organizing it on a 2-D plan. Your choices there are that, either you do it ... or you hire a professional landscape designer to do it. If you do it, you can get counsel here and the first bit you already got was to provide a plan view sketch of the area. (One would have a very hard time trying to convey the information you seek, back to you on the pictures provided so far.) Many people get inspiration for planting via pictures (that are taken square to the building and show the flanking surroundings in slightly overlapping pictures.) But it is too early to bother with planting, since you need hardscape and it must be resolved first, before you start working on a planting layout.