Jeff, the level is up to you. You can level the area by increasing the amount of mortar or maintain the slope. After you have laid the thin flagstone on the concrete base, and it has dried, you will grout between the stones. Be sure to use some admix (like elmers glue) in your mortar mix so you get a good bond to the old concrete pavement. On the grassy area: You are going to remove the grass down maybe 3" and add crushed stone or granite gravel, lower than the old sidewalk and depending on the thickness of your flagstone. Now tamp it down (again leveled or slopped)and sprinkle some dry portland cement on the top. In this area you want to use a thicker flagstone and you are only going to use enough sand to level the stone. When all the stone is down mist everything so that the portland grabs onto the flagstone and the gravel. Now you are ready to grout between the stones and it will look like one continuous patio. The only place that you will need edging is where the stone is not held in by something e.g. the edge where the steps are. I've actually used the thin edging for pavers that you get at the big box stores. My step comment had to do with the blue line and the lag bolt trim pcs but if you mortar the flagstone you won't need anything special there. Bailey

Our patio will be off of our small deck. The deck is rectangular. However I do want, up in the back (visible from the deck) a circular deck built into the grade of the land (which slopes into the property slightly). This will be a landing pad for a "hot" and cold tub. I don't need a pool, but I'd like to be able to jump into water after a hard days work (and I no longer use a tub indoors). Round is a shape that would work well up there so I originally was thinking of echoing that shape. As for pavers, I will use just the plain, cheap concrete style. Which may sound odd (so many people get rid of them) however, they are very 50's/60's and that is the look I am going for. Our furniture is coming from a friend, and it's all vintage. Our outdoor kitchen will not be (are you shocked?) what most people would have. A small adobe oven for baking, an "open" adobe "grill" instead of a typical BBQ and a side area with two burners - sort of like a vintage wood stove idea (I'm even thinking of finding an iron stove top and old burners to build into this idea). Off to another side will be the "island" so we can have an area to use for dry ice cooling if needed, a utility sink (hooked up to a hose) for washing vegetables and a small prep area. The tables and chairs are all rounded shapes. But you are right Token, everything else is very linear at our house. There will be slightly more flowing areas in the back: the dry creek will have some very gentle bends, there will be a round-ish dry pond, I bought an arbor with four sides that is rounded to put a hammock under. I think the cistern field will be a round shape too for simplicity. There are paths planned, they will be casual and not purposefully windy but gentle, not perfectly straight but close to it. Again, in my mind I had a rounded shape for a patio here but then I though that might not be conducive to having casual seating areas. There maybe be a small table, but it might be more of several chairs and side tables. We have another area close by with a rectangular table and 4 chairs on a retangular patio coming as well, but you won't be able to see that from the deck patio.

But you listed the most important thing. Declutter. I've been wanting to answer this thread since I saw it. I have a lot to say about this... Last July I moved from CA to MO with 2 1/2 weeks notice. 8 years in a home, two kids and the only thing that was 'weeded' was my front yard. No joke, I had just finished redoing the flowerbeds, et al the day before this decision came down. DH got a new job offer that we could not turn down. This was completely unplanned for. I had 2 1/2 weeks to declutter, get my house ready to sell, pack and put stuff into storage so that we could refinish the floors and save on moving costs, throw a birthday party for my three year old, and go to Disneyland for three days (prepaid). Then we could haul a small trailer across country over four days with the stuff we needed for temporary housing until we found a home to buy. The moving men would move the big stuff and the boxes that we put into storage. Even had to ship DH's car. I also happened to have a bad case of bronchitis at the time. I still have PTSD from that experience. As I went through my junk (Dh's junk, the kid's junk, the garage junk) that had not been touched, my Catholic upbringing reared it's head. I swear I was doing penance for every box I had not weeded. Every bag of toys that I had shoved in a closet. Every box received from my mother that I put straight into the attic and didn't 'deal' with. The whole thing was a zoo. The worst part to deal with was the clutter. The rest, although insane, was actually doable. The clutter is what slowed everything down. START NOW. Do not wait. You have far more junk and stuff than you realize. You are also going to find yourself having to negotiate with your DH on what will be kept and what won't be. He's attached to his 'stuff' too. Buy a bunch of medium sized boxes, packing tape, packing paper, Sharpie pens and a tape gun. Tape guns are a necessity to me. When you put something into a box to either move or store, ask yourself 'Do I REALLY need this?" Is it necessary or truly sentimental? Then keep it. If it's usable but you will not use it in those three years, and could possibly die in storage, sell it, donate it or ditch it. It does not have to be trash to get rid of it. Start boxing. Label WELL. Detail the outside of the boxes. Don't just say "books" if you have a lot of them. Label them "college textbooks" or "reference books"or "cookbooks". That will help with unpacking. Books are heavy, put them only in book boxes. Moving men might have dollies, but once they're in your new place, you're the one that has to haul them around. Don't overpack a box. Go through every area of your home and see what you can really get rid of. That utensil drawer in the kitchen. The bakeware, do you need all of it? I found that I had seven pie baking dishes. I never make seven pies. I kept three and got rid of four. Linen closet? How many sets of sheets do you need or use? What about those old blankets? There are a million decisions to be made here. If you want to do this and not have it drive you insane, start now. Yes, the master lists are a good idea, but furniture is easy. It's the everything else that will stymie you and thus take longer. Also do not wait to donate or have a garage sale. Once you have a pile of bags, do something with it. Go to Goodwill. And we leaned that a garage sale doesn't have to be a perfectly orchestrated affair. It can be throwing a comforter down on the lawn and dragging out four or five boxes of stuff. Have a handful of change and a sign in the neighborhood. We had a few basic prices. A quarter, a dollar, five dollars, 20 bucks and "oh just take it". We did three of those spontaneously during that time. One person in the house boxing things, the other outside witha fanny pack and a handful of change! LOL It actually worked! Easy areas to attack first are the attic, basement and garage. The latter being a hotbed of garage sale items and a serious weeding place. I don't know if you're having professional movers, but you cannot move chemicals with them. Weed those that won't be used between now and the move. Give them to family, figure out how to dispose of them. Pass them on to neighbors. We put everything to 'save' or leave to the new owners (like paint) on one shelf. We boxed and stored the tools, while weeding them. And I passed massive boxes of stuff to my parents. Everything else? We opened the garage to the neighbors during the garage sale, pionted to the free area and said "have at it". Masonry cement, caulk, roofing tar you name it, they hauled it away. What little was leftover had to be taken to a hazardous waste site for disposal. And don't forget that you have a lot of chemicals in the bathroom and the kitchen too. Because we had such a short time period, we didn't have time for dump runs. So we rented a LARGE dumpster. In it wasn't just garbage and junk, we put all of our old wall to wall carpet while the guys refinished the floors. We had a professional group come in and prune our Japanese garden, all of the prunings went into there. We even threw in our old couch (and DANCED on that day! LOL). If we had any advance notice, we could have done without that. I highly recommend it though if there will be any type of construction/yardwork debris in significant amounts at any point in your process. So YES, dear Lord, please start now. The earlier than you get into the mindset of moving, the more relaxed that you can be about the process. Our move was miserable. Your's doesn't have to be that way. One last thing...Storage costs add up. Only store the most valuable and precious things. It's worth it to store Grandma's china. It's not worth it to store that old entertainment center that you never really liked anyway. I once stored an old couch and deeply regret it. It was in great shape but I hated it. After three years in storage, when I got it out, I realized that I hated it even more. And the cost of storing it meant that I could've bought a new one that I actually liked! (What a concept.) I also vowed that I would never find myself in this position ever again. Not like that. Not to that degree. So when I opened my first box here, I WEEDED AGAIN. Anything else to dump? Anything else to give away? I hope in this that you find something that you can use to your advantage. You're already taking the first step, getting into moving 'mode'. Take this opportunity to do it in a way that serves you in the long run. And this is totally JMO.

AJ, is that Honeysuckle? How pretty! Our's is blooming now, it's white, but the blooms don't last long then it looks like weeds. I grow Petunias but they don't do well. Everything I grow is super easy. Everything I plant blooms profusely all summer. If not, I won't plant it. lol Knock Out Roses- Floribunda Roses (my first year) Cosmos (first year and they've tripled in size already) Carpet Roses- Zinnias Coneflowers Tickseed or coreopsis Hydrangea, the easy one, forget it's name. Dianthus, the real colorful mounds you see Impatiens for shady areas Caladium, which I'll be planting more of. They thrive in front of the porch with morning sun. I still have other plants to buy! My dh planted a large plot of wildflowers so I can't wait to see them. They're on the other side of the garage which you can't see in the picture.