12 Steps to Create a Patio You'll Want to Use

Garden Design in a single photo, below.
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Pic, above, here.
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Don't be fooled by the beautiful home, stone terrace, vintage table/chairs, classic urn on a low brick column.  This isn't a high-end Garden Design course.  It's Garden Design for all.  Every price point.
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Do pay attention to form, function, simplicity, color.
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Ease of maintenance.
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Access to house for easy transport of tableware/meals.
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The urn, at front, so fabulous, it remains a beauty, empty.
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They chose a color trinity, green/black/white.
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Does it answer the question, "Is the garden so amazing I want to see inside the house?"  Yes.
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This Garden Design is for any starter home, no matter its era.  Found/rescued brick/stone for the terrace, laid in soil with groundcover.  Perhaps gravel, with a few stones set at main path into house.  Don't want to track gravel inside.
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Choose your Color Trinity.  Green/Brown/White the historic classic.  For a reason.  But, choose whatever you want, it's your garden, your life.  You love it, results will be great.
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No vintage table/chairs?  Field gathered is fabulous.  Table, chairs, none match, all painted the same color.  What color?  One of your chosen Color Trinity.   
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No classic urn?  Old galvanized pot.  Horrid plastic pot, fine, if painted from your Color Trinity.
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Be simple.  At the end of a Garden Design, ask yourself, "What can I take out, and it still holds together?"  Simplicity is good Garden Design.  Never, do I want to look out a window, and think, "Oh, I must go do....."  I must look out my windows and think, "Oh WOW."
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Make sure your choices flow from inside your home.  Same brain waves creating your interior, are the same to use outside. 
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Garden Design begins inside the house.  This patio flows from inside the house. 
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Bugs?  Outdoor ceiling fans.  Not happening?  Paint a box fan, aim it toward table at proper distance, spray it a color from your trinity.  Once my arbor with ceiling fans rotted, at my 30 year garden, I went the box fan route nestled in the foliage of a large potted plant.  Not too inconvenient, it was mostly off exhibit, in the garage.   
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Garden & Be Well,  XOT 
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Front porch at our ca. 1900 home is amazing, it faces east, usually has a slight breeze from the pastures surrounding us.  It's deep, we can eat meals during storms, without getting wet.  Often, when bad weather blows in I go to the front porch to sit and enjoy the drama.  During the few weeks a year it's not too hot, or too cold, when friends come to dinner, we eat on the front porch. 
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Last nite, heading out to dinner, it was the last of oddly warm temperatures the past week.  Told Beloved to stop, lets sit on the front porch a few minutes before leaving.  "Why?", he asked, "So we can talk." I said.  "We can talk in the truck.", he said.  "I want to enjoy the last of this warm weather in January with you.", I said.  We sat.  Talked.  Quite a bit.  Sweet.
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Doubt Beloved would convey this story similarly.  Men.

How to Arrange Furniture in Large Garden Spaces

How to section a large terrace or deck into cozy areas? 
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Learn from the best, below.  Why are they the best?  Their livelihood depends upon layers of good design, ease of maintenance, simplicity for staff to serve, and, enriching comfort for guests.
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Pic, above, here.
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Large pots, multiple seating areas, repetitious furniture, color theme flowing throughout & accouterments. 
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Beautiful pots, furnishings not in the budget?  Field gather, junking/garbage day curb side/thrift stores/garage sales, paint all the furnishing the same color.  Paint all the pots the same color.
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Become a fan of square and rectangular shaped tables.  Square/rectangular tables can be pulled together or set against walls, multi-use. 
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How easy this terrace is to blow.  Few obstructions.  Simple pot plantings.  No major replanting needed at change of seasons.
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At the end of an Open Garden a lone woman remained, sitting on my 6' Teak bench.  Tired, I went straight to her and sat down.  She began to cry.  Heaving breaths, big round tears.
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Divorce finalizing, she was losing her large sacred landscape.  How could she live without it?  Looking around that garden room of mine, she said she had to, ".....HAVE THIS."  The beauty of a garden in its full context.  More tears.
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So, we held hands, she cried a bit more, and I waited, knowing exactly what to say to her.
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"You can have this, my garden is less than 1/4 acre, 8500 SF, and that includes house & driveway."
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Not the first time bearing witness to a woman's life change.
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Never think beautiful garden photographs merely represent what can be done in a garden with $$$, pic above.  Beautiful gardens are about beautiful relationships.  Gardener to Nature. 
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Never saw that woman again.  Yet, I know she's thriving.
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Garden & Be Well,    XO T 

16 Shortcuts for Creating a Fabulous Landscape in Record Time

Carl Jung overlooked a common archetype.  How?  This particular archetype appears before parties on the home front.  I get the call.  At least a week ahead of their long planned, months, gathering.  "Tara, you've got to get the garden ready."
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What to do?  Not what you think.  With a party and little time, two necessities.  Fresh mulch, and clean lines.
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Clean Lines.  Huge Garden Design tool, party or no. 
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Brick edging, below, clean lines.  Garden, below, could easily go more formal with the edging.  Do you know how?  Soldiers.  What are soldiers in the garden?  Bricks as garden edging are called 'soldiers'.  Further, the higher the soldiers, the more formal the garden.
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Before the soldiers, below.  Shot the pics merely thinking job process, instead, another affirmation of clean lines.
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A lot of Garden Design here, beyond Clean Lines.  Focal points on axis, in enfilade.  So.  Everyone is a garden designer, label the focal points on axis in enfilade.  No?  It's one of the most common Garden Design tricks, used ad infinitum, on Garden book/magazine covers.
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Another Garden Design rule followed, above, flow.  Moving thru the space easily.
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Another Garden Design rule followed, above, Color Trinity.  Green-Brown-White is the historic favorite, and chosen, above.  Did your eyes/brain lock on that when you first saw the top pic?  Granite gravel, #89, and the livestock tank are the white prong of the Green-Brown-White here.  Table and trees, obviously, the brown.
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Another Garden Design rule followed, above, Color on Field Gathered Furniture all Painted the Same Color.
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Another Garden Design rule followed, Overdose Your Theme.  Small iron conservatory at middle of table, above, painted same green as chairs.
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Another Garden Design rule followed, Every Garden Needs a Water Feature.  More, I wanted the sound.  My chickens arrived, aged 6 days cracked, in this livestock trough with a heat lamp, now, it's another gift.
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Grading ahead of gravel, below.


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Another table, below, glass topped metal, Overdosing on a Theme, painted same color as chairs.  Metal table used as buffet table, leveraging party time, with harvest table.
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Near the harvest table, below, Overdosing on a Theme, green furniture, galvanized pots/light fixtures, granite, terra cotta pots matching the red clay bricks used as edging, both burnt Earth.  Overdosing on a Theme isn't for spots of your Garden, it's for the entire garden.
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A reminder, below, to use clean lines.
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(Never answered my own question, above, about the focal points in enfilade.  What are they?  Did you label them?)
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Day ahead of our first gathering in our new Garden Room, above, Beloved/I were sitting at the table, above, tired, dirty, happy.  I was about to get happier, as a Cheshire Cat.
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Beloved says to me, eyes big, eyebrows raised, "We don't have enough chairs."  A best moment.  I've been dragging garden chairs home to this garden since we moved in 3 years ago.  Had a lot from my other garden, but I knew where this garden was headed.  Why was this a best moment?  Every chair I brought home, he complained about me junking up the garden, we have enough chairs, don't buy anymore chairs, you're wasting your money.
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Nope, didn't do the told-you-so, merely the Cheshire Cat smile.  His chair panic escalated, Let's move some chairs from the deck to here.  Nope, need those chairs for using the deck too.
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Our gathering arrived, some were spending the nite.  Guess what happened late in the evening?  Gathering for music, talking, laughter, stories, moved to the deck.  Strands of lites, above, were plenty of illumination for the deck too.     
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This gathering quite special, Beloved's friends from before kindergarten, literally.  Know many of their stories, and have requested I never know all their stories, "Don't worry Baby you won't."
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Garden & Be Well,   XO T
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Tire swing, above, hanging when we moved in.  Knew I was going to cut it down.  Then my precious girls came with their dear mom, we had lunch and the girls ran/played, and were tire swinging in crazy ways never imagined.  They've been more, but  those were lunches on the front porch, time to get them back for lunch and tire swinging again, and dining nearby.
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Adore our new Garden Room, though living thru its cliche epoch.  Cliche epoch?  Trees & evergreen groundcover need to grow-grow-grow, own the space, diminish our input.  You know, the proper order of things.  Nature in charge, with merely a hint of us.
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Did you label the focal points in enfilade, from question, above?  Table to livestock trough.  At some point, not too distant, stone steps will lead from livestock trough into garden, extending the enfilade further.  Looking forward to making adjustments to scale/flow with that new layer.
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Hoop greenhouses going in at back of property for growing wholesale plants.  More wholesale plants will be outside under irrigation, coming close to the gravel terrace, above.  No worries, we'll plant a hedge, 5'-6', hiding the nursery, yet keeping trees, sky, and distant garden views in site. Probably tea olive, deer proof, fast grower, dense.
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Where are you on the Garden Design continuum?
Garden Design Rules, followed, above:
Use a Color Trinity
Green-Brown-White is historic classic Color Trinity
Flow
Overdose a Theme
Paint Field Gathered Furniture Same Color
Garden Party Top 2 Garden Preparations: Fresh Mulch, Clean Lines
Enfilade
Soldiers
Formal Soldiers
Informal Soldiers
Leverage Harvest Table with a Buffet Table
Focal Points on Axis
Every Garden Needs a Water Feature
Siting a Hedge: Constraints
Choosing Hedge Plants: Considerations
Keep Calm & Live Thru the Cliche Epoch

Anticipation vs. Attainment

One of the things we bought with our ca. 1900 home?  The Milky Way.
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Sunsets, waxing/waning moons, storm clouds, puffy white clouds dotted & dashing across blue skies.
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At our backdoor a stoop is now a deck stretching full, left to right.  Grand conversations of roofing a portion and screening it in.  All was easy, at the front end.  Then came enjoying the deck, and Milky Way.
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Yet, we'd truly like a portion saved from rains.  And sun.  How our home came to be 117 years old without a shade tree at back.  Really?


Pic, above, here.

Addressing the sun issue are brainwaves of a vine, above/below.

 
Pic, above, here.
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Enjoying playing with my friend, Vision Questing.  Found the iron vine supports, top, this morning.  Knowing the iron monger on our team could do them exactly.  Better, the arches easily removed from the posts.  Rendering them temporary if desired, and other choices made later.  Yet perfect if that's as far as we go.
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This phase of gardening, anticipation, I adore.
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Saves money/time down the road.  More, I don't want to pull the trigger too fast, only to think, "Wish we had....."
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Deck still needs staining, to protect from all the sun, furniture is bare bones.  Eating dinner on the deck feels a bit like camping.  Especially when we linger, and the Milky Way appears.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Would obviously need a deciduous vine.  Wisteria 'Amethyst Falls' a leading contender.  Shady in summer, warm in winter.