I'm looking for some advice about designing a new patio area in my backyard. We have an area about 10' x 21' feet in our backyard that used to have two large trees (see photo 1 - Please ignore the old dilapidated fence. We're going to be replacing that very soon). Since removing the trees a few years ago (due to fungus), we haven't done anything with the area. What I'd like to do is turn it into a nice patio with stairs coming down from the porch (we'll have to remove the lattice and open up that side of the porch obviously). We had considered building a deck, but I'm not sure how well that will go with the style of the house, which is an old Victorian home. I'm leaning toward installing a paver patio - maybe some old or old-looking brick pavers. Anyway, here's my question. The area adjacent to this 10' x 21' area is our concrete driveway (I'll attach this photo separately). In an ideal world where I had limitless funds, I'd bust out the concrete driveway and put pavers down over the whole area. But that's not realistic given our budget. So I'm wondering how to either make the patio flow with the existing driveway, or how to create some separation so it's not so weird that there's a concrete slab right next to a pavered patio.

Here are the ideas I've had so far to try to create some natural separation between the two areas.
1) Build an elevated patio so you have to step down onto the driveway. I like this idea, but we're going to be installing the patio ourselves and we're not skilled enough to do an elevated paver patio.
2) Build a small bench that would sit on the patio along the border between the patio and driveway.
3) Set a row of large potted plants along the border or allow a gap between the patio and driveway where plants/shrubs could be planted.
4) Build some type of arbor/gate along the border.

An alternative would be to try to tie the two materials together somehow. Some potential ideas...
1) Create a border of brick pavers around the driveway. 2) Incorporate some gray bricks into the patio design.
3) Stain the concrete a color that would coordinate with the paver colors (regardless of what we do with the driveway, we'll definitely be power washing it so it looks nicer).

Also, I'm not sure about the shape of the patio. I think just making it a big rectangle like the driveway will only call attention to the difference in materials, so I would probably soften the fourth edge with a curve. Maybe there's a way to use different colors of pavers to create an illusion of curves. Any guidance would be so appreciated! I feel totally stuck and don't want to put a lot of money and time into something that doesn't look right.

Thanks!