How long are you going to be in the house? The stump will eventually rot, and you can help it along by drilling into it and pouring some stump-rot chemicals.

You can put pavers in that are framed by brick. Lay it out ahead of time so the root is in the brick area.

Plant some flowers. Shrubs are the easiest care. You want to pick a range of bloom times.

Thanks. I plan to stay in the house for as long as able - my fiancé and I just bought it. I may try that stump rot idea. The more I'm looking, I think perhaps a gravel based bed may work, outlined by the brick as you said. If i do a gravel based patio, do I need a base layer of sand, or can gravel go right over a leveled ground space?

When you're ready to lay the patio, you might consider using the stone from your walkway to enlarge the patio. Sorry I can't help with the foundation/tree roots.

There is many ideas here, first you need to set the budget. Pavers run $$$ per SF for, material, installation and ground prep work. Your yard needs a little extra prep work, like removing stumps, leveling the area, maybe some concrete needs to be removed etc.

Best way to get some ideas is to call a few local contractors who do this type of work, tell them your budget and see what they can come up with to meet your budget.

Good luck with your new home.

i'm with GN, it doesnt hurt to have someone over for a looksee. if they don't have a lot of jobs lined up into fall they could give you a pretty good labor price.

we're in the middle of a pool deck redo, and i'm understanding just how much prep work goes under concrete pavers to make for a good finished look. you'll do a lot less weeding, too.

Have been very pleased with lightweight Mantis tiller to break and till ground in prep for any kind of work or planting that doesn't need a deep foundation hole dug. You seem to have a shady garden area near the house and a more sunny one further out. How about entertainment near the house and a veggie garden in the sun? Its always nice to have an interesting focal point at the far end of a long yard. Fencing would add privacy. Do something fun with the cellar doors.

Deco - I like the idea of a tiller. I would really like to do this DIY, and I'm just not comfortable with concrete for that reason. I could probably get it pretty even with a tiller and some sand/gravel I'm thinking. Perhaps outlined with the bricks. Also - I already have a lovely raised bed garden at the far sunny end of tHe yard, so good thought!

There you can sort of see the full yard - it's on a double lot, so plenty of space to add things later. Just want a nice little flat spot for a small table and chairs for now....anything will be better than the weedy dirt there now!

I would stay away from using a tiller if you have lots of roots in the ground and god knows what else ... you can get seriously hurt if you don't know what you doing.

The Mantis is a mini tiller - very light weight and very effective. It isn't like the big ones that may as well be a mule! Love ours! Easy Peasy!

Looks like the sidewalk needs some work. I say this because my Dad used broken concrete for a sidewalk. He laid it like fieldstone and it looked good. As far as the stumps, get someone to come in and grind them out. Pretty inexpensive.

Sand under the gravel, please, and line with metal edging, not loose brick.

I see a few things to consider before you start DIY - the basement door is about to become a feature of your new patio, and should be addressed in its design. Likewise the trash cans. The tree should not be part of the patio, but a separate area ( gravel bed is fine, but change the stone to demarcate) so that the surface roots are not compacted by heavier foot traffic. Grind out the stump before laying gravel, so that you can level the area - do a thing right, and you'll do it once.

On the latter note - you are likely to see unexpected things happen in your garden for the first year, not only in terms of plants you may not know about, but also water drainage, leaf debris, changing sun angles, overtaxed soil, etc. Keeping notes on when things are noticed can be helpful to you later on. Though I sense you want a new patio yesterday, please also consider a general zoning of your yard before you start digging. This will assure that your patio is in scale with later plans, and that you attend to a walking path to connect the zones - right now your path goes directly to the shed, and ignores the area that the tools inside it are needed for! I think you would do well to pull some of this city sidewalk to the bad side of town right up, and reuse the larger chunks in your gravel bed patio - better for walking, as well as furniture legs.

The decision to place your patio on a gravel bed makes it easy to add a beautiful shape to it. I suggest a graphed sketch that begins with the house, yard, veg beds, shed and gravel circle for the tree roots. Pencil in boundaries around the veg and shed for future planting. Looking at your diagram, decide where and what the destination spot should be in the yard. Now, angle your patio toward it, and balance the size of the features against eachother. This will give you some dimension to play with and re-shape - no square boxes flat to the house!

Congratulations, and best of luck on your new home.

Thank you studio - you gave me a lot to think about there! I would like to someday deal with the walkway...it is in horrendous shape. Where would you suggest moving a walking path? The prettier part of our yard will definitely be out diagonal to the right, from the perspective of looking out from the house. I would also love to make the border of the gravel an interesting shape with some curve to it, but I'm not quite sure where to end it, nor how to do a metal, more sturdy edging as you suggest.

The walking path begins with practicality - for instance, the grass is worn from going between veggie bed and the house, giving you a natural start, and just happens to be curved, already. Where there is a veggie bed, there will soon be a compost pile. You may want a place to rest out there after gardening,too,and some flowers to look at while you rest -and then there is the shed. All these things will connect via path. The material and width of the path can change based on where you want to direct traffic - wider to your focal area, narrower to hidey holes ( like the compost). Try the graph drawing as an exercise, and see where it takes you, then draw the paths for best access and view of each zone you come up with.

As to the patio, practicality reigns here,too. Barbeque? Pizza oven from all the bloody brick? Table for two, or a party spot? Those kinds of questions will dictate minimal sizing needs first, after which you can play - you may end up with a kidney, you may end up with a trapezoid - you may decide on an upper and lower patio - and another path!

The metal edging is the easy part. You can purchase in either aluminium or steel, and there are how tos on the web.

Rather than thinking in terms of where borders should end, think in terms of how to connect - much less stressful. It technically ends where the patio does, but you decide on whether that line is seen or not -A steel border may provide an upper rim to another gravel bed a few inches shorter, it may be lined with drifts of hosta or lavender that then meld into something else - or both.

Thank you studio, very helpful! I love the idea of redo a lot of the pathway, though I think that will come sometime a little further down the line. It's just not quite in our budget or time frame right now. I like the drawing exercise...this way I can at least have the master plan set and work from there, so at some point in the future it will all fit together.
I would like a smaller patio spot for two, since we have a larger side patio that is currently housing 6 chairs and a small table. I do plan on repainting the basement door at some point as we'll.me there is another shadier, more private spot of yard next to the house that I want to someday turn into a real, pretty area in the far future. So this patio is really just the best solution I could find to a shady spot (with crappy, compacted soil to boot - very hard to plant in, I've tried) that won't grow grass (not a grass fan anyway), and that I would be able to get at least some joy out of...I love sitting outside. To the left at the far end of the second photo is where I want my future nice patio. The other pic just gives yet another view of the area from the shed side of the yard.
Thanks again for your help

Wow! Your yard is huge. I love your house even more now. I would do things right and hire someone to remove the tree. Then you can take your time and plan the patio so you only have to do it once. It really could be amazing with little money but a lot of labor.

Hire a guy with a stump grinder to deal with those tree stumps. Not too expensive and will give you more options for improving your garden.

I suggest studying some books and videos on building patios and walkways. You can do it yourself but the patio will be an uneven weedy mess in a year if the bed is not prepared properly. You need to do much more than tilling with a mantis. The good news is that, at least where I live, renting the equipment (rollers, etc) is pretty cheap. You don't need concrete but you do need stone dust and stone dust is heavy, so you're looking at a pretty serious workout to build a patio or a walk or both.

I second the suggestion of waiting a year. You will learn things about your property. Some of them very nice, some of them not so nice :-)

Dang, you have a lot of options and several things that definitely need addressed. Since you're planning on being in the house for a good while, take the pain now and get rid of the stump. It's only going to cause problems long term, and limit your options short term.

Beyond that you have a lot of space planning, material selection, and installation questions to think about. A landscape designer is really good at helping you navigate those waters, but if you're not ready to make that investment yet I do a weekly free "open office hours" via Google Hangouts. You just register here to get the link and then hop online and ask what you want. The amount of time is really just dictated by how many folks are in the queue.