Oh I’m glad you also don’t like it. I hate it!
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But I can’t go cute French cafe two-seater. There are four of us and we are all big now. But also, I tend to feed a group when I host. At least… 8. So no tiny tables for us.
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No, I want to cover most of the sad dirt/no longer tree area. So can you tell me more about why you say not to make it bigger than 3x3?
container flower garden inspo!
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I want to raise the idea of seeds. Like maybe just handfuls of native wildflowers. And I’m not saying for all your plants, but like, maybe buy some but grow the rest. Maybe you grow them in the ground but seeds aren’t too expensive. And if you’re growing something bee friendly and beautiful, watering may not feel as wasteful?
Definitely lean on BN and thrifting and patience, I think. 
Also decide a budget up front (or monthly budget? Idk)
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If you want an actual patio where people will walk and things will be heavy and it will last, you need a stable and solid ground to put everything on, and you need it to drain so water doesn’t pool. The “correct” way to do is to dig down 6-18”, then put sand and gravel (for drainage and stability), then compress that (so it doesn’t sink over time) THEN put the pavers in and put the sand in to keep them in place. All this with a 1/2” per foot (maybe? Look this up before you try to do this) slope so that it drains, probably more important for Pacific Northwest weather. Then put in the sand, which is either poly sand which stays forever but stains the brick and might be toxic, or just sand, which can run in the rain. There’s specialized equipment and a lot of digging and a lot of running over to the sand and gravel place to pick up a few extra buckets of stuff even though you already paid a delivery fee for a cubic yard of mixed gravel.
What Marcela seemed to be suggesting was putting a small number of paver bricks from your local hardware store on some generally level dirt so you could move the grill off the actual patio. That’s a very different level of size and permanence to the structure.
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I did get nice biceps the summer I did this (I was unemployed and my hobbies were job searching, running, anxiety and making this walkway)
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I was thinking kind of like this, but with mulch in between instead of grass. And maybe a little more spaced out.
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That seems fairly easy to do. If you don’t need the edges of the tiles to line up exactly the same height a lot of the precision drops out and there are a lot fewer steps.
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You actually have a chance at it staying mulch? The grass here would take it as an invitation. Then there’s one spot in the middle of the yard where grass refuses to grow, sigh.
But if you do that, just make sure it’s low enough to easily mow over if you need to. I have a round stepping stone path and the “hardest” part about it was just making sure they were level so they don’t wobble when you step on them.
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Yeah, my recommendation was based on it being a rental and @noitsbecky not knowing how long they plan to stay there. I would not invest the time and money to do pavers “properly” in her situation. But I also had a janky pavers over dirt patio of 144 SQ ft for 3 years that worked great for us. 
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I think the landlord will not mind any permanent plantings. Just doing anything to make the place look nicer will be good!
I’d ask on Buy Nothing for plants. People might have plants to rehome or divide. And pots of flowering annuals around the patio will spruce it up a lot!
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I’m feeling kind of discouraged today. The sad dirt lot is really uneven, there are some rocks in it, there are tree stumps sticking out. I don’t feel like trying to even it out enough for pavers. It sounds hard and where is my shovel anyway? I think we have one, we used to have one. I’m not sure where it is.
I got sunburned yesterday and my shoulders hurt and that was just from moving some things around and cleaning the hot tub. Also, it’s noisier out there than I want it to be. The tree loss has made the freeway noise more noticeable and I can hear goddamned Les Schwab’s phone ringing. It’s always been loud, I’ve always been able to hear it in the summer. But it’s extra loud now. So I don’t even like it out there.
I feel like going back to my usual plan of pretending the outdoors doesn’t exist.
grump, grump
Additionally, all my family members are sleeping instead of helping. It’s 11:17am!
Maybe I’ll just buy a bunch of mulch and put it on top of the sad dirt area and buy a bunch of plants. Put the bench on top of the tree stumps so no one trips over them. Bribe a kid with actual money to dig up the big rocks so no one trips on them, assuming I can find the shovel. Move the grill to the sad dirt area and scoot the too-big and also ugly table and chairs over a bit. Maybe that’s enough for now? Save my pennies for making a patio I actually own someday closer to my dream patio?
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Actually, I think I know what I want to do to the area. But I don’t know how feasible it is, and I don’t know if I want it enough to put in the money and effort.
What I want is to move the hot tub over to the sad dirt area. I would put up one of those bamboo screens between my house and the neighbors and I would add a lot of plants. And I’d string those outdoor lights above us. I would make it like a little oasis, a little natural area, almost a “room” but with a hot tub in the middle of it.
That would free up space on the patio. I could move my grill back to where it used to be and I have a little seating area over there like I used to. And then the eating area on the other part of the patio, and then the hot tub oasis. I think it would be nice.
But I fear that there would be a lot of work and expense involved in making the ground suitable to put an inflatable hot tub on top of. Really it’s probably best with a cement slab under it which is why it is where it is now, and is not an oasis.
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Could you buy some really big plywood and place that on the ground after you level it a little? I don’t know what a good base for an inflatable hot tub is, so sorry if that’s a ridiculous plan.
The rearrangement sounds nice! Even if you don’t move the hot tub, the bamboo screen + plants seems like a really good idea.
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I love that idea!
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This sounds really nice! Reminder that you don’t have to do it all at once, and you can change your mind. I think you need a small win first before tackling a bigger project! I was wondering actually if it was possible to put the hot tub on dirt. Wasn’t sure what the prep for that would look like! Looooove the idea of the privacy screen and lights!
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Do you know about Chip Drop? Free load of wood chips from an arborist. However, you have to take the entire load and it could be huge. Our pile was bigger than the Prius. Would be a lot of work to move but you could at least use a wheelbarrow. We had to cart it down the hill in IKEA bags, and we started at the bottom of the hill because we learned from the neighbor’s house that if we start at the top, we’d just slip and fall on the chips.
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Would a plastic mat be OK for an inflatable hot tub? Or does it need a hard surface? We have this on our brick paving and it would also work well on mulch spread out:
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