Garden Patio - an outdoor living space on a budget

With our fire pit transformed, we decided that our next project should be a new designated seating area. Always mindful of a budget, since we end up rearranging and moving things so often, and compounded with the fact that we were essentially putting the cart before the horse (building a yard before we built our house), we knew that we didn't want to set anything in concrete  - literally. We knew we didn't want to use more pea gravel, since our patio chairs would sink right in, so we began exploring options. We settled on simple 12" x 12" pavers from Home Depot. At about $1 a piece, they would give us the coverage we needed and the flexibility to simply move them or remove them completely if we didn't like how they turned out. 

As luck would have it, we were helping out some friends with their own landscaping project when we noticed a discarded, broken metal gazebo frame that they had deemed ready for the dump. They saw a hunk of trash taking up valuable yard space, and I saw the perfect addition to my envisioned, make-shift patio. We rescued the frame, and while there was no canopy, the metal itself was in great condition. We staked the legs into the ground, and used it as a template for our patio space.  With about $100 worth of pavers, a $14 flat of dichondra to grow between them, 4 discounted vines that we scored from Lowes, our old metal patio set, one afternoon, and (once again) one hard working and incredibly loving husband, we had taken one more little chunk out of the flat, hard, ugly, brown dirt that we were surrounded with. 

This became on of my favorite spots to sit and enjoy the amazing view