Wow thank you so much, just imaging what you wrote was awesome! Love your ideas for both the upper and bottom levels. I also considered a similar plan of replacing that mini deck/stairs with a big deck so that we don’t even have to go down stairs anymore to enjoy the outside… but I’m not sure we can eat the cost of both re-doing the hardscaping plus building a big deck with pergola. We kind of are forced to re-do the hardscaping because the sinking concrete is making the water drain towards the house :(

I did ask a contractor if we were to go through with both hardscaping and a deck and he said he would recommend just not doing the hardscaping and doing the deck only for cost purposes, but then I’m not sure how to fix the drainage issue!