First the good news - terraces are brilliant and make for a really interesting garden space. The bad news is that the rendering looks to be a fairly poor job; see the edges not finished properly - opening the render up to premature decay. Damp is accumulating at back of steps because they do not have a forward gradient for run off, visible lines of block work underneath probably means that no scratch coat was applied before the top coat, so cracks like those on the top wall may well spread. Also I cant see any drainage holes in the walls, so damp might build up behind them and this might be the cause of the paint peeling on the middle steps. The tiles/slabs that have been placed on top of them are not really coping stones - so you will always get dirty water run off marks where the the pointing gaps are between them. Proper coping can be butted up very tightly so there is no joint for the water run down, also they have a drip grove underneath so that water cannot run back via surface tension down the walls. Depending on how seriously you want to make this a quality garden that will last for years you need to decide if you'd like to make the structural aspects thoroughly sound, before thinking about colours of walls, btw, If you paint the walls a dark colour it will make the garden feel smaller imo, otherwise you could plant and landscape and be faced with crumbling render ruining it. I'd get the ivy off of the fence on the left, it is making the space in the foreground feel much smaller and may be obscuring a rotten fence. You can get summerhouses with the shed bit built onto the back - accessed by a side door, which would preserve your route to back gate. Even better - commission a bespoke structure to make the most of your space. I'd ditch the grass (hassle to mow in restrained spaces, hauling mower up and down) and have seating/hammock areas on each terrace using lots of diaphanous plants like Phyllostachys and Genista aetnensis, Psuedopanax, grasses, or columnar plants. I'd freeform plant (without 'borders') through aggregate mulch - slate/gravel base augmented with drifts of cobbles/flints/shells ect. Sorry for the ramble but thorough assessment of structure before the fun bits can pay off.

modernistlover, you mentioned but neglected to detail your lifestyle, or is that included in your gardening ability comment? Followed by narry a sniff of what you want to do in your garden. Now, if the latter is simply to look out of the window at it the lowest maintenance idea you could hold on to is doing just that without touching it. So. 'avin' a larf out of the way, where to from here? It looks to be an appreciable space. Some estimate of actual size would help. IGNORE siren wailings for conifers. They are fine so long as they keep their "miniature" cultivar form. They fail drastically to do so for very long and become a damned nuisance all too soon. After their first pruning they soon begin to look very ugly. I can agree that your willow, assuming that is part of a picture of your garden, is beautiful. In fact, a simple cutting back of the vegetation within the pictured area by a reasonably competent gardener or maintenance contractor (the distinction seems to be in the mind of the hirer rather than the practitioner) would make a world of difference and give you a basis for negotiating a regular maintenance contract. Within which all that grass could well be to your benefit. The cost of grass cutting is generally determined much more by the ease of access, required quality of cut, how level the ground is and difficulty of edging if required among other factors, rather than the area, i.e. amount of grass, to be cut. Which, in turn, could turn out to be very low in relation to the actual area if all you want is a reasonably green and tended looking patch of land.

I'm always a little suspicious of professionals using apostrophes incorrectly :-) but it looks like you've done a good job on the renovation. Personally I'm not a fan of a freestanding bath, nor an 'open plan' bathroom, but I was pleased to see you've kept the wooden ceiling (cladding) in the master suite. How did you manage to take it out in the first place? Or did you actually have to replace it?

Hi there, Looks like you have a nice space to work with there! Certainly no problems to extend the patio and maybe even creating an additional seating area. Adding a firepit is a great idea as it creates a cozy and relaxing space and also extends the time that you can use your seating area for (as it brings in light and warmth). I offer a range of affordable online garden design services that you can choose from. Please do get in touch if you want to find out more! I would be very glad to help! Deborah The Rooted Concept Garden Designs www.therootedconceptgardendesign.co.uk