Here is the floor plan.

I need the patio to connect the french doors off the Living Room to the french doors off the Kitchen and would rather not have a giant rectangle.

You don't say how deep the backyard is. It would also help to know which direction the living room faces, and whether there are any existing shade trees.

How do you plan to use the covered porch and the porch off the living room? Will there be a BBQ?

If you plan to do outdoor entertaining, how many people will regularly use the space? Do you need room for an outdoor dining table, and if so, where will that be placed and how many will it seat?

A major issue will be the elevation of the patio. The siding just the other side of the living room windows/doors goes down about 2' lower than the house's floor level. If you plan on having patio in that area ... well, you'll need to speak to someone who knows the implications of that change in elevation.

And it looks like the backyard slopes down even further. You need to consider all of this: the height the patio will be, and how to handle the elevation changes. And what local code mandates for stairs.

Also how much you can budget for this, both now and later.

Is there any reason you can't contact a number of landscaping firms and request proposals? Also do you want concrete? Or some other kind of stone. We waited for a year after we moved in before we did the landscaping because we wanted to take the time to get the design right as landscape and esp the hardscape can be expensive.

I'm on my iPad so can only post one photo at a time. So the 2 photos of my patio will be in 2 posts.

I did a stamped and stained concrete patio. It's off the back corner of my house - behind the living room and side porch. The porch is set back about 6 feet from the exterior wall of the living room. I ended up doing a free form design, kinda like 2 interlocking circles. I can't get a aerial view because of the corner of the house. Overall it's about 600 sf.

It's off the northwest corner of the house. There is a large maple tree in the "corner" between where the 2 circle connect. That tree provide wonderful shade from the late afternoon hot west sun.

We have one of the circles set up with a round patio table for 4. The other circles is set up with a fire pit and 4 chairs. And I have it surrounded by potted plants.

I didn't bother to go out and neaten things up for these photos. I just wanted to be able to give you a general idea of shape and design. This first photo I'm standing on the back steps of the porch - this is the circle behind the living room.

This photo, I'm standing on the left hand bench you see in the first photo, and you can see the circle behind the porch.

One thing you can see in this photo is the big crack in the concrete. I'm in Boston MetroWest. Since there were no seams in the patio - it's one huge slab of concrete, I was warned that it could possibly crack. The first winter, we got this one big crack. Because we had stained the concrete, we could not get concrete filler to match. Hence the line. (We wanted to fill the crack to prevent maple helicopters from sprouting the crack). The patio is now 5 years old and we have not had any additional cracking

NWHobart--very nice. Do you have more pictures? Love your guest suite. Somehow I think a rectangle might be your best bet with nice landscaping.

Pixie--very inviting yard. I like the "no patterned" look of your stamped concrete. We did a brick pattern on our back porch and it looks really ...fake...for lack of a better word.

Red - thanks for the complements. With the irregular design, I didn't want to add a "geometric" design into the concrete. So the texture really was a great option. The texture and staining was minimal added cost, and IMO really makes the patio. It just wouldn't be the same if it was a plain slab.

I spoke to a couple guys about pavers, but the one guy who was going to do pavers "right", meaning trimming all the stones to make the circle design, the price was waaaaaaay out of our budget! Plus the circles would have ended up too circular, if that makes any sense.

We have a slope to our back yard, 2 large maple trees, and the septic tank in that area. So the amoeba design really came from that. We first used a hose to get the idea for the space. And then I just spray painted the grass for the shape I wanted.

From the photos, it already looks like the OP has the rectangular roof for their covered patio. So circular designs may not work with that existing roof.

Pixie, you may be on to something. I like more of the free flow design for a patio so I may oversize the pad under the covered porch and continue that wave onto the patio to the living room. We wil have elevation changes as the yard drops in front of the guest room window and I'd like to use the 2 man boulders to create 2 2' rockery terraces for shrubbery, etc... to help aleviate the slope.

As for use, our kids love to play in the grass so we'll have a majority of that for them to run around in. We like to entertain our friends and their kids so seating for 6-8 would be great and I'd love a fire pit in the grass behind the kitchen. Our property goes back another 1500' behind the house but we'd only landscape the first 30-40 feet. The rest we'll let grow wild.

I would definitely bring in a landscape designer, but since you're in a rush, try posting at the landscape design forum.

Why can't ipads put pictures on straight? Or, indicate to the user when they aren't straight so they can be rotated for everyone else's viewing?

This post makes me dizzy... ;)