Patio solutions

We've been trying to decide on what material to use for our patio (above). We have been putting it off for years, waiting for our next door neighbour to do some work on their property that included bulldozing their way through our garden and leaving a huge crater where our outdoors sitting area was. This work was done last autumn and the garden was (kind of) put back together again this summer, but the decking is still not decided on. We have pebbles in that spot now. We need to fill in more pepples to raise it up to the level of that black plastic lining (protection from damp) and we also need to fix those ugly steps.

I was initally thinking of putting down natural slate slabs like these:
I think they are really beautiful. It's a costly job, though. And now I'm not even sure it's the best look for our house. We're also considering a wooden deck. That's the solution that most of the houses in our area have.

This house is from Danish interior magazine Bo Bedre. (It's a stunning house - click on the link to see more pictures.) I think the 'untreated' finish of these boards work well together with this kind of 60's architecture.

Then there's this idea, which I found on two different blogs over the last few days, both American:
Concrete slabs in different sizes, making use of the pebbles that we already have. This should be easy to put down, I'm thinking - a bit of DIY - and how much can it cost? But what about maintanance? (Do they 'stay put'?) If you have experience in this, I'd love to hear from you!

Credit: Picture with eggchair and cute little dog is borrowed from Happy Mundane blog, and the one with the fab orange chairs is from The Cottage Cheese blog, via Rearranged Design. All great blogs - go check them out.