What do you want to achieve? Is the clothesline located where you want it? What about the other items in the picture, do you want a place to sit or garden tool storage or anything else? Are you overlooked by neighbours, do you want to enhance privacy? Does the lawn have to stay? Do you have the budget to get some paving or decking done or is it a DIY job? Are you good at DIY? Which way is north?

I would deck it so it's nice and clean..then you could put pots all around the fence so it's pretty

if this is just going to be service area, then put in some large format paving stones and bit of planting in between

One of the ideas I pictured was deck and pots too. One of the reasons I'm not sure about that is how would a deck go around the air-conditioning unit. If the clothesline is moved that could avoid decking around the unit. Another question is pots dry out faster than plants in the ground and need repotting and fertilising so how much garden work niomir is up for. If the steps aren't a nuisance then large format pavers would look good, especially with some plantings to soften the look. But if the yard is being redone it's a good opportunity to address the matter of carrying washing down the steps. A deck off the door stepping down to a paved sitting area could look nice too. Are you still reading niomir?

you can build around it..make a flap so you can get in to service it if needed to ..we completely covered ours ie deck is higher than the whole unit..

as for the pots..put pot stands/legs so they don't sit directly on the deck

This is what we used. Large plain concrete pavers and grasses

Opening poster was liking comments on other conversations the next day when there were three replies here. Sometimes I wonder why do we bother.

The tidy-up does look much better. I wouldn't put a plant in a pot in front of the air blowing from an air-condioning unit.

I was thinking of the effect on the plant but that's another consideration.

Looks great!