Before the After

Here we go again! Spring is here and with it the next round of "What do we want to do in the yard this year?"
We have been planning a patio on the north side of our yard just off of the back porch for a few years. It's kind of a nondescript part of our yard that lacks charm and purpose. Last year the Mr. had actually put a deposit on having a patio installed when we realized we had to have a sewage pipe dug out and replaced which cost us out patio money as well as dug up where the patio would have been. Good thing we hadn't installed it yet!
I have a weird specific vision for our house and yard that few understand and fewer yet think is attractive...LOL. Ours is a suburban post WWII bungalow. I love older houses in old neighborhoods and what I really love is preserving the house's character and not adding elements that are at odds to the age of it. Case in point, a new patio. I don't want a modern looking patio. I want something that looks as though it has been there for years and years and has mellowed with time.
The Mr. wants something that screams, "I WAS JUST INSTALLED AND I AM BRAND NEW AND STATE OF THE ART!!"
The very idea makes my liver dry up.
I don't even particularly like new sod. I like grass made of all different kinds and preferably with dandelions, clovers and crab grass here and there.
Here's what I want...
Yes folks, I actually want patio stones with grass growing in between. I saw them do it on the HGTV and if you ask me, it looks easier than all of that leveling and peat gravel and sand and whatnot. You just scatter your stones around in the basic form you want and then you take a knife and cut around each one, pull up that section of grass (not sod!) and lay in your stone. It's ok if the grass grows up around the edges a bit, in fact, that's the point. I found some pictures online to explain myself but they mostly pop us as a "before" with a brand spanking new poured or paver patio in the "after" column. It should come as no surprise that I like to live in the before column.
I am getting a lot of push-back from the Mr. and Daboyz and talk about wanting to eliminate the need to mow on that side of the yard and edging around the blocks and uneven legs on a patio table and and and.
To this I say, shut up.
I know what I like!
And I want a patio that looks overgrown and like it has been there for generations and doggone it,
I WANT TO LIVE IN THE BEFORE PICTURE.
Is that really too much to ask?