Our plan is to have a big rectangle around the pool (I know, boring....). Basically, the pool is perpendicular to the house so that we still have a lot of yard left to the nearest long edge. We'll be putting 2ft of concrete on the "back" side, 4ft on each end, and then 9ft on the near side for entertaining space. Basically, you'll walk from the existing patio out to the pool decking without any height change. Once it's all built out, we'll put a couple of bistro tables out there, plus a grill and a large umbrella and maybe a lounge chair or two.
We have dogs and didn't want to leave them no place to romp and play. The back fence is almost north south with the pool being in the southern corner, but there are no trees (newly built neighborhood), so we couldn't position to take advantage of any.
It's been a slow drizzle since Saturday, so I'm not sure if they'll work today or not.
And as for sanitizing, right now, I'm planning on using bleach.