I wanted the patio furniture to be below the windows so the furniture would not block the view from the windows. So, I had to build steps to get down to the patio. I dug a hole 1 foot wide and 1 to 2 feet down into native soil for the bottom step's outer perimeter. In this hole I added lots of rebar and lots of concrete. I used wood forms above the ground to get to the level of the bottom step. I constructed the tread (horizontal part) of the steps later to make sure that the steps were all within 1/8" height of each other:
Everything below the wood forms will be covered by the final patio (including some of the limestone shown below):
