New garden

[Bestcatmum]

My house which I moved into two years ago has a large courtyard which is all gravel, the cats don't like it and I don't like it.
I'm working all hours and will have saved up £10,000 by April to have it remodelled.
What I want is wood raised beds and old stone paving. Nothing that looks brand new or modern, I'm thinking cottage garden.
The beds have to be raised as I am partially disabled and can't dig any more plus i need to be able to sit on the edge to plant and weed.
Definitely no grass as the area isn't big enough and too much faff when I retire.
Plus we get a fair bit of rain here and the weeds in the grass are ridiculous.
I was going to get brick raised beds but I can't afford it so it's going to have to be wood which I prefer anyway, I'm wondering if anyone knows which kind of wood lasts many years without needing to be replaced, this has to last my lifetime - I'm 60 now. Won't live past 80 due to my health problems but that's ok.
I love old railway sleepers and then I want recycled aged brick paving for the non raised bed areas and then I'll plant a riot of cottage garden plants with lots of climbing roses and clematis.
I'm going to get the current pond dug up as it's a horrible DIY job and get one of those above ground ones for the wildlife. Just a small one in a large barrel.
I'm just so excited about this project, it's going to make a real difference to me and the cats 😃

I know you said wood raised beds - but for long-lasting benefits and affordability have you considered gabions?

Have a look at these two videos from The Middle Sized Garden - both from Jane Beedle's garden, where she uses gabion baskets for raised beds. One, fairly newly planted and the second a couple of years later. It has a cottage garden feel, especially once established in the second video; and (although probably more modern design than you're looking for), it has some interesting design ideas.

I would not advise sleepers if you want long lasting. Mine have lasted about 10 years and two have now collapsed. It’s annoying as they are now priority for next year. I was looking at bricks but I’ll check out the link above too. I think mine have been eaten by ants. I dare not think of the quotes I’m going to get.

I really would prefer low maintenance and I like the sleepers but I’ll never have them again.

We had sleepers in our old back yard - piled 3 up on each other and they didn't rot at all in the 20 or so years we were there. And we are in a rainy bit of the country.

We had a couple of trees planted in the raised beds too. Enjoy planning it.

Am I misunderstanding something? You have a budget of 10k but can't afford brick raised beds? But you can afford wood? I am not trying to be difficult but I can't understand the logic here. Wood that has been treated to last will be expensive, and I don't think much would be guaranteed for 20 years. Aged brick paving will also be expensive (I would expect it to be much more expensive than brick raised beds). Perhaps I'm not quite getting what your priorities are, but it's much easier to DIY a raised bed from new bricks than it is to source, prepare, and lay a path from recycled bricks. Could you perhaps go for brick raised beds, and sacrifice the lovely recycled-brick paths for something more practical? Even just basic concrete flags can work well if you have cottage-garden plants spilling over them (nepeta, lavender, alchemilla mollis?).

If you're doing a wildlife pond in a barrel, you need to work out how to protect birds etc. from the cats.