Outdoor Living Spaces

Overview:

Why stay inside when you can extend the living spaces of your home outdoors by creating outside living spaces. It isn’t difficult to build outdoor living spaces. But it does take an appreciation for the outside environment to expand your living space there. It doesn’t occur to many homeowners to divide up the yard to maximize the enjoyment of their home in the same way that the inside is divided up into different rooms. By becoming aware of expanding our living space to outside the home the more enjoyment we will get from our home.

Having outdoor living spaces will allow you to create a mini-landscape design to better accommodate the living space and your life style. The more successful you are in creating the outside design of the outside living space the more you will enjoy your home. Typical outside living spaces are decks, patios, gardens and pool areas. All these area are different and should be designed so they don’t run all together in a hodgepodge setting. In most cases you don’t want your deck or patio overlooking a swimming pool decorated with an array of towels drying. To prevent a hodgepodge the design should include some barriers that set each outside living space apart from each other. The barrier maybe shrubbery or a lattice wall with vines.

Setting the mood of the living space is important to capture the aesthetics that offer the most comfort. Color is a great mood setter. Just as you can paint an indoor room using a color scheme unique to that room you can use color to make individualized statements for your outside living spaces. Determine the color scheme that coordinates with the plants or shrubs you use for the area. The flower colors and shrubs that you use for a relaxing patio or deck should be different from the colors used for the pool area. You can make the area seem larger depending on the colors you use.

The material you use to construct a deck or patio should be of good quality. Nothing looks worse that a weather pressure treated deck. Use an upscale hardwood such mahogany or cedar for a more appealing deck. Use the same approach when selecting furniture for your deck. A lot of deck furniture looks great and holds up to the elements for years while other inexpensive furniture will never be appealing. The same goes for patios. Rather than building a cement slab patio use patio pavers or slate and grout it with a complementary colored cement.

The surrounding area of your outside living space should be complementary too. Plant grass around decks and patios and mulch flower gardens. Install raised flower beds around patios or flower planters on the deck. If you use a sun umbrella insure that it is of good quality and does not conflict with the overall decor.

Make your outside living space functional and attractive so you can entertain quests just as you would do in the inside living space. Expanding your home living space to the outside environment is a great way to expand the overall living space of your home and get the most enjoyment from your home. Follow these tips and you can create some great outdoor living spaces as an extension of your home.

Building a Flagstone Patio

Brick Pavers | Concrete Pavers

Outdoor Furniture

Stamped Concrete Design Patio

Staining a Deck

Stepping Stones

For more DIY information Check out these Resources