It’s fun and exciting to spend time outdoors this summer with family and friends. You can create a functional, beautiful, and comfortable outdoor space like a pro through creative planning. But, is it possible to design your outdoor space without hiring a professional designer? Yes, it’s possible! You can be resourceful by using available materials at home, recycling old furniture, or doing some DIY art project for your outdoor decorations. Bring back the life of your patio and garden and spark happier conversations, enhance mood, and encourage positive vibes in your home.
It’s time to create your outdoor haven to have fun, relax, and enjoy the view of the sky and your landscape! In this post, you’ll learn how to design your outdoor living space like a pro. Let’s get started!
Choose Quality and Functional Patio Furniture Pieces
A major design element in an outdoor living space is patio furniture. You can find outdoor love seats, sofas, tables, and many other types of outdoor seating arrangements and equipment with weather-resistant materials and construction at Park Warehouse. Now, you can use your outdoor area as an extension of your indoor living space! Here are some furniture tips and ideas for your outdoor space:
- Buy easy-care patio furniture, like those made of metal, cedar, and teak, which also look beautiful for many years.
- Look for furniture pieces that fold or is quickly taken apart for a compact storage. Store patio furniture pieces in a protected location (e.g., basement or garage during the offseason).
- Use colorful finishes for your outdoor furniture and reserve bold colors like bright red, yellow, green, orange, and pink for accent pieces and cushions.
- Ground patio furniture should have soft underfoot with rich texture, lending the comforts of your indoor space outdoors.
- Choose hardworking furniture (e.g., ottoman that serves as extra seating or a simple bench that will cozy up into an alfresco dining table or stand alone for your next pool party).
Install Great Fire Features
You and your family can fully enjoy your outdoor space at night time by installing fire features. They add warmth, functionality, and beautiful design to your outdoor area. It’s a great way to promote a romantic home design and extend the season on your deck or patio for several weeks. While a firepit is considered as a traditional favorite, you can also use contemporary fire channel to bring a modern design element to your outdoor space. Here are some tips when installing fire features:
- Install your fire pit across the lawn or near activity zones for entertaining but with a reasonable distance from the house for safety.
- You can opt-in a camp-style fire pit, and you can achieve this design with a ledgestone fire pit and wood-burning steel log on pea gravel.
- You can also design your fire pit with stones, like cobblestones, clustered in a circle for an authentic and classic look.
Engage in Xeriscaping
Xeriscaping is choosing a variety of native plants that thrive well in an environment where there’s little supplemental water. It’s a lifestyle landscaping that brings tons of benefits to your home and the environment. It’s an excellent way to landscape with a smaller carbon footprint on the planet. It only means that you can achieve a beautiful garden while watering less, thus using less energy as well as saving you effort, time, and money. Here are some tips to design your outdoor space through xeriscaping:
- Use blue grama grass or buffalo grass. These grasses are native that only require minimal input to look good. Buffalo grass creates a toe-tickling lawn that amazingly approximates traditional fescue.
- Create irrigation zones and group your plants according to their water needs, which promotes a healthier garden.
- Use mulch to slow down soil water evaporation to reduce weeds and give your planting areas a beautiful and finished look. Stones make fantastic mulch for your succulent garden design or Zen rock garden. If you have an English garden design, you can use shredded bark as mulch.
- Make your xeriscape design functional by installing rain barrels to catch and reuse stormwater runoff.
- Choosing paver patterns to let open earth between pavers, allowing the rain to percolate into the soil (e.g., replacing a macadam or concrete driveway with turf stone or porous paving, gravel, or pavers with openings).
Conclusion
Your outdoor living space can become an extension of your indoor space which brings comfort and adds more functionality to your home. Whether you frequently hold outdoor parties or events or want to enjoy the sun during daytime and tell stories and gaze at stars at night, these design ideas are helpful to make your outdoor space more beautiful, enjoyable, and a practical place to stay. Don’t hesitate to experiment until you find the right spot for your landscape features, patio furniture, and outdoor decors like a pro. Happy designing!