Are you limiting your outdoor living spaces with conventional thinking? Have you ever caught yourself saying that is just not possible?
The good news is that if you are telling yourself that something is not possible, then you are at least daring to think creatively about your yard. The bad news is that you need to stretch yourself and start to think how things can be possible rather than writing those ideas off immediately.
This picture is a rendering I did of an outdoor office. I understand that at first, this seems completely impractical, but some part of you hopes it is possible, right?
With some creative problem solving, you can take this outdoor living space and add electrical, internet and phone access, a little more privacy than normal, and weather proof, locking cabinets and before you know it, the impossible becomes possible.
This space is ideal for those who work at home on the phone or on the computer. We have also included a fax machine here for convenience.
With an outdoor office, you can either work outside and keep an eye on the kids while they play, or you can locate the office in a more secluded location and successfully escape to your own little sanctuary, perhaps out next to a small stream or waterfall, so you can work in peace and avoid constant interruptions.
The overall point is to expand your thinking and not limit your yard because it may seem impractical at first. With a little creative thinking, you can create very functional and enjoyable outdoor living spaces.
A reading room should be simple in layout and include the necessities of an environment conducive to peace and relaxation. Remember to include the basics of an Outdoor Living Space and to place comfortable sitting or lying furniture in the area. Picture what makes you feel calm and relaxed and perhaps incorporate a fire pit or a small fountain to add to the overall mood of the environment.
A reading room is really all about the feeling, so if possible, consult a feng shui expert to create your space, because a feng shui expert will help with the proper placement and flow of chi in the area, and perhaps even help to create prosperity and abundance in other aspects of your life as well!
This is a picture of the MacDonald residence reading room. A space we created to be a calm and serene get away in their own back yard. They included a small fire pit in their reading room to make the room usable for more of the year.
This rendering shows a complete kitchen outside with everything you need to prepare your whole meal. As a bonus, there is plenty of room for your friends and family to join you outside in your Outdoor Kitchen to socialize while you prepare the meal.
If your Outdoor Kitchen is simply a barbecue on your deck or patio, then you are missing out on the conveniences and comfort of an outdoor living space.
Add the walls and ceiling, like we did here with the counter and the trees, and then add the conveniences for the space, like the sink, side burner, fridge, ice maker and cabinet space, and you have a complete, convenient and comfortable Outdoor Kitchen.
By adding walls and a ceiling–real or implied–like we did in the rendering here to the left, with the sitting wall and trees, and by accessorizing the space, like we did with the chairs, fireplace and pot, the space is transformed into an outdoor living space that is very comfortable to hold social gatherings.
The area becomes even more convenient if it is placed close to the home and has access to power and perhaps a source for music to enhance the ambience of the space.
Below is the landscape design for the Allen Residence Outdoor Dining Room in Hooper, Utah. The Allens will get a lot of use out of this outdoor living space. The flooring is a tumbled Belgard paver and the walls and ceiling are a white vinyl pergola. We included plenty of space around the room for a fire pit and for dutch ovens and a barbecue. We also ran electrical to the South of the space for them to plug in a small water feature they purchased.
I also designed a flower bed for them in the front yard complete with a fifteen foot flag pole.
You hand selected the imported marble tile in you entryway and searched for days to find the right painter to do the Venetian plaster on your walls. Your bare feet now glide across the finest carpet available and the detail in your faux finish is remarkable.
All of these things created the perfect canvas in which to place the items that would begin to make your house more comfortable—your big screen television, your leather recliner and sofa set and the California king bed with the mattress that feels like you are laying on a cloud.
However, your house did not truly become your home until you began to put your personality into each room. The large vase with the fresh flower arrangement that sits perched on a neo-classical French table in the entryway welcomes visitors to your house and complements so well the beautiful marble tile.
The oranges that sit on the granite-topped island in your kitchen add a heavenly aroma to the kitchen space and contrast so well with the patina bowl in which they rest.
The Monet painting over the fireplace mantle reminds you of a mountain meadow you frequented when you were younger and provides you an opportunity to spend some time waxing nostalgic. Without these small details, your home would feel empty and cold.
No one wants to spend time in spaces that are empty and cold! This may be why we, as a society, spend more and more time inside as opposed to outside. Our homes have become more comfortable and convenient than perhaps you and I ever dreamed possible.
Some people just prefer to spend time inside and have developed almost a phobia of nature, but most people really do want to spend more time outside. This need was addressed in part with the trend of an ‘Outdoor Living Spaces’ design approach. Instead of the typical beautiful plantings next to the house, a nice flower bed somewhere in the front yard and a beautiful green lawn in the empty spaces, landscape designers in Utah, as well as other places in the country, have begun to develop separate ‘Rooms’ in the yard where different activities can take place.
The most popular by far is the outdoor extension of the family room with second place being an outdoor kitchen. These areas facilitate wonderful summer evening social functions, and a place to relax outside and watch the sunset.
The possibilities with outdoor rooms really are endless, but plants, patios and flowers still only provide a canvas for these rooms. In these rooms are placed the modern conveniences of life in the form of furniture, barbecues, fridges and sinks—but the outdoor still is not personalized without adding the details.
The best way to encourage more time outdoors is to add to the modern conveniences a splash of detail. Tuck away in the corner of a shrub hedge a small water fountain so that the laughing water resonates throughout the outdoor room.
Find the perfect place in an annual flower bed to place a gazing ball so that when you are outside, the sun hits the ball just right so as to make the beautiful glass colors dance and shine and reflect distorted images of the flowers around the ball.
Search for the perfect sculpture of a little angel that reminds you of your young daughter and place it in your reading and meditation area so that thoughts of your family are close by as you relax and think.
Reclaim the outside of your home and make it usable space instead of something you have to have mowed every week in the summer. Add a personal touch to your yard and make it a space where you can once again spend time, doing the things that you currently reserve for only the inside of your house by selecting little accents for your yard. After all, your yard shouldn’t be cold all year long!
I just spoke with my friend, Jeff Jones at Mountain View Timbers and wanted to mention that he has several great examples of walls and ceilings for Outdoor Living Spaces posted on his website. Click here to check out some of Jeff’s fine work. We are excited about our relationship we have formed with Mountain View Timbers for our landscape design here in Utah. Check back often for more examples of Outdoor Living Spaces and landscape design ideas for the Utah area.
The idea of an outdoor living space is quite vague for many. The obvious answer would seem to be a conservatory, made of glass and attached to the house in some fashion. The actual answer is any space that contains the elements necessary to give a person a feeling of safety, security and comfort while providing all the conveniences necessary to spend time in the outdoor living space.
More specifically, if you look at the elements of living indoors, and consider what it is about being inside that makes a person feel safe, secure and comfortable while providing for convenient living, and then transfer those elements to the outside, then you have what you need for a successful outdoor living space. The most basic of these elements are floors, walls, ceilings, purpose and conveniences.
All spaces include floors. Honestly, it is very difficult to create a space without a floor—okay maybe even impossible. Creating an outdoor room isn’t just about having a floor, but instead about selecting a floor. Placing different flooring materials by each other gives the impression of dividing spaces into separate areas.
Consider a wide open floor plan in a house, in which there are no walls between the kitchen and great room. Frequently, the flooring material in the kitchen will be something more conducive to spills and the great room will be something more comfortable—like carpet. Where the carpet meets the tile, there is an implied separation and you therefore create two separate spaces.
The same thing can be done with flooring outside. Where the edge of your concrete patio or deck meets your lawn, there is an implied separation of areas. Several other examples could be used to illustrate the point, but basically, it is important to define the flooring material to not only separate the different rooms in your yard, but also to provide convenience for the activities of the room.
The reason that two flooring materials placed next to each other implies a separation is because there is an implied wall there at the intersection of the two materials. Walls can be used for several different reasons other that just separating spaces, though, one of which is privacy.
The degree of privacy depends on the material used. Unfortunately, the more privacy an activity requires, the more separated from outside the room becomes. These things should always be considered when designing separate rooms. Once again, you need to consider the activities of the room to determine the amount of privacy or degree of separation required in the landscape.
Along with walls, ceilings tend to provide the core of the safety and security needed to be comfortable outside. Ceilings do not always have to be solid. A tree or a lattice-topped pergola provides the feeling of being safe and secure. In fact, simply by placing an eight foot high four by four post in each of for corners of a space, there is an implied ceiling over head.
Once again, how solid the ceiling is depends upon the activities in the area. Some activities require a more solid covering to protect from nature (sun, wind, rain, etc.), while others need less covering (sunbathing). The overall purpose of the ceiling, however, is to provide the person with a feeling of safety and security—the same as being inside.
As mentioned with the floors, walls and ceilings, the materials used depend first and foremost upon the activity of the area. Outdoor Living Spaces really start to develop when each space is given purpose.
Think of the inside of your home. What do you do in your kitchen? Bathroom? Bedroom? Family room? Office? Now what do you do outside? Maybe grill?
When you start to be creative about what you want to do outside, and then define spaces accordingly, then you have really caught the dream of Outdoor Living Spaces. That is when your yard becomes functional and you have a space outside for a kitchen, a great room, an office, an exercise room, a theater, or reading and meditating. It is only by giving different spaces outside purpose that you will be enticed to spend time outside doing the things you would normally do inside.
The last thing missing from the equation is the conveniences of being inside. Many things can be added to your yard to make spending time in your outdoor rooms convenient.
Power can be run to any space in your yard. Likewise, internet, network and cable connections can be run. Spaces can be heated and/or cooled with a little creative thinking. Also, you can add humidity to a space with a misting system.
Many activities require storage space. Of course you can’t forget the furniture and appliances that really define a space and its activity. Be careful, though, because adding these conveniences will give you very little reason to spend your time inside.
Along with the conveniences of inside, to define an outdoor living space, you need to select floor materials and add walls, ceilings and most importantly, give each space a purpose. Doing so will help you to live, play, enJOY, life outside…