Most homeowners are aware of recent trends in the areas of home and garden. Blurring the lines between indoor and outdoor living is a creative use of space. When you own your home, you’re mainly concerned with utility costs, maintaining your home’s structure and using your available space in a practical manner. Here are some tips to help you maximize your home's indoor and outdoor space.
Seamless Transitions Create More Space
Consider extending your living areas to the patio and backyard. No longer relegated to a plain cement slab with a lawn chair or two, your patio is key to designing an outdoor living area.
Look for popular ideas to continue the colors and themes beyond the traditional family room. Lighting is a big factor driving these forays to the backyard. Carry Southwestern themes outdoors with bright sofas and a mural using different shades of turquoise.
Move Your Kitchen Outdoors
Moving the dining area outdoors is a popular trend. Prior to recent advances in technology, you either used a barbeque or your kitchen to prepare food. Now, outdoor kitchen options include permanent cooking structures, pizza oven, and side burners to create sauces and to boil and prepare certain dishes. Built-in infrared searing grills give steaks a professional touch or exterior char. New hybrid grills allow your choice of charcoal or gas.
Be Creative with Outdoor Lighting
Outdoor lighting trends make evening dining an intimate pleasure. Place comfortable furniture with resilient fabrics to maximize the effect you create throughout the patio, garden, and yard. Many patios and garden lovers construct sunken fireplaces for comfort as well as light.
Build Sustainable Plants Walls
Rather than traditional ivy-covered stone or brick dividers, layered garden walls provide the perfect settings for living walls. Use native species. You can conserve water and contribute to bringing native, plants, and shrubs back where they belong.
Create Natural paths and boundaries without fences
Another popular move is creating boundaries, privacy, and fences with berry plants. Berries come in all shapes and sizes, from small plants such as strawberries used as filler on layered ground in gardens to large tree like hedges bursting full of fruit to enjoy year-round in jellies and jam. American cranberries grow eight to 10 feet tall, where bush cherries maximum height is three to four feet.
No matter how you choose to incorporate these trends into your backyard and living space, it will be a creative use of your time and energy. Improve the value of your home and have fun in the process.