There is no better way to increase your living space than moving it outdoors. When you feel like your home is busting at the seems, you need to grow, but don’t have the funds (or patience. Or desire.) to upgrade to a bigger home, or add an addition, sometimes you can really expand the room you have to move and groove by setting up an awesome outdoor living area.
If you are going to invest in setting up an outdoor living area, do yourself a favor and do it right. Take a look at our list of ideas developing an outdoor living space that will fill your soul with joy every time you come home.
Four Ideas for Creating an Outdoor Living Space You Love
- Invest in custom sheds with sustainable material.
If your outdoor living area is worth a brass penny (that’s a saying, right?) you’re going to need equipment and supplies to build and upkeep it. Those supplies will need a place to call home themselves. If you are lucky enough to have an empty garage laying around, you can skip on to the next point. However, for the rest of the populous, you’ll need a storage shed. The wrong way to do it is to buy one of those unsightly plastic discount sheds. Instead, look into sustainable cedar sheds. Cedar sheds don’t cost more (if anything) than the clunky plastic ones, serve a dual purpose: cedar sheds add to the unique-ness and beauty of your landscape, while providing a home sweet home for your lawn and garden supplies.
Bonus: If you can, look into cedar sheds as a small guest house, or she-shed. Then your living space grows exponentially! - Stay true to your style.
Your deck or patio area should cohesively flow into the interior design. The best way to create an outdoor living space that meshes well with the interior is to use the same set of eyes that decorated your home to create your outdoor living area: yourself.
Every outdoor living guide will have a different set of rules you’re supposed to follow while designing your patio. It can be overwhelming (and sometimes, design trends should never see the light of day anyways). Staying true to yourself is the best way to ensure you’ll love the final product, and the way it fits into your entire living space. If you love an outdoor element, there’s a good chance it will have a kindred soul with your home, that you also filled with things you love. And after all, the only person who’s approval you should be worried about is your own! - Start little and grow slowly.
Depending on what you use in your outdoor living area, ongoing maintenance, weeding, and upkeep may be required. If you bite off more than you can chew on day one, you could find yourself overwhelmed by the upkeep, and let it fall by the wayside. Instead, focus on a small area that can easily be built upon. Once you get the hang of it, add to it.
This is also a good rule of thumb in case your concept looked better in your head than it did in reality. It’s far easier to change directions if you aren’t heavily invested in it. - Make a space you can live in.
It might be tempting to create an outdoor living space that you could throw in a magazine. If that’s your bag, you do you. But, if you are interested in creating a space that you can really get a lot of use out of, don’t forget to incorporate functionality into your design.
Think about what you want to do in your outdoor living area, and use that as a launch pad for the rest of your design. For example, do you want to be able to have a sunset dinner when the weather is right? Make a beautiful brick patio that will hold patio table and furniture, and then create your garden around it. There’s no definite right answer, the important factor is figuring out what will give you the most bang for your buck.
Do you have any other tips for expanding a home’s living space outdoors? Please share with us below!