Most of us look forward to that warming trend that tells us we can soon take ourselves outside to our exterior environments and begin to enjoy Spring, Summer and early Autumn. Whether yours consists of sweeping decks overlooking natural terrain, or cozy patios tucked into a hillside, those environments are extensions of your interior space, and reflect your color, comfort, furnishings and design preferences.
Outdoor “interiors” may be partially enclosed, roofed with latticework for vines, embraced by rock terracing, arched by a glass atrium or any of many beautiful treatments for your outdoor living space. Many outdoor living areas extend from family or activity rooms and other more casual areas of our residential interiors. It just makes sense to appoint those areas with compatible and complementary design.
New and much more durable materials are available as alternatives for traditional wood decking. These materials offer more color and textural choices, and virtually eliminate many maintenance procedures, such as painting and sealing. With more attractive options to work with, envisioning your outdoor interiors has become more interesting. Seeing your outside as connected to its adjacent interior rooms rather than just “the space out there,” opens new creative opportunities.
Color is a successful unifier that can smoothly join adjacent interiors, as well as adjacent landscaping and gardens. When you begin to see your home interior and exterior living environments pleasantly improved and connected by intentional design strategies, that integrity can only add to the enjoyment of those areas. Your professional design team is experienced in bringing unlike elements into balance. Stepping from interior to exterior areas should flow, not shock!
Bringing balance to opposing environments need not be an unreasonable expense for areas with limited seasonal use. With some good advice and guidance many solutions are simple and inexpensive. Poolside shelters, a built-in outdoor cooking center or fire-pit present beautiful rock and brick opportunities, and can be desirable alternatives to the wet towel brigade traipsing through the house, and the wheel-around barbeque unit that must be stored during inclement months.
Remember, even when weather confines, we see our outer space from inside, and want it to be a nice view! Solutions abound. Exterior furniture has come into its own in recent years, presenting many more designs and materials than those once quite limited choices: wooden Adirondack chairs or… wooden Adirondack chairs…! Immediately adjacent inside and outside areas may be connected with compatible units or units designed expressly for in or outside use.
Residences are no longer the only environments that have designed extended areas for outside enjoyment. Many commercial buildings now have outdoor areas specifically developed for the enjoyment of staff and employees, and for special event use. Some businesses have also developed areas with shelters and runs for employee pets; an alternative for leaving those pals home alone! Such consideration for one’s employees further illustrates a sensitivity for not just physical comfort, but for the psychological effects of pleasantly and aesthetically designed outside areas.
When you begin to feel that Spring weather approaching, think about bringing your inside interiors into harmony with your exterior interiors! A play on the words, yes; but, you know what I mean!
Robert Boccabella, B.F.A. is principal and founder of Business Design Services and a certified interior designer in private practice for over 30 years. Boccabella provides Designing to Fit the Vision© in collaboration with writingservice@earthlink.net. To contact him call 707-263-7073; email him at rb@BusinessDesignServices.com or visit www.BusinessDesignServices.com or on Face Book at Business Design Services.
