Outdoor Living Spaces

Outdoor Kitchen Concepts

Outdoor Living continues to prevail as a major trend as buyers remodel backyard patios and add on outdoor kitchens to make the outdoor encounter more pleasurable. Outdoor rooms are an extension of the family, living and recreational rooms. Expansive doorways are helping to make a seamless transition from the interior of the home to the exterior living space. It has never been easier to coordinate outdoor furniture and fabrics with the indoor furniture because of the varied selection of durable, weather resistant designer fabrics and trims. People are mixing and matching solid fabrics with patterned designs, while adding textures, fringes, bullion, cording and tassels.


Nanowall Doors

Enhancing your outdoor living space with today’s fabrics is as simple as recovering cushions, adding soft accessories in the form of throw pillows and throws and embellishing the outdoor great room with outdoor drapes that bring warmth to the space.

Outdoor Couture Throw Pillow

A lovely fountain promotes a positive flow of energy. A garden fountain is not only luxurious but acts as a source of tranquility and relaxation. The balmy sound of cascading water can be a tremendous stress reliever and an attractive addition to your garden and backyard.

These are just a few suggestions to help you get started. Marcia

Backyard Fun

This weekend my family & I celebrated Father's Day in our backyard. We read the morning newspaper, enjoyed lounging in the sun, took a dip in the hot tub, lit the firepit and watched the gorgeous colors in the sky while the sun was setting.

All of the kids were together, catching up on each other's lives and as a parent participating in this very special get together it was so fulfilling to see our children interacting and enjoying each other.

We realized how very busy we usually are when we all get together, when one of my son's asked if we purchased a new love seat and sofa because he did not remember some of the details on the furniture. The deep seating pieces have been in our backyard for a couple of years now, but all too often we are running from point A to point B when the kids come to visit and we do not take the time to enjoy what is in our very own backyard.

Our backyard is a perfect venue to be casual, relax and enjoy family and friends.

Schedule time to enjoy the simple pleasures in life, your home and your family.

I hope that your weekend was as meaningful and enjoyable as mine.

What you did for Father's Day? Marcia

Outdoor Fabrics Add a POP of Color!!

Are you tired of the tired look on your patio or backyard area? If the answer to this is yes, then consider sprucing things up a bit. Add a POP of color with wonderful outdoor fabrics!



Oudura fabric: Bingo Sangria

Use a vibrant Orange to add some pizazz to a neutral setting or a soft spa blue to a chocolate brown sofa or club chair. Maybe the solution will be as simple as adding a new umbrella in a color that inspires you.





Adding color in the way of accessories is fun, exciting and makes your Outdoor Living Space appear new!

For more ideas on adding pillows, throws and drapes to your backyard or patio visit www.outdoorinteriors.com

Design your own custom pillows and drapes with a huge selection of fabrics to brighten as well as soften your outdoor living space.

Then relax and enjoy entertaining and spending time outside.

Take A Break From the Economy & Market Watch

Don't let the news of home prices continuing to fall and the housing market which shows a decline in home sales get you down. The New York Times (5/28, C1, Bajaj) notes on the front of its Business Day section that there are "few signs of a turnaround emerging. ... While Wall Street is growing hopeful that the economy may dodge a recession, many economists warn that the pain in the housing market may last for several years." The Financial Times (5/28, Bryant), the Los Angeles Times (5/28, Hong), the Washington Post /AP (5/28, D3), and the Christian Science Monitor (5/28, Trumbull) also cover the story. Instead do something constructive that will add hours of pleasure to your life.

So what can we do to lift spirits? We need to encourage people to make a place to go to work and play, a place to relax and retreat from the increasingly worrisome news of the nations current economy. What better place to do this but in your own back yard? Create a landscape that blends into the architecture of the house. Choose plants with interesting shapes, and sizes. Make a statement by planting multiple rows of tulips or an unusual grouping of succulents. Add bamboo or fruit and flowering plants to achieve the aesthetics that are pleasing to your soul.

Create a focal point and work from there to achieve a thought-provoking enclave. It is important to pay attention to color, texture and design as you make a new room to live in outside.

Since people are choosing to stay at home rather than pay the exorbitant prices at the gas station. Suggest that they invest in their home, buy or upgrade their outdoor furniture and accessories. Don’t just advertise sales, tell them why it is so important to invest in themselves. Let your customers know that by investing in their homes they will attain many hours of pleasure, not just a snippet of time that is over before you know it when you go elsewhere on vacation. Promote the idea of vacationing at home. Vacation in your own backyard!

Simple Ideas to Make Your Patio Feel Revived!

Are you looking for some easy and inexpensive ways to update the look and feel of your patio? A very simple idea utilizes a little bit of time and energy but not too much money.The first step is to move the existing furniture pieces to a different location or place it in an alternate arrangement. This is the simplest way to accomplish a new look and feel. This past weekend while I was home with my family, we decided to reverse our deep seating pieces to create a fresh and new look. We simply moved the 3 seat sofa to the opposite side of the firepit, then moved the loveseat to the right of the sofa on the side of the firepit, previously it was directly facing the sofa, and lastly we changed the position of the two spring based club chairs.

This change did not alter the amount of space that we previously were using for this setting. The area now appears to be more spacious, however, this is just an illusion. Yet, it accomplished so much. Now when you look outside you see a completely different outdoor living space. The sofa is welcoming and the space between the club chairs opens up the area for people to enter. Of course we also rearranged the colorful outdoor throw pillows on the sofa, love seat and club chairs and VOILA!! A new room was designed with the greatest of ease.

This is such a simple idea that can be utilized in your backyard. It is nice to move things around, to shake things up a bit. It makes you feel as if you spent a fortune on new furniture, because all of a sudden you see the furniture in a different light. It also allows you to see parts of the furniture that may have been hidden before.

There are other simple ways to make changes, such as changing the color or style of the throw pillows. Or take that a step further and change the fabric on the cushions. All of these are ideas that will give you added pleasure in your own backyard.

These are a few of my ideas. write and tell me yours. Marcia Blake

Don't Let the Gas Prices Get you Down, Fight Back!

The rising cost of gasoline prices are pushing people to stay at home. In a reaction to the accelerated pace of daily life a movement formed called the general slowness movement. According to Chris Welsch of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “ …slowness took off as a concept in 1989 in Italy with the advent of the slow-food movement. What started as a local revolt against fast food has evolved into a philosophy with followers worldwide. The idea that fast isn’t best has now crept into other arenas: Slow Design and slow cities have their own movements. Slow travel refers to traveling at a pace that allows the traveler to fully appreciate the place he or she has traveled to, says Geir Berthelsen, a Norwegian activist who started the World Institute of Slowness in 1999. The idea is to relax more and not return after a vacation feeling like we need another.” There has never been a better time to join the slow travel movement as today.

Perhaps we should take this concept one step further, and rather than considering the process of slow travel, why not no travel. Stay at home this summer and enjoy life in your own backyard. Create an outdoor living space that will provide you enjoyment, relaxation and many hours of fun. Start your day enjoying a hot cup of coffee and reading the news in the paper or on your laptop while sitting in the luxury of your own backyard. Next take a nice long walk or bicycle ride with your partner, child or simply by yourself. Take the time to feel more a part of the landscape, instead of rushing around, notice the scenery, the trees, flowers, birds and beautiful architecture that surrounds you. Discover the little things that go unnoticed in our accelerated culture.

After you return home from your adventure, take a book or magazine that you have been wanting to read for a very long time, but never found the right time, and sit in your comfortable outdoor furniture relaxing against outdoor pillows that add comfort and style to your setting and spend a couple of hours reading to your hearts contentment.

“The slowness movement is all about quality over quantity” says Chris Welsch. Time moves too fast, one moment we are young and carefree and the next we are deeply entrenched with responsibilities and expectations. Let’s take this time in our life to make a change. Don’t spend the exorbitant price of gas to take a trip, instead stay at home.

You can use some of the money that you would have spent on travel to create the outdoor living space that will provide you with hours of pleasure. Buy deep seating furniture to sit back and relax on. Build a structure to enclose or separate a particular space. Add accents in the way of outdoor pillows, drapes and throw blankets. Perhaps install an outdoor television for your viewing pleasure. Add outdoor speakers for you to play your favorite music. Blur the space that separates the indoors from the outside by creating an outdoor living room.

End your day with candlelight or flames from a firepit, while enjoying the company of loved ones and friends in the best place on earth, your outdoor living room under the stars. Simplify your life, downshift your plans, stop and smell the roses and relax. Don’t let the cost of gas get you down, fight back in a positive manner by reducing your consumption… stay at home!

Write and tell me what you are doing about the rising gas prices.

Inspiration

How do you achieve design? It is through inspiration.

You do not need to be creative or a designer to be inspired by some person, place or thing. You just need to be able to identify what it is that inspires you and then either work with a designer or yourself to build upon your inspiration.

Design must be inspired. The first step you take is to decide what your inspiration is. This is really a very fun task. You can think about whether a particular color or an accent piece such as a painting or perhaps a fun or interesting fabric interests you. Perhaps it is a book that you just finished reading or a movie that you saw long ago or recently. Maybe a vacation or a business trip to a new city or town provided the source of inspiration in the landscape or the architecture or the people.

There are an infinite number of possibilities that can stand out in your mind. Take for example some things that inspired me over time like the beautiful antebellum estate in Gone With The Wind







Or the fabulous color of the dress that Amy Adams wore in the recent movie Enchanted






And the impressionist painting by Claude Monet called Water garden and the Japanese Footbridge,



Or the breathtaking views of Tuscany.





Each and every one of these things has given me a source of inspiration for design projects.

Once you identify which particular item you are going to use as your inspiration then you can start your planning. If it is the architecture in the antebellum mansion then you can utilize parts of the home in your design. If it is the color in Amy Adam’s dress you can create a palette that will complement the turquoise fabric and use it as a paint on a surface or within a fabric on the furniture. If you use the impressionist painting you might consider getting a copy and using it as focal point to your setting. There are outdoor pieces of art that withstand the elements from Mother Nature. Once you determine where the painting will be hung you can design around it.

My recommendation to you is to take some time out of your day and consider some of the things that inspire you so that you will be ready for your next design project.

These are my insprations…write and tell me yours. Marcia Blake