Outdoor Rooms

With Summer right around the corner it is time to start preparing for outdoor entertaining and living. I am not sure if it is a Southern California thing, or an Australian heritage thing, but come summer, I barely see the inside of my house. I read outside, cook outside, eat outside, and generally live in the outdoors. A lot of that is because of great outdoor rooms, that cater to that kind of lifestyle. That is what I wanted to talk about today; how to go about transforming an ordinary outdoor space into a real room that you will use and cherish, here are some ideas:

• First of all identify how you live, do you spend time at a table, playing cards or games, or are you more of a lounger, it is crucial that you honestly look at what your needs are before you tackle any seating plan.




• Now that you know what your needs are, zone out the space that you have, create areas so that each member of the family has there particular needs met, for me this means a shady spot and a big floor cushion for my two dogs.




• Now, how to furnish this? If this was a regular room would you ever buy a whole suite where the chairs, sofa, and tables were all from the same series? Probably not. So don't do the same thing with outdoor furniture, mix it up a little, you will be amazed how much warmer and cozier it feels when you use different styles and patterns, just like a regular room




• Now don't forget the floor, there are a lot of exterior rugs on the market from vinyl to teak, that can really warm up a space, all of the major furniture companies sell them from Crate and Barrel to Ikea.




• Another idea is outdoor drapery, it will transform your porch into a full fledged room, in a matter of minutes. There are a lot of company's now that sell well priced exterior fabrics that you can easily have made into drapes.




• Also you may want to try some color. In the South often times you will see blue used on the ceilings of porches, apparently to keep away wasps, but it also adds a nice warmth to the space, colored ceilings are a personal favorite, and it will help this outdoor room feel more special and inviting.

Anyway, Good Luck with your adventures

Spring is Here!

Well for those of you who don't know, I write this blog from Los Angeles, and today was so warm it almost felt like summer, in the mid 80's and not a cloud in the sky. It started me thinking about Spring, my favorite time of year and ways that you can make your home reflect the seasons, so today's post is about Spring and how you can bring it to your home in small ways and large.

Nothing says Spring like clean! It's time to wash the walls, dust the house, clean the windows, sounds daunting well it doesn't have to be. Get the whole family involved, put on some great music and get to work, if you break it up into small manageable projects you will be amazed how quickly it will go by.

But this is not a housekeeping Blog it's about design and decorating, so how do you do that for Spring? Well what if you were to slip cover your furniture for the warm months, that way it can be very light in color, but you won't be afraid to use it, just pull it off and throw it in the wash. In the image above you can see a project where I used slip covered furniture in a Loggia, and its perfect because it can get taken off and cleaned as necessary.

Another tip is to keep fresh flowers in the house. Cut flowers can get expensive and don't last long, but try annuals, they will last much longer. Once again you can see that i used Geraniums here, they have a huge range of colors, and shapes and last forever (although they are perennials not annuals).

If you are looking for slip covered furniture Crate and Barrel has a good selection http://www2.blogger.com/www.crateandbarrel.com and also try Room and Board http://www.roomandboard.com/. For your Floral needs, try your local garden center, and don't miss out on bulbs that can bring the Spring home early, I like to get Tulip bulbs from a company called Color Blends, they have a great selection of all types of Bulbs http://www2.blogger.com/www.colorblends.com.