How Can a Homeowner Create a Cozy Outdoor Living Space?

One of the best ways to enjoy your beautiful landscape at home is to create an outdoor living space. Outdoor places allow you to settle into your yard and hang out for a significant amount of time or several hours. In the last decade, outdoor living spaces have increased significantly in desirability among homeowners and homebuyers. The ability to not just see your landscape but to hang out and utilize it is an asset that so many people enjoy, especially in the beautiful Pacific Northwest.

How Can a Homeowner Create a Cozy Outdoor Living Space?

If you are looking to create or increase an outdoor living area in your landscape, here are some great ways to create a cozy space you would love to be in. You might just love hanging out here more than you love hanging out inside your home.

Features or focal spaces

A great element of a cozy living space is something that draws you out and creates a focus that makes you want to hang out there. Often, this is a great outdoor kitchen or an amazing fire feature.

These create a focal point and an activity or reason to stay and hang out and enjoy the space. Bringing in a feature like a fire pit also allows you to utilize the space as it gets chilly in the night. It is also a great spot to enjoy a s’more or two.

Lighting

Lighting is not just important on the inside of your home. It is incredibly important for those outdoor living spaces as well. Lighting helps to make your outdoor living space useful as the sun goes down. There’s just something so magical about hanging out on your deck or porch after the hot summer sun has said goodbye for the day. Having plenty of lighting that not only helps you to utilize the space, but also creates an inviting atmosphere that is stylish, increases the value and usability of your outdoor area.

There are several amazing outdoor lighting features and fixtures available now. More companies realize that homeowners want to create outdoor living spaces, and there are some really cool ways to utilize light fixtures beyond just those highly popular strings of giant Christmas-style lightbulbs.

Plants

Plants don’t have to stay in the ground in your landscape. Bringing plants into your living space is a great way to seamlessly juxtapose your hard scape and your landscape. It makes it feel like your living space truly belongs with your landscape, and it is just an extended space that truly belongs in your yard. Utilize plants through hanging planters, vertical wall, gardens, decorative planters set at the corners of decks and patios, or even a gorgeous pot full of flowers set on a table between some chairs. Don’t forget to bring the living piece of your landscape into your hardscape living space.

Rugs

This is often forgotten when creating an outdoor living space. It is easy to forget, as many people focus on bringing out some furniture and leaving it at that. But to take your space from usable to cozy and inviting so that it really feels like an extension of the inside of your home, the use of rugs is great. There are many outdoor rugs made to withstand coming in contact with outdoor weather elements. Not only do they make the space feel like an extension of the inside of your home, but they also can help to elevate the design and color scheme of the space. There’s just something about a rug that really makes an outdoor living space feel like an actual living space and not just a place where some furniture was set up.

Furniture and pillows

This is often the most thought-about element of creating a living space outside at your home. Make sure to find furniture that will stand up to the elements of Pacific Northwest weather. Depending on your specific location, this could mean harsh sunlight as well as significant rainfall. You want to get quality furniture that is going to last you and also stand up to being outside.

Additionally, make sure to add some comfortable cushions and some throw pillows to make the space feel inviting and like it is an actual living space and not just a spot with a chair. Create comfortable seating that draws you outside to want to sit there and stay there for a long time.

If you need help creating the ultimate living space that feels like an extension of the inside of your home, the best way to do so is to employ a professional landscape designer. Landscape designers are not just committed to the plants and the ground and dirt in your yard; they can help you to create an amazing hard scape living area that fits perfectly into your landscape and feels like the inside of your home has flowed to the outside perfectly.