Home Improvement Ideas - Creating Outdoor Rooms A Step by Step

Every year when winter is over and the days begin to warm I struggle with the decision of whether to sell my country home with its acres of lawn that requires hours and hours of work or move into the city with a very small backyard that is easily maintained on a Saturday morning. The longer I ponder on that decision it becomes overwhelming. I struggle for some time and always come to the same conclusion. Keep my country home, get out there and go to work. Once that decision is made, my mind begins reeling and the ideas begin coming nonstop. Some of those ideas are small like moving the garden bench to a new location and surrounding it with shade loving plants, creating a new conversation area on the patio with casual living patio furniture, or grand ideas of actually dividing the entire space into garden rooms and making each room totally different. I begin by choosing one of those ideas and acting on it.

After going back and forth with many ideas, the idea of a garden room becomes clearer and clearer so I have decided to tackle the task of creating the first of my many garden rooms. I sit to write my step by step plan:

1. Determine where to put the garden room and what size it will be.

2. Choose a floor surface such as stone, dirt, grass, decking, gravel or brick.

3. If I want to completely separate the room, I could use a tall formal hedge or privacy fence to create the garden room walls. To keep the room open and more connected I might choose to use a different type of floor surface, flower beds, or just containers.

4. I stand in the space and look up. I can then decide what type of ceiling I want to use in this room. The sky usually acts as the ceiling but I could choose to use a canopy of trees, a covered porch, a garden arbor, a pergola, or an umbrella.

5. Once the work is complete, I can accessorize the room with casual living patio furniture, fire pits, weather-resistant fabrics, plants, container gardens, outdoor lighting and fountains.

With my plan in hand off I go to my local garden center where I purchase the needed supplies to make my plan a reality.

The work is complete now and I am sitting in my new outdoor room thinking back and enjoying every minute that it took to create my vision. My room is filled with butterflies and hummingbirds fluttering around the casual living patio furniture, containers overflowing with vibrant colored flowers, a garden arbor covered with wisteria, and a beautiful fountain that makes me remember a stream from my childhood.

Needless to say, I am happy with my decision to keep my country home with its beautiful outdoor living space. The lawn work that I so dreaded at the end of winter doesnt seem quite as overwhelming now that the space is complete and Im napping under the trees in my outdoor room.

Denisa Faustner is owner of LawnFurnitureStore, an online resource for casual living patio furniture, garden benches, garden arbors and much more.