Summer is nearly over. This time of year can be great for outdoor enjoyment and entertaining. But perhaps this year hasn’t been great for you on that front. Are you disappointed with your patio? Stores are scaling back their inventory of outdoor furniture and accoutrements to prepare for fall. But you can still make some changes and enjoy the last month or two of long summer nights and great weather in your awesome new patio.
Here are 5 ways to add more excitement to your patio area:
1. Less is More
Spicing up your patio space requires some serious planning. Take a good, long look at your backyard. Size definitely matters, because if you have a small patio area, you cannot fill it up with equipment and furniture. Think about the ways you would most often use your new patio. If it’s just you and your family out there almost every night, there’s no reason to expand your setup to accommodate large parties. You may have them once or twice a year, but that’s what canopies and folding tables and chairs were made for. Meantime, plan for enough seating for everyone, but leave enough space to move and get comfortable.
2. Yard-Patio Symbiosis
What if you are the type of person who likes to entertain every weekend? No worries, that’s where your yard comes into play. For too many people with outdated backyards, the patio and green areas are oddly separate. They should really be together. If you need more solid ground for your outdoor needs, expand the footprint of your patio to accommodate more visitors. You can create a walkway out of stone that extends lazily into your garden, providing more options for furniture and a stronger footpath to view your beautiful landscaping.
3. Rock and Roll
If your patio seems sadly unnatural and manmade, bring nature back. This is fairly easy to accomplish using natural rock. You can use rock to create:
- Retaining walls
- Stone walls
- Stone dividers for big backyards
Imagine your new backyard layout. A stone retaining wall on one side to support the plants and flowers growing, and creating an artistic separation between function and nature. In the middle, you have a divider made of rock, perfect for a fire pit or fireplace, or even an outdoor kitchen.
4. Inside Outside
One of the unfortunate problems with patios is that, for most people, they’re only useful for a few months out of the year. Consider adding folding glass or fabric walls to your patio to make your area more comfortable when the outside heat is on a bit too high or when those cool autumn nights creep in. Adding a set of patio blinds to this arrangement is an excellent feature that makes it easy to block out the sun and bring it back in whenever you want.
5. Cook it Up
Almost every patio has a grill of some sort. But only the coolest have an outdoor kitchen. Some care must be taken here to make sure that you are following local codes, if you plan to extend electricity and gas lines to your yard. Otherwise, a kitchen can be a beautiful and highly useful addition to your outdoor living area. Use durable tile to build countertops and cupboards around your grill. It will be fantastic as well as functional.
There are lots of things you can do to perk up your patio so you can draw more enjoyment from it. Whether that means cutting back on clutter, extending your patio, creating an indoor space, adding natural features or new cooking equipment, you can be sure that your new patio will be a source of pleasure for years to come.
Nicole loves her little house that she shares with her husband, and is currently working to completely renovate and upgrade the exterior of her home. In her experience, the best exterior window treatments she could find are Sola Shade patio blinds.
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