Designing a custom home is more than floor plans and building materials. You want to consider every aspect, both inside and out. While you plan the perfect kitchen, your ultimate media or entertainment room, and all the other nooks and crannies inside the home, don’t forget to turn your attention outside and plan for the ultimate outdoor living experience as well!
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Why Design a Home with Indoor-Outdoor Living?
Don’t dismiss the thought of indoor-outdoor living only due to Michigan’s climate. Indoor-outdoor living is for more than warm summer days when you want to be outside enjoying the warmth and sun. With the right design and planning, you’ll be enjoying your outdoor living space more than the always-too-short summer season. There are plenty of reasons to add the elements of indoor-outdoor living to your custom home design by Acipe Design.
Increased Value
You don’t want to think of selling your dream custom home during the design process, but we encourage forward thinking during the design process. Planning for the future can include considerations for aging in place or future accessibility, and even resale value. Homes which already have indoor-outdoor living spaces tend to sell for more than comparable homes in your area that do not.
Larger Living Space
While outdoor living spaces don’t increase the square footage inside your home, they do increase your living space. A well-planned outdoor space may include outdoor living and dining furniture, an outdoor kitchen, and more that bring your indoor spaces outside. Sit and relax as you would in your living room, or enjoy a meal al fresco instead of always eating indoors.
Natural Lighting
Designing an indoor-outdoor living space during your custom home build often means increased natural lighting indoors. Indoor-outdoor living solutions often include floor-to-ceiling windows, sliding glass doors, or window walls that retract to open the whole wall for outdoor access. All those large windows means plenty of natural light for your indoor spaces, too!
Easy Entertaining
Whether you’re hosting a holiday meal, celebrating a birthday or anniversary with friends and family, or just having some friends over for a gathering, indoor-outdoor living spaces make entertaining a large crowd easy. You won’t have your home packed to the rafters with guests milling about, as some will wander outside to sit on the living or dining furnishings or enjoy other areas of your outdoor oasis.
Adding an outdoor kitchen offers the potential of cooking, eating, and lounging – all outdoors! No running back and forth between the kitchen inside and the eating area outside.
Outdoor Spaces to Include in Your Indoor-Outdoor Living Plans
You may be struggling to decide what you want from an outdoor living space, or you may know exactly what you want. For those who are still considering the ultimate design, consider adding some of these to your list:
Entertainment Area
Enjoy beautiful weather as well as keeping up on your favorite sports team’s current game, or watch your favorite movie or TV show why you grill hot dogs and burgers. And an entertainment area with lounge or living furnishings, a flat screen TV, a music player, and a sound system. If you choose a sound system to enhance the TV’s audio, consider placing weather-protected speakers around the whole outdoor space so everyone can enjoy the audio no matter where they are.
Outdoor Kitchen
With an outdoor kitchen, you may never have to go back inside the house to organize meals to enjoy in your outdoor living space. Outdoor kitchens are more than just grills – Acipe Design can help you design an outdoor kitchen that includes sinks, cabinets, a refrigerator, counter tops and/or bars for a full-service kitchen outside!
Outdoor Dining
You’ve cooked everything outside, now it’s time to eat it all while enjoying the outdoors! An outdoor dining area with outdoor dining set is the perfect place to enjoy an meal al fresco.
Poolside
Many luxury resorts off poolside dining. You can order food and drinks to be served at your poolside lounger and enjoy the meal while still sunning yourself. You don’t lose your seat while away at the dining room, and you can easily jump in and cool off after waiting that important 30 minutes Mom always warned about!
Bring the resort experience into your home by creating an outdoor living space near the pool. Extend a patio out from the pool deck and add outdoor lounge furnishings or dining sets, an audio system, and more. Consider conveniences like an outdoor shower or changing area where swimmers can rinse or dry off before heading inside.
Fireplaces or Fire Pits
Nothing says summer like sitting out by the fire pit and roasting hot dogs or marshmallows for s’mores. Even with the chill of fall setting in, a fire pit is a wonderful outdoor space to spend your time around and brings extra heat and light to the area. Make sure your fire pit is far enough away from the home to prevent embers and open flames from blowing and causing and fire damage to other parts of the outdoor space – or your home.
A fireplace can also keep your outdoor living space warm and bright. Consider adding a gas or electric fireplace to extend your enjoyment of your outdoor living space – all the way up until the first snowfall of the season!
How to Design the Space
Now that we’ve talked about the why and what, you need to know how to design the space. Now you need to design and implement your indoor-outdoor outdoor living dreams. By starting with the basics discussed below, you’ll have the perfect canvas to design the rest.
Where to Connect Your Spaces
The kitchen or living space are two of the most popular access points to an outdoor living space. Grab a meal or snack to enjoy outside or a book to read while sunning yourself by the pool and you’ll naturally end up going through these spaces, so making them your access points are a no-brainer.
Starting Point: Deck or Patio
A basic outdoor space starts with a deck or patio. It’s truly the launch pad for everything to come. Start by choosing a layout, the square footage you want to cover, and the material to be used to construct the area, but that merely prepares the canvas. You’ll find when you start using your outdoor living space you’ll want some basics like heat and light sources to enjoy the space after the sun goes down, as well as overhead coverage so you can enjoy the space even in inclement weather like rain, and if you’re brave and bundled up enough – snow.
Shelter
The rays of the sun shine their beneficial Vitamin D, but they also beat down with heat and bright light. Other inclement weather, like rain or even snow, can be avoided with some overhead shelter. Coverings like extended roofs, pergolas, and more are a necessary addition to keep the weather at bay so you can enjoy your outdoor space longer and more frequently.
Heat
The warmth of the sun only lasts for as long as the sun is out. This applies to both nighttime as well as on cloudy days when the sun is fully or partially blocked. There is also the natural cooling temperatures of fall and winter. These cooler periods mean you need an extra heat source to keep your outdoor living space comfortable for extended enjoyment. Consider outdoor heaters, fire pits, or fireplaces to warm up the space.
Light
Natural light from the sun is by far the best lighting source for any space – indoors or outdoors. But when the sun goes down, you’ll need the help of artificial light to keep your space operational. Lighting fixtures like sconces, ceiling fans with lighting, or string lights around a pergola or other covering are all excellent light sources. When choosing lighting, opt for solar-powered or timed systems. You’ll save on electric bills and only light the space when necessary.
Privacy
Just as you have privacy inside your home, you’ll want privacy in your outdoor living space as well. Line your outdoor space with shrubbery or trees, a privacy fence, lattice, freestanding wall, or other barriers to keep away prying eyes.
Final Thoughts
We at Acipe Design know that the most important parts of your custom home are the ones you’ll be living with day-to-day under the roof, but we want to make sure you have the opportunity to enjoy the outdoor environment of your new home as well. No matter where your home is located – out in the country, lakeside, or in a suburban neighborhood – we can help design the outdoor oasis you’ve been dreaming of!
Contact us today!