How to Create your Dream Pool House

Tips to maximise and add value to your backyard swimming pool

Not all renovations have to be the typical kitchen and bathroom upgrade. For those with one, the backyard pool is the perfect spot to develop and evolve your asset and lifestyle to include a dreamy pool house. To create the ultimate pool house, it is best to first decide how you would like to use the space. Here are a few main uses and interior features that you might like to include on your wishlist.

Set up a bar

A pool house bar has got to be at the top of the list. Invite friends over, hire a cocktail bartender and waiter for the day and have your very own pool bar channelling a bit of nostalgia in our travelling days. Pool bars are great for kids by keeping their wet feet out of the main house. Create a refreshment station fit with a fridge full of snacks, sink and a microwave so if you did want to use this as a guesthouse it is fully sufficient.

Styling

With a guesthouse on the cards, you may want to consider a Murphy bed or sofa bed option to double up as an entertaining space or additional rumpus room for the kids. That way you can keep the footprint to a studio layout. Movable pieces of furniture that can be used both inside and out would best utilise the space; with outdoor fabric upholstery and floor rugs that provide UV protection and are very easy to wipe down.

I would go for a contemporary resort-themed interior style or luxurious bohemian with elements of woven rattan, vintage leathers and stonewashed linens. Design the poolside front with sliding doors that can stack away opening up the entire space to one another.

Some people would go for a sash window style, but I don’t see the point in cutting up the view of the pool; keep the glazing joinery clean. Lastly, think about how lighting can play a role in illuminating the two zones to create one night hub, rather than a separated, two-part space.

Yoga studio

An idyllic yoga studio with pool views would be enough to get anyone up and into a warrior pose. You could install floor-to-ceiling mirrors to reflect the pool colouring and make the poolhouse seem larger while connecting the two spaces.

Waterproofed timber flooring would be best for this application laid in the same direction as the pool deck and soften the space with some long hanging linen sheers.

Any additional gym equipment is to be strategically placed in easy-to-use locations but be sure to move them aside when transforming the space into one of the above uses.

- Laura Heynike is director of Pocketspace Interiors.

Source: oneroof.co.nz