indoor/outdoor spaces
Give yourself more room to live in this summer. Our guide will show you how to merge house and garden for extra square meterage all season long
Give yourself more room to live in with our guide to merging your home and garden
1
Design house and garden as one
Extending or renovating a gardenfacing part of the house is the ideal opportunity to make inside and outside work beautifully together – as well as functioning as they need to independently of one another – by redesigning the garden at the same time.
Think about keeping floor levels the same, but bear in mind that a level threshold might be precluded to keep things weatherproof. Instead, a rebated version will provide protection and can be unobtrusively low. Levels not the same? Steps up to the garden (as seen here) are inviting and will link the two areas.
Keep materials and finishes sympathetic to one another inside and out, too. Wooden indoor furniture can be echoed by wooden garden furniture, and wall colours can harmonise with the shades of fences and walls outside, or try a natural tone of green indoors to go with garden foliage.
Rooflights incorporated into an extension can maximise views of the outdoors once they’re combined with glazed doors, and you might even be able to ‘borrow’ an outlook of trees from gardens beyond yours this way, for a feeling of extra green space.
Even if there’s only a narrow sliver of garden alongside the extension, incorporate planting here via beds, planters and trellising so that greenery and/or blooms are
visible at the side as well as the rear. Just make sure you leave enough room to access the planting so you can weed and prune – it’ll give you space to clean glazing as well.
2
Open out with garden doors
Once the weather’s warm enough, the space you have beyond the walls of your home can become part of the rooms that immediately adjoin the garden – providing you have a large enough opening and glazed doors that can be moved away from the aperture. Without a barrier between them, the
two areas become one continuous living space. Well-designed doors are easy to move even when they’re sizeable, so joining inside with out is the work of moments, letting you take advantage of a change for the better in the weather in next to no time.
To open the widest aperture, you’ll probably want to choose bi-fold doors. They can span a width of around 6m if you buy off-the-shelf doors, or even wider if you go for a bespoke design. Because the panels concertina together, they’ll stack neatly to one side – or both – depending on the configuration you opt for. Consider whether the door panels should open into your room, or to the outside when you’re ordering as the layout of one or other space will have to accommodate the stack.
Other options include sliding doors, and pivot doors. The former won’t open such a wide expanse as bi-folds because of their design, but they can still create an extremely generous opening between house and garden. Pivot doors are an elegant alternative as they’ll swing through 90 degrees, framing the opening, and they have discreet slim frames.
If you’re extending to the rear, it’s easy to work bi-folds, or an alternative glazed door, into your plans as they can be designed into the new space. Equally, they can be retro-fitted, replacing existing windows or smaller doors.
For a large extension, consider fitting more than one set of doors, allowing different zones of an open-plan room to be opened to the garden as desired. Corner configurations can open out a room on two sides rather than just one.
3
think about flooring
A continuous floor finish can join the inside and outside of your home to great effect. There are a few ways to create this look – think what will work best while taking the interior and the exterior into account.
Some tiles are suitable for laying both indoors and outdoors. Make sure the product you’re buying is specified for both environments, though. A tile for outside as well as in has to stand up to the weather, and be slip-resistant when wet – so you could need a more rustic texture than you might otherwise have selected for indoors to get the required surface to cope with conditions outside.
Alternatively, you could opt for a range of matching tiles but with a frost-proof and thicker design for outside and a thinner tile for indoors where it’s warmer. The outdoor tile may also need extra slip resistance so it is safe to walk on when it rains.
Many tiles sold for indoor/ outdoor use are made from porcelain: it doesn’t have to be sealed and it’s easy to look after, both inside and out. Prefer natural stone? Some stone tiles can provide a floor covering for both interior and exterior, but if you want to maintain continuity, a treatment to stop the exterior tiles weathering and changing appearance will be necessary. And while stone and stone-look porcelain tiles are both popular options, don’t rule out the alternative of using woodeffect porcelain to bring the warm ambience of timber to both areas.
Team wood flooring inside with decking outside for a harmonious flow. Better the link by laying boards in the same direction. Or try picking up a parquet design from inside with the pattern of paving on a terrace.
4
Take the living room outside
Even a modest garden space has the potential to create a second living room in summer. This could be on a patio or terrace outside the house, but you may want to create this ‘room’ in another area if there is the opportunity. When your garden is long, positioning a place to relax at the end will transform it from a neglected space into a destination you’ll actually want to arrive at.
Where there’s a choice about location, think about where the sun hits your garden and at which times of the day. If the best site is in full sun, do you need to build in some shade with an awning or parasol? Privacy is another issue. Is the outdoor living area in view of the neighbours? If it is, think about privacy with planting or a screen.
To bring the comforts of inside out, make sure you create a level base for your living area. Paving or decking could be suitable with a choice of wood or a composite for the latter. Then opt for outdoor armchairs or sofas. The weather and fade-resistance of outdoor living sets gives them longevity. If the area is modest, an L-shaped sofa could save space. If the area’s large, separate pieces give your layout flexibility. Invest in furniture covers to protect what you can’t put away in winter. Bring side tables outside for drinks and nibbles.
5
create an outdoor kitchen
The kitchen’s another room that can be located outside without compromising on functionality. An outdoor kitchen can be equipped with flexible cooking options, storage, work surfaces for preparation and serving, and even a fridge, sink and tap.
If it’s to be a complete set-up, both electricity and water will need to be run to the location, which will have to be factored into your budget. Think about whether you want a cover overhead in case of showers, as well as shading you from the sun when cooking.
For cooking, a gas or charcoal barbecue might be sufficient for your needs, but you may want an outdoor oven and burners for options more akin to what’s inside your house.
Worktops in an outdoor kitchen should be weatherproof. Choose from concrete, tiles, some stones, or, for a finish closer to your own kitchen, a surface such as Dekton or Corian.
Think about incorporating hanging rails for the utensils you’ll need when preparing food or barbecuing. Open shelving above the work surface is handy for condiments. And you might like to include planting for herbs adjacent to the kitchen, so fresh ingredients are always to hand.
An outdoor kitchen can be laid out in a straight line against a wall or fence, but, if budget permits, you can repeat the L- and U-shaped arrangements you’d find inside the house. If you like to be able to talk to your guests when you’re entertaining, you could consider replicating this for an outdoor kitchen with the barbecue positioned on an island or peninsula rather than against the garden boundary.
6
Make an outdoor dining room
Whether you take summer cooking outside with an outdoor kitchen, simply set up a barbecue, or even carry food prepared indoors out there, a dining area is a feature that’s easy to bring to the outside of your home, even if it’s small.
Ideally, a garden dining area would work for both lunches and evening meals as well as for breakfast. However, the movement of the sun might mean that your early morning spot, for example, may need to be a separate one. To ascertain the best location(s), think about the garden’s orientation and how the sun moves across it during the day. Some shade is likely to be preferable at lunchtime when the sun is at its height, and if this isn’t provided by nearby trees, or other planting, you could add a feature such as a pergola, gazebo, shade or parasol.
For a small garden, folding dining furniture is a sensible option, or go for bench seating for the table; it can be tucked underneath to create extra space around the table when the set’s not in use. As with outdoor living room furniture, if it’s not possible to put your dining set away during winter, think about investing in covers to protect table and chairs from the very worst of the weather.
The material garden furniture is made from will affect how comfortable it is to sit on for a long, lazy meal. Buying a set with seat cushions or adding this option to your designs can make long sit-downs an experience that doesn’t induce fidgeting. Bear in mind that metal furniture can get hot – or feel cold, depending on the weather – so cushions will mean sitting down in shorts isn’t a temperature shock.
7
Consider the lighting
You don’t want to have to retreat from the extra space your garden offers once evening falls, but if you are to use the space after dark, the lighting needs careful balance. Neither your neighbours nor the local wildlife will be delighted by over illumination of the space, and it won’t create the right atmosphere, either. But you will need to light outdoor kitchen areas adequately for safe food preparation and cooking if you plan to do this when the light is dwindling. Also important are the circulation areas and steps, which need to be well enough lit so no one trips or falls.
The light for dining and outdoor living rooms can be more atmospheric and subtle and lanterns and festoon lights could provide appropriate levels. Remember that as well as lighting up the table or seating area, you can make the most of the planting immediate to these areas by illuminating this subtly. This way, you can still enjoy the colours and shapes of what’s growing after dark.
Just as inside your home, you can incorporate accent lighting into the garden to show off its best features. Think about the possibility of illuminating the shape of a tree, shrub, or even a hedge using uplights. Equally attractive might be a string of outdoor fairy lights wrapped around tree branches to show off its shape after dark.
Remember that all outdoor light fittings should have the correct IP (ingress protection) rating, and that should not only take into account the fact that the fitting is outdoors, but also its position within the garden.
Deck and patio lights, for example, need a higher rating than some other garden lights because they might be pressure washed. Pond lights, of course, need even higher ratings as they’re submerged.
Left 5m warm white LED connectable festoon lights, £36.99, Lights4fun
8
Blur boundaries with planting
If you have floor-to-ceiling glazing, or bi-fold, sliding, pivot or French doors, bringing your garden’s planting close to the house can help make interior and exterior feel like one extended space rather than two separate areas.
You don’t need to give up the terrace outside bi-folds or other doors to do this, but you will have to locate good-sized leafy plants on either side of the opening so they can form part of the view at each side. Beyond, layers of different foliage plants or trees can fill the outlook with shades of green plus other foliage colours together with interesting leaf shapes. Use evergreens so the effect is year round.
As an alternative, and where there’s fixed glazing rather than an area you walk out on to, building raised beds immediately by the glazing can bring planting up to eye level when viewed from a seating area, or dining table. Alternatively, use large planters to achieve the same height without having to construct beds.
Be aware that you could run the risk of making the inside of your rooms gloomy with planting so close to glazing. Think about whether foliage will still allow daylight through – palm-like and spiked leaves can work well.
You can increase the effectiveness of this strategy with what you do inside the house. Position houseplants close to garden doors and windows and you’ll merge the two areas further. And if plants for both indoors and some of the garden are tropical, you’ll make the two areas even more harmonious.
9
work with colour in house and garden
If you aren’t afraid to use colour in your house, why should you hesitate to use it in the garden ready for when you take living outside? It can have the same emotional and aesthetic impact, and make a great backdrop for dining and living areas as well as for planting.
Think first about using colour on garden walls or fences. A strong hue on a single wall can draw the eye to a particular feature, which might be your dining table and chairs. If you want a consistent look, say, for all of the fences, subtler shades are a better option.
Think about colour’s ability to visually advance or recede from the eye. Hues that recede could help make the boundaries of a small garden seem further away, while advancing shades can make larger areas feel intimate.
Transform old furniture or tired and dull decking and sheds with colour. You could repeat an accent shade from indoors in a colour you use to revitalise garden furniture, or on a garden wall.
Consider the combination of the colours on structures and furniture alongside the shades of flowers and foliage. A colour wheel could be helpful to choose complementary colours, design a monochromatic scheme, or to pick adjacent shades for an analogous scheme (for example green, blue-green and blue together).