Indoor-outdoor spaces connect your home to your garden, and they are one of the latest trends in the interior design world. But they’re not just trending due to being easy on the eye; they’re also a great way to enjoy the outdoors while seeing your exterior as an extension of your home.
Just like other trends, there’s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to indoor-outdoor spaces. While not everyone has this luxury, the easiest approach is to convert an existing outdoor space by adding a veranda to make it usable all year round. Adding an outdoor fire pit, seating area, and television is one way to leave you with a cosy area that will provide warmth even in colder climates.
Converting an indoor space into an indoor-outdoor space is a tougher task and often requires some form of construction work which requires money and expertise. Glass panel doors can provide an indoor room with a view of the outside and bi-folding doors will help to blur the lines between indoors and outdoors, creating a dual-purpose space.
Perfecting this emerging trend is not easy, and you’ll need to create an indoor-outdoor space that works for your home and style. Consider consistency as well as your own personal taste. Here are a few tips for mastering an indoor-outdoor space for your home.
Seamless flow
The first thing you’ll need to achieve to master an indoor-outdoor space is a seamless flow from inside your home to outside. You don’t want to be left with an aesthetic disconnect between your two living spaces. One of the best ways to achieve this is by implementing consistent flooring throughout your living spaces. Going from carpet to wooden decking will only emphasise the fact that these are two separate spaces.
Matching indoor flooring with outdoor tiles will remove the invisible boundary between the interior and exterior, allowing your living spaces to appear as one. As a result of the emergence of indoor-outdoor spaces, many flooring brands offer indoor-to-outdoor tiles that are perfect for creating a consistent appearance throughout your home from one space to another.
Consistent design
Creating an indoor space that can seamlessly transition into an outdoor one is about more than just your flooring choice. It’s about everything from big items to small personal touches and you’ll need to ensure that your whole aesthetic is consistent to perfect your new living space.
If your indoor-outdoor space connects a living room to a garden, consider your furniture choices in both spaces and how your new space can match both. If your space connects a kitchen to an outdoor space, consider how internal worktops can work with outdoor dining furniture.
You’ll also need to consider your whole home’s existing colour palettes. Remember that you’re trying to achieve an extension of your home rather than an isolated space, so you’ll need to bring through existing colours. Working a new palette into your home will create a disconnection and make it very hard to achieve that consistency that you should be striving for.
Repurpose old spaces
Many people don’t feel they have the space to incorporate an indoor-outdoor living space into their homes. If you feel this applies to you, consider how old spaces can be renovated and repurposed.
Conservatories were once the go-to way to connect your indoor and outdoor living spaces but conservatory insulation difficulties have left many homes with spaces that go unused for large periods of the year. They’re notoriously difficult to heat in the winter and hard to keep cool in the summer.
If you have a conservatory that’s become a storage room or a dumping ground due to insulation issues, it could be a simple case of replacing a polycarbonate roof with a glass roof. Consider adding bi-folding or sliding doors to leave you with a more modern space that can create a garden room to be used all year round.
Similarly, if you have a garden that isn’t used for large periods of the year, pinch some of your own land and transform it into a cosy outdoor area that can be made to feel like an extension of your living room on the other side of the doors.
Consider practicality
If you are looking to create an open-plan space that can be transformed from an indoor space to an outdoor one, then you’ll need to consider furniture and materials that work for both environments. These types of spaces often use fully bi-folding doors and retractable roofs to take you from inside to outside with a few small tweaks.
Outdoor furniture would look out of place when using your space as an indoor room, but indoor furniture wouldn’t last two minutes if exposed to harsh weather. As a result, you’ll need to find the best of both worlds. Searching for specialist indoor-outdoor furniture should lead you to durable furniture that doesn’t look out of place either inside or outside the home.
If you live in climates subject to a large amount of rain, you may be a little more limited in terms of how you use your indoor-outdoor space.
Give your space a purpose
Don’t just add an indoor-outdoor space to your home because it’s current and on-trend. You need to first work out how you intend to use your space and what its purpose is. Consider if it will primarily be used as an outdoor space or an indoor space as well as how much space you have available and what budget you are working with.
Many people choose to treat their indoor-outdoor space as a dining area that can be used all year round. In the summer months, your space can be opened up to enjoy some al fresco dining, while during the colder months you can utilise your space as a conventional dining area.
Again, consider where you live and your climate. There’s no point having an unsheltered outdoor dining area that will be unusable for the majority of the year due to rain and cold temperatures. In this case, maybe you would be best served creating a cozy indoor space with floor-to-ceiling windows so you can still feel a connection from inside to outside.
With indoor-outdoor spaces becoming increasingly popular, many homeowners are choosing to incorporate these new spaces into their homes. For some, it’s a value adding mission while for others the focus is on practicality. Whatever your reason for exploring this new trend, you’ll need to ensure you combine function with style to leave your home with a modern living space that is consistent with the rest of your home.