Creating Comfort Outdoors

            The past few weeks have really brought the wonderfully welcome changes of spring to our world, and most of us would say that it’s not a moment too soon.  Living in an area where we spend a good portion of our year cocooned inside our homes, spring offers exhilarating opportunities to get back outside and relish the fresh air, sunshine and warmer temperatures. 

            Nearly everywhere you go these days, you can see people outside enjoying this glorious time of year.  Jogging, walking dogs, playing in the park, and riding bikes are all clearly popular pastimes. 

            But have you really considered how you spend your less active time outdoors, as well?   Creating truly comfortable, stylish outdoor living spaces is a huge trend in the home furnishings industry right now, and new introductions among every category of furnishings make it so much fun.

            Gone are the days when our choices for outdoor furniture materials consisted of nylon webbing, hard, hot metal or plastic!  Today’s outdoor furniture, appliances and accessories are oftentimes hard to distinguish from what we use indoors, giving us the capability to multiply our living spaces by extending them beyond the boundaries of our traditional walls.

            The process of creating an outdoor room begins with site selection.  The most obvious choices include a spacious porch, patio or deck.  If, however, you don’t have any of those, you can certainly choose a favorite area of your yard just as effectively.  Find a spot where both sunlight and shade can be enjoyed, as well as one with a pleasing view.

            Outdoor living spaces can be as simple or as elaborate as you want to make them.  The basics, however, include comfortable seating and a place to set a beverage or book. 

            In the old days, that would mean a few folding lawn chairs and a folding metal side table.  Today’s outdoor furniture, however, offers so much more. 

            New advances in the materials that go into outdoor furniture now give us the luxury of fully cushioned seats, upholstered in beautiful fabrics which stand up to the elements and foam which allows rain water to drain right through it. 

            All-weather framing materials may look like yesterday’s rattan and wicker, but now resist drying, cracking, and mildewing, and never need painting.  Figure out how many people you’d like to be able to seat comfortably in your space, and then have a ball selecting some beautiful chairs, or even an outdoor sofa or loveseat. 

            Beyond the basics of seating, your outdoor room should also include coordinating occasional tables within easy reach.  Did you know, however, that you can now add the finishing touches of outdoor lamps, artwork and rugs as well?  All of these and more are available to be used outside, giving us the ability to truly create a “room” outdoors!

            Most of us love to dine outdoors in the summertime, too, so incorporating some type of dining table and chairs is a great idea.  Once again, the comfort and aesthetics that are available today far surpass the utilitarian options of years ago.  Don’t lock yourself into the old standard styles and materials; explore all the options!

            If you’re a really avid fresh air and outdoor cooking fan, you might consider creating an outdoor kitchen.  Take a look at the endless possibilities among grills, refrigerators, even beverage coolers that are designed for the outdoors, and let your imagination go wild with ideas for how those might be incorporated into a wonderful space for cooking and entertaining. 

            Outdoor living is a true joy for many of us, and a more-than-welcome alternative to the months that we spend indoors much of the year.  Whether you choose to make your outdoor living space simple and functional or out-of-this-world and elaborate, the key is to have it be comfortable, inviting, and reflective of your personality.  And then, to take the time to sit down and enjoy it!

Bathrooms are Hard.

Bathrooms are hard.  Hard to get motivated about, hard to decorate, and full of hard things, literally. 

            And yet, your bathroom is so important, in so much more than just a functional way.  It’s both the first thing you see in the morning and the last thing before going to bed.  It’s the place where your mood for the day is established, and where your wind-down to sleep begins. 

            For many of us, however, our bathrooms have become the forgotten child in our home’s decorating scheme, and are far too often a room that we simply fly in and out of in our haste to get on with the busyness of life.  This week’s featured room makeover showcases just such a bathroom, one that is very typical of what we so often see here in the Midwest.

            We began with this very moderately-sized, outdated master bathroom in a 1970’s ranch home, and a directive from its owners that the footprint of the room needed to remain unchanged, but everything else was fair game.

            These empty nesters were more than ready for an update, indicating that they yearned for a space which would be reflective of their new, more contemporary decorating style, a space that would feel serene but with a definite ‘wow’ factor.

            For starters, we established a new color scheme of soft grays and blues, warmed that up with some creamy beige elements, and then punched it up with generous doses of crisp black and white.  It’s the way that this seemingly incongruous combination of colors plays out which established the basis for this room’s successful finished look and feel.

            Underfoot, the new natural stone floor tile provides real warmth to the room, both visually and literally.  Its golden undertones dramatically warm up an otherwise cold color scheme, and the worn, tumbled texture of the stone adds a visual softness to the room.  Literal warmth comes, however, from the radiant heat that the homeowners chose to put underneath the tile, which is a welcome gift to their feet on chilly mornings!

            Next, our walls were stripped of their old ‘80’s wallpaper, newly textured and bathed in soft gray-blue paint.  This color is what provides the serenity factor to the room, and balances out the crisp drama of the black and white elements which will be added later.

            The old double vanity, mirrors and light fixtures needed to go.  In their place, a sleek furniture-style vanity and trough sink are now set against a backdrop of glossy white subway tile, accented with an inset border of glass tiles in our featured colors.

             Completing this wall is a clean-lined, contemporary mirror paired with new energy-efficient light fixtures.  Now, this room is really beginning to sing a new song!

            Opposite the vanity wall, the old tub and shower surround were given new life as well.  The bathtub was refreshed with a simple and relatively inexpensive reglazing process, and removing the fiberglass surround gave us a clean slate upon which to repeat our subway and glass tile combination.  A custom shower curtain, in the grey-blue and beige colors, brings another element of softness to the room.

            With the major functional areas of this bathroom established, what remained were the finishing touches of a window treatment and accessories.

            The old traversing draperies at the window were replaced with a Hunter Douglas Silhouette shade.  This not only functions beautifully to provide the privacy needed in the bathroom, but also lends visual softness and complements the contemporary look that we’re going for.

            Brass towel bars and tissue holder have been replaced with sleek contemporary polished nickel ones,  and a floating glass shelf and black glass-topped table now provide handy storage. Soft blue and white towels and a few carefully selected pieces of artwork add the finishing touches to this bathroom, which finally resides firmly in the 21^st century. 

            Having developed and executed a careful plan that incorporated just the right balance of color, softness and drama, our homeowners say that their new bathroom certainly doesn’t seem like a hard thing to face each morning now!