Take it Outside

The latest trends bring indoor comfort to outdoor living

Summer invites us to do more than take the party outside. It beckons us to move life out of doors. With our climate's warm evenings kissed by Bay and Delta breezes, an outdoor room expands our living space, sometimes dramatically. But it also expands summer living by giving us a place to play, entertain, relax and, well, just live life. Outdoor living, after all, gives us the things we love: Mother Nature to serenade us, the sun to warm us, breezes to caress us and the moon to romance us. What better place for another room? So what goes into creating a comfortable outdoor retreat? Our three outdoor-loving designers agree on this: It's about comfort, privacy, lighting, a water feature and figuring out where to store everything come winter-or choosing products that can live outdoors when the weather turns nasty.

Outside insight

Joni Wilson straddles the worlds of interior design and landscape design. As owner of Inside Out in Davis since 1999, she has witnessed the tremendous growth in outdoor living. "Over the past 10 years, things have erupted in the landscape design business," she says. "As it gets more expensive to live in California, and as homes become smaller, you take into account every square inch you've got as a homeowner."
    Wilson says the things to consider in creating an outdoor room evolve around color, materials and style. "You want to make sure that your outdoor living area and furnishings go with the style of your house," she says. "Comfort is important. An outdoor living area has to be functional and practical. When it comes to outdoor furnishings, there's more selection than ever before because outdoor living is becoming more popular every year. We're all enamored with spending more time outdoors." As the May issue of Smart Money magazine reports, Americans continue to spend consistently on outdoor projects, regardless of what the housing market is doing.

Finding room and a view

Jean Kezear, an interior designer for 28 years, owns Comprehensive Design in Napa. She concurs with Wilson that property values are driving up the desire to expand our living space to the great outdoors. "More people are capitalizing on the property they have in back of their homes," she says. "They're making the backyard an extension of their living space. Another sometimes wasted space is in the front of their homes. With creative landscaping and interesting fencing, you can even use the front of your property for outdoor living.
    "When you're planning an outdoor room you have to decide, how is it going to be used? And what interior room opens to the space? Those are the critical decisions when you want to create the feeling of a room," she says. "Not every neighborhood is perfect for outdoor living. On small pieces of property, I take the outdoor living room to the back of the property so the view is of your own home." And since trees and plants take time to grow, Kezear suggests homeowners consider changing their outdoor landscape in stages.
    Patricia Butler, owner of Patricia Butler Interior Design in Benicia, notes several common challenges to designing an outdoor room. "Privacy is one," she says. "Noise is also a challenge because we're all built on top of one another here in California. And landscaping takes patience because things don't grow overnight. The view from your outdoor room is always important, but if you don't have one, you can create your own view with trees or shrubbery. If your immediate area is pleasing to you, the view won't matter so much."

The fabrics of your outdoor life

Deciding how you'll use your outdoor space is step one in designing it. Do you want a family gathering spot, an entertaining area or a place to relax? Once you decide how you'll use your outdoor room-whether for cuddling or conversation-furnishing the room becomes much simpler. Our designers recommend comfortable furniture that can stand up to the weather, especially if you don't have a place to stash things in the winter. Everywhere you shop these days, from KMart to the San Francisco Design Center, you can find new furniture finishes and materials that eliminate the problem of storage during wet winter months.
    Cast iron and bronze or tubular steel furniture has heft and substance, and powder coating (a baked-on finish) is many times thicker and more resilient than painted metal furniture. Today's weatherproof wicker, woven from long-lasting plastic wrapped around a frame, also delivers durability year-round. And because faux wicker furniture-makers use a metal frame rather than rattan, the furniture's structure won't rot. Even those big, comfy cushions for outdoor furniture are built for outdoor living. Flow-through (or drain-dry) foam lets water flow through the cushion, preventing water damage or mildew.
    But of all the advances in outdoor furniture, outdoor fabrics are grabbing the spotlight because they finally feel like fabric, not like plastic. Dean Soloaga, owner of Dean's Upholstery in Vacaville, likes Sunbrella fabrics. "They're perfect for anything where sunlight is an issue," he says. "These fabrics started as boat top material, but they've been refined to be softer, and they're now available in a wide range of colors and patterns. They're easy to clean and they really stand up to the elements."
    Sunbrella's 100-percent acrylic technology produces fabrics that are water-repellent and fade-proof, with color that is locked into the fabric via a solution-dyed process. Kezear agrees that outdoor fabrics and rugs are dominating the trends this year. "The beautiful new weatherproof fabrics and outdoor rugs that can be hosed off are things that everyone can use," she says. "And outdoor rugs help make the space seem more intimate and interior-like."

Light and water are naturals

Low-voltage landscape lighting can add ambiance and drama to your outdoor room. Inside Out's Wilson says low-voltage lighting, like you see at the San Francisco Flower & Garden Show, has great appeal. "You can use accent lighting, such as uplighting (where light fixtures are ground-mounted and directed upward to illuminate an object) a Japanese maple or a trio of birch trees," she says. "Pathway lights are great as long as they aren't too close together or they look like an airport landing strip. You want to space them, zigzagging back and forth. You can also place lights inside a pot or use underwater lights in a fountain."
    Benicia interior designer Butler says lighting can make or break a room, even an outdoor room. "Lighting is a feeling you can see," she says. "It creates a lot of atmosphere. The right lighting in the right spot can do wonders."
    And Napa interior designer Kezear says lighting an outdoor room is crucial. "In the nighttime, the space is just a black area," she says. "You need to have something beyond candles. I like to use uplights to highlight trees. Even in my own backyard, our low-voltage lighting is on a circuit so it stays on several hours every evening." The key to attractive outdoor lighting, according to the American Lighting Association, follows a "less is more" philosophy. It recommends soft, natural light that mimics moonlight on the property.
    Another outdoor living trend is the water feature. This year, fountains are in and ponds are out. Wilson says that shift might be due to the recent threat of West Nile virus. "If you have a water feature, make sure you're adding bleach to the water," she says. "If you want to have plants in the water feature, add goldfish to eat the mosquitoes." Whether your water feature is a pool, waterfall, pond or tabletop fountain, our designers agree that the sound of running water creates serenity in any outdoor space.
    Wilson offers her "take life as it comes" approach when you're planning or creating an outdoor room. "Outside is part of nature-the sun, the rain, the flowers and plants. You can only tweak it so much."

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