Break on Through to the Outside

Giant glass garage doors and propane fire pits aren’t just for the hip coffee shop or brewery downtown any longer. Modern amenities to design your outdoor living spaces are well within reach of any homeowner.

All it takes is a casual stroll around the neighborhood and you’ll see many homeowners melding the comfort and beauty of their homes with the sunlight and grounding that only comes from being outdoors. Call it a pandemic trend or just a human trend, but it’s wonderful to see people awakening to the power of nature and incorporating new technology and design ideas to expand their living spaces.

People are also staying put longer (the medium tenure for first-time homeowners crescendoed at 18 years in 2022), and working from home more, and so investing in outdoor, livable landscaping just makes sense. The applications of flat-screen televisions (which are now shockingly affordable) and digital projectors, mind-expanding LED lighting options (which are often weatherproof, solar, and energy efficient), bluetooth everything, mood-setting and highly efficient modern gas fire features (pits, stands, and wall units), and reclaimed and recycled outdoor landscaping materials are bringing people’s dreams to life under covered decks and sunken gardens. Ultra-modern amenities like retracting glass garage-style doors or folding panels are now de rigueur for forward thinking homeowners seeking to take advantage of their chosen climate and expand their living spaces seasonally.

A few things to get you started on the outdoor living trend.

If these outdoor-indoor design ideas pique your interest, keep following along with us on this journey. We’ll be delving further into this topic in an upcoming issue.