Gordon’s Garden Party
Hello again, thank you for tuning in. I hope you are having a wonderful day.
I want to start by completely telling on myself. I’m talking all about backyards today, and I don’t have a backyard. I’ve lived in the urban landscape of New York City for 15 years, and backyards are not the standard here. Yes, there is some kind of weird alley behind our apartment building, but that doesn’t count. Outdoor space is a hot commodity. So many people leave NYC every year for New Jersey, Westchester County, Texas, even California, all with the same dream of having a big old backyard.
However, the principles of design for a beautiful gathering space are the same indoors and outdoors. So, if you are lucky enough to have a designated outdoor area, what do you do with your coveted plot of land once you get it? How you do make it a space that’s enjoyable? How do you make it functional, comfortable, and irresistible to the eyes? Slide open the screen door and get yourself a glass of lemonade because today we are talking all things backyard, deck, and terrace.
I love taking weekend trips outside the city to areas like the beaches of Eastern Long Island, the Poconos, the Adirondacks, and the Catskills. One of the keys to living in a dense urban area is to leave it, frequently. In New York City, restaurants are packed on the weekends, and even sometimes on weekdays. Especially in the summer when it’s nice out and there’s patio seating available. When I leave New York however, I’m often surprised how restaurants aren’t necessarily that crowded, even on Saturday night it’s still pretty easy to get a table. But then I remember - everyone is hanging out and having dinner in their backyard or their friends’ backyard. That’s the whole charm of being the burbs or in rural areas. Backyard BBQ’s, dinner parties, family functions, birthdays, anniversaries - if you’ve got a backyard it’s basically a dedicated outdoor party room.
Before I say anymore about backyards, I wanted to take a moment to tell you that this episode is brought to you by Soft Landing Studio. The same design studio that brings you this podcast. If you enjoy this podcast and want to work with me directly, you can select from a variety of one-on-one virtual consoltations about your specific home, office, or retail interior design project. Whether you want a quick brainstorming session, a series of regular check-ins during your renovation, or to work with my full service interior design offerings; you’ll get amazing design ideas, life changing solutions to problems you’d never thought you could resolve, and a space you feel proud to call your own. Go to www.softlandingstudio.com to schedule your experience now. And while you’re there, don’t forget to download the absolutely free Guide to Getting Started. This fun-fill PDF quiz will orient you at the very beginning of your interior design journey. If you know you aren’t 100% happy in your space, but you don’t know what to do about it, this guide is for you. You will be directed towards big idea solutions, so you’ll know what to do, and most importantly, what not to do. Visit www.softlandingstudio.com for you free copy today.
Backyards vary in size dramatically depending on where you live. The backyard where I spent a large part of my childhood was basically a 24/7 carnival, in my eyes. There was a full jungle gym, a kid sized play house, a sandbox, cages for our pet rabbits, a garden, a huge deck, and even a hill that made for good sledding in the winter. When my family moved out west, our new backyard felt more like a postage stamp, with a small patio and just enough yard on either side for a few trees and couple of plants. But both yards had the primary purpose of giving our family space to enjoy the beauty of nature while socializing, eating meals, reading a good book, or just soaking up the sun with a glass of lemon water. Whether you’re sitting on two acres or just enough of a balcony to fit a chair or two, let’s talk about the essentials that make outdoor space feel super amazing.
When you start to visualize your backyard as an extension of your living space, the planning of it becomes a lot more clear, at least in my mind. Aside from gardens, sheds, pathways, trees, and shrubs - all that great landscaping stuff; the outdoor space directly adjacent to your home should be treated the same as a living room. Depending on what kind of terrain you are working with, think of it as carving a clean, hospitable space into nature that allows you to be amongst plant life, without actually roughing it in the woods. This space you are carving out can be organized exactly like a living room, with a few important modifications of course.
Just like in a living room, the goal is to create comfortable seating arrangements that encourage conversation or contemplation. Unlike most living rooms, most backyards do not have the distraction of a television, but we still need to create a focal point within the arrangement. This focal point could be your yard’s spectacular view, a fire pit, an amazing old tree, your in-ground swimming pool, or your adjacent garden. In order to discover what the focal point should be, try scanning your backyard with your eyes quickly and note what element jumps out at your the most. If you don’t have an existing focal point, you’ll need to add one. Ideally, the focal point will be something with height or vertically to it - this could look like a cool wood slat screen that adds an extra level of privacy, a plant wall, outdoor curtains, or even a special section of the back of your home that has an interesting texture or color that differentiates it from its surroundings. Dare I say you could even have a mural painted on the outside or your house, over a material like brick if you want to get really hip.
Once you have your focal point identified, you can start to build conversational seating around it. When you think about outdoor gatherings, both small and large, it’s not uncommon to have multiple conversations going on at once. It’s okay to embrace this and create a mix of seating groups that allow you and your guests to move from area to area over the course of the event. These can be broken up and mixed through out the grounds on a larger property, or they can all be commingled within the same footprint. Just like in a living room, it’s important to have a variety of seat types. Group together pairs of wide lounge chairs with a small, high table in between them; add a two seater sofa with a coffee table, and pepper in a cozy freestanding nest chair for introvert recharge time. Think of these configurations as modules, they can stand alone, be pair together, or doubled up to create plenty of different configurations to suit your outdoor space.
If you have a dedicated grill or barbecue area, you’ll most likely want to have a place to eat outside as well. This can be located directly next to your living room style set up, but if you have the room to spread out, this can help celebrate the spaciousness of your backyard. While the traditional long picnic table with benches is a popular choice, there’s also the option to create more of an outdoor cafe style, with square or round tables and wider dining chairs, with seat cushions. This creates an environment that’s comfortable and encourages after-meal lingering. Adding some kind of sunshade in here is important, whether it’s a traditional table centered umbrella, a more modern cantilevered one, or even the coveted vine covered pergola - providing a shading strategy is critical for outdoor dining. In terms of outdoor creatures that may disrupt your meal, this is highly specific to your local area. The strategy should be identify the pest, find out what they like and they don’t like. Incorporate elements that may keep them away - certain plants like amaranth, rosemary, and marigold have repelling qualities to them, so it can help to have these strategically placed around your yard.
If you’re limited on space you can consider combining the dining and lounge area into one efficient footprint, it can be as small as a 30” diameter cafe table with two extra wide dining chairs that double as loungers. Just make sure the seats are no lower than 17” from the floor, that way when you pull them up to the table, you won’t be eating at chin level.
Aside from creating a focal point, the other common creative goal for a backyard is to create moments of refuge. Although we love to enjoy the outdoors, feeling completely exposed isn’t usually what we’re going for. There are several design strategies to help define your seating area. It may seem obvious, but make sure your outdoor living room has a unique ground cover that differentiates it from its surrounding. This could be stone pavers surrounded by grass, or different colors and sizes of pavers pavers if the surrounding area is paved as well. Stone gravel can provide good ground cover while still being good for water drainage. A wooden deck does this naturally, so no need to further divide it up. One thing I’ve seen a lot of that I would try to avoid is the outdoor area rug. These look so fun in furniture catalogs, but I have not seen one that doesn’t wind up more of a nuisance than anything else. It’s an extra surface to clean and even with regular attention, these things get kind of gnarly, and fast.
Lighting is your best friend when it comes to humanizing your outdoor space, not only because it allows us to enjoy nature long after sunset, but also because the fixtures used can help your space feel more cozy and act as design elements. One of the most popular lighting techniques right now is using in-ground posts and endless strands of round string lights to zig zag above an entire outdoor area. This not only creates a canopy, or even the sense of a ceiling for refuge, but it also plays up the twinkling starlight effect that we all love. This is a great trend to make your own - just make sure you get heavy duty lights with cords that can’t be sliced by woodland creature’s claws.
My favorite outdoor lighting effects almost always include uplighting. This technique of providing a light source low to the ground that shines upward can make a brick wall look like a million dollars. Uplighting exaggerates the texture of any surface, so think about anywhere there is stone, brick, or wood slats. You can also add a little in-ground uplight along the trees and plants in your yard to make their nighttime presence more impactful. Any pathways can be highlighted with in-ground torcheres. This not only looks lovely, but also provides an extra level of visibility and safety as you move along the path. If the surfaces around your outdoor area aren’t right for uplighting for instance if you have a lot of glass or even vinyl siding, you wouldn’t want to up-lit that. But, you can have fun adding outdoor wall sconces. There are so many styles of sconces to chose from - some throw the light in a pattern or texture to mimic starlight, have up and downlighting, are completely indirect and look like an eclipse, and some just glow like beautiful lanterns. You can play with the placement of the sconces so that even in the daylight, their presence adds a sense of pattern, texture, or emphasis to your outdoor oasis.
And I just wanted to touch on durability. With any piece of outdoor furniture, there are several factors to keep in mind. The first is that the piece must be intended to be outside. Upholstery, metal, and different kinds of woods can all be created specifically to withstand the elements, but using indoor furniture can be disastrous. This is all due to continuous exposure to moisture. Think mold, mildew, rust, and rotting. There is also the issue of sun fading, but that seems like less of a problem compared to mold. There is so much fantastic outdoor furniture readily available on the market today. Some really great brands to look at include Article, World Market, Terrain, and Yardbird. You’ll know the materials are intended to be outside when shopping at outdoor focused manufacturers. And of course, don’t forget to check out your local vintage, consignment, resale shop, or even Etsy for amazing, elegant, and classic pieces like Adirondack chairs, bright colored retro metal glides, and even gorgeous wicker lounges.
Unlike indoor furniture, outdoor furniture does require some maintenance and care, specifically with regards to the weather. Most importantly, if your furniture isn’t bolted down, you’ll want to pay attention to any weather that brings strong wind gusts and move your furniture indoors when this occurs. This is particularly important if you are dealing with a high rise balcony or terrace where wind speeds are significantly higher. Don’t forget smaller accessories like umbrellas, throw pillows, and other decorative items. If you live in a climate with heavy winters, you can protect your furniture with fitted, UV and water resistant covers; or store it indoors for the harshest months.
That covers in for outdoor design - if you have any questions about what you should do for your backyard, you can always book a creative consultation with me, I would love to dive into your project. Until next, enjoy your space.
