If you're lucky enough to have a garden or patio...
I've wanted a garden since I was small. It took me living in apartments and flats until I was 36 years old before I got my beautiful outdoor living space. We've included garden ideas here on our interiors site as these days (weather permitting) we love to live outside. Maybe it's a symptom of staring at our screens more and more, but what better way to spend the time than socialising in our gardens and relaxing in some outside space.
We believe that any exterior space whether garden or patio is made wholely suitable by what interior products you use to merge the two together. A garden which is entered through French doors for example will really bring the room internally and the exterior together. Using doormats, handles, etc will all help bring your spaces together.
Grand gardens need not cost the earth
There are loads of ways of improving your garden design without getting a specialist in to help. Garden design and building work can be as expensive as interior work, so anything you can do yourself will save you a great deal of money. We're keen to think about the possibilities of designing your own outdoor space, even if you get help in with any structural or tricky work like laying paving slabs or building new brick walls. At the end of the day we can only be as thrifty as we can be, and we need help with the rest! There are ornaments at my local garden centre and you wouldn't believe the price, I saw a huge carved stone gorilla (seriously, it was about 7 foot tall) in grey stone, guess the price... £10,000. Now I don't know about you but I think that's a bit steep for any garden apart from which who'd have it! We'll be talking about substantially cheaper gardens than that!
Bring the outside in
We've looked at all sorts of ideas for bringing your garden in to your home - we looked at interior shutters and how they might look with the lighting on the exterior of the house (take a look at homebase site they have some useful ideas for exterior lighting installation and bits- (although personally I might buy my lights from elsewhere, it depends what they have in stock). We thought about LED in the stairs which are made with decking, we thought about shutters and blinds and how these might look for the garden. There are so many ways to bring the outside in to your home by using the decorating, fixtures and features inside which lead to outside.
Depending on what type of access you have to your garden or patio, there are ideas for opening french doors into the outdoor space, however if you can get a deck or tile the point between house and garden, you will find the transition easier to cross in bringing that space to your more accessible interior. We love using shutters for doors, as these not only look incredibly stylish but also really do bring the outside in, as you can change the slats to open and close alllowing the garden view to seep in slowly to your home. We'll focus on these and plenty more ideas for your garden design over the next few months, so don't forget to bookmark us or leave your details and we'll add you to our mailing list.