Outdoor Furniture, Patio Furniture and more!

For many families, it takes the warm defrost of spring to finally recover from holiday entertaining.  Though the lights and candles have long been put away, the rest of winter rarely inspires a lot of party-hosting.

But, the longer days and warmer afternoons of the spring season will always beckon dedicated entertainers to host a grand get-together.  Take advantage of the budding flowers and take dinner parties outdoors for an alfresco dining experience.

But, moving outside of the dining room’s comfort zone can strike hosting anxiety in the hearts of even the most experienced entertainer.  Follow these simple tips to ensure your alfresco dinner party goes off without a hitch!

The Furniture: The outdoor furniture used for outdoor entertaining must do more than just provide enough seating for guests; it can truly set the mood for the entire event.  The patio furniture has to fit the occasion.  A solid A-frame pine picnic table is great for backyard bashes and cook outs.  But, upscale alfresco dining will benefit from a cedar patio dining set or a teak outdoor dining table.

The Table Dressing: Marcia Blake, outdoor living space designer, encourages decorators to celebrate the outdoors with table dressings. “Add small fresh flower bouquets or miniature plants in low vases across the table to give the illusion of a large arrangement,” she suggests.

“For a dressed up table setting use ivory cloth placemats, topped by beautiful glassware, stemware and china, preferably antique or traditional in spirit.” Blake advises, “If you are planning a more relaxed get together, try mixing and matching different color glasses, ceramic dishes and fun silverware to create a playful atmosphere. Use multi colored placemats, napkins and chunky pillar candles.”

The Seating Arrangements: “Determine your seating arrangement then use hand-scripted place cards to caringly identify each setting,” suggests Blake.  Adding personal touches to place settings makes everyone feel valued and at-home.

“If many of your guests have yet to meet, consider setting out simple table games like the Tricky Triangle peg-in-wood block puzzles, or even riddles and trivia.  They can be a good ice breaker to get conversations started,” said Rebecca Strong, a frequent party host.

When it comes to party planning, Blake encourages taking any stress head on, “Try to work hard before the party starts so that you can enjoy being a guest at your own party.”  She insists that ensuring all of the details are wrapped before guests arrive will make the entire event more enjoyable.

Great parties have great atmospheres, and great atmospheres are created with fantastic outdoor furniture. Making sure the patio furniture fits the party is one of the most important factors.

Tags: cedar patio dining set, Outdoor Furniture, patio furniture, picnic table, pine picnic table, teak outdoor dining table

Gardeners nationwide are truly living in their gardens.  Gardening is not just your grandmother’s pastime anymore; it’s one of the most popular hobbies sweeping the interests of men and women of all ages.  Whether people are trying their hand at backyard organic vegetables or creating beautiful bouquet gardens, the art of gardening is definitely on the rise.

But, gardening is no longer just a chore or a place to work.  Gardens have become chic entertaining venues, dining spaces and living areas.

Garden designer Jenny Peterson, of J Peterson Garden Design, has seen this trend grow with every season.  “My clients are now seeing their gardens as gathering areas for their families and friends, so we have whole areas dedicated to seating and outdoor furniture,” she said.  Peterson has worked on designing gardens to hold everything from meditation areas to patio furniture collections in recent years.

“The things you would normally do inside, they are now doing outside, and want a good space to do it,” Peterson said.  And many gardeners are asking themselves if there’s any better space than a garden.

“Gardens are both peaceful and celebratory,” said Cassie Phillips, an avid gardener who enjoys cultivating her garden room along with her plants and flowers.  “Nothing puts me more at ease than being surrounded by nature and nothing livens up a party like the growing joy of a blooming lily.”

The versatility of the garden, paired with the eagerness gardeners take to showing off their handiwork, creates a flawless platform for living spaces.  Whether lazily flipping through a favorite novel on a porch swing, or hosting a garden soiree with champagne and teak patio furniture, a well planted garden can do nothing but enhance your experience.

Recently, more and more people are looking for outdoor furniture for their garden, instead of just their porches and gazebos.  People are moving their living spaces to be an integral part of their garden in increasingly interesting ways each season.  It’s more than just arranging patio furniture, using arbors and pergolas helps define spaces while letting flowering vines grow vertically to create living walls and spacers.

What’s your favorite way to bring living spaces out into the garden?

Tags: Arbors, gazebo, Outdoor Furniture, patio furniture, Pergolas, porch swing

We all love a sunny day. It pleads for us to come outside and enjoy its natural beauty. Playing in the grass is one way to do it, but upon the surface of a designated kids picnic table or patio furniture, outdoor dining, arts and crafts, and even spending time doing homework are other wonderful ways to pass the time.

Mealtime Made Easy: On the children’s outdoor furniture you can serve your kids food outside as a way to liven up a meal. Not only does eating on the patio make it easier to brush off crumbs, it also keeps muddy shoes outside of the house. When friends with children visit and stay for a meal,  they can comfortably sit at the kid’s picnic table socializing and snacking with one another.

Fresh Air Homework: After a long day at school, there is no doubt about it: kids need fresh air. By positioning a children’s picnic table or children’s patio furniture behind your home that is made for their use, kids can take advantage of the chirping birds outside while sweeping through their studies, exhilarating their senses. Whether you’re working or playing, a children’s outdoor table makes it all possible at once.

Outdoor Arts and Crafts Time: If you’re wondering why the table should be only for the kids and not combined, taking arts and crafts to its beautiful pine or cedar wood picnic table explains everything. Now, instead of getting paper maché all over your dining room table or floor, your kids will find their children’s patio furniture to be the ideal landing spot for any masterful creation.

Treat your backyard to an outdoor table for the kids that will keep them discovering more about the great outdoors they love. With every meal, piece of artwork, or finished homework assignment, the kids’ table will take on more meaning as a symbol of fusing the manmade shelters with the natural environment.

Tags: children's outdoor furniture, children's outdoor table, children's patio furniture, children's picnic table, kids picnic table, outdoor table, patio furniture, wood picnic table

A safe place where your kids’ imagination is free to roam  outside of your pristine home? That’s not just a dream come true when a gorgeous cedar playhouse resides in your backyard. Along with it being a welcome addition to any landscaping design, it also teaches children how to funnel their creativity into designing their very own space, being responsible for it, and using it as an petite escape.

Decorate Like No Other: Begin by letting your child take the reins of the interior decorating in their very own backyard playhouse. Although it doesn’t exactly have a slide or monkey bars, this type of play structure becomes their outdoor oasis from reality. It should express their innermost desires – whether they dream of a castle, a pirate ship, or a sandy beach – anything is possible within a children’s playhouse.

Responsibility Rules the Lair: There is no need to nag if the playhouse isn’t tidy each and every day, but stressing the usefulness of keeping up a clean space is important during formative years. When they begin to understand that the backyard playhouse is not picked up by the adults of the household, it gives them the ultimate responsibility in making sure its easy to play in when friends come over. Therefore, use your house cleaning as an example. By not nagging at them to keep it spotless, you’ll also help keep it a stress-free zone.

Provide an Easy Mental Escape: Although children generally know when to separate themselves from situations when they feel anxious or frustrated with anything going on in their lives, some can use a playhouse for added comfort. Acting as a silent zone where thoughts and feelings are nurtured and cultivated, it is a priceless alternative to video games, computer chatting, and television that so often turn on after school or in the summer months.

With moral support and a suggestive eye for design reasoning, the simple playhouse in your backyard transforms into the space of your kids’ dreams, allowing  them to be creative, responsible and feel as though they have a true release from the many pressures and stresses of the world.

Tags: backyard, backyard playhouse, cedar playhouse, childrens playhouse, play structure, playhouse, simple playhouse playhouse

Children who play together, learn together, and teach each other how to develop successful interpersonal skills will be much better off later in life.  But, how can you ensure that happens?

The answer is not, “go out and buy the latest IQ toy.”

But, instead, you should give your children the space to grow!  When left to their own devices, children actually outperform the expectations of their parents and educators.  Providing a safe a supervised outdoor area for kids to play team sports like soccer, quoites, kick ball, croquet, bocce ball and football, your children will create teams and learn from the following social interactions.  Gracious winning and losing is not often learned from a coaching parent, but by the social growth that groups of youngsters create by working together.

Playing outdoor sports together lets children learn how to deal and play with a variety of personality types will be less likely to get in fights in high school and more willing to explore new places and ideas. And if you don’t have a horse shoe set, don’t fret.  Many outdoor games are incredibly inexpensive, and even if that’s not in your budget this year… kids can make a game out of almost anything.

It’s the outdoor space, more than any equipment, which kids need to learn through playing.   But more than just teamwork, giving your children their own space to take care of will give them a sense of ownership that fosters responsibility.

Whether this is their own playhouse or simply a section of the garden with a garden bench, explain that they are responsible for taking care of their little bit of earth.

Teach them to weed and take care of their section of garden or plant flowers in the playhouse’s flower boxes.  Learning to cultivate nature will teach them that they are responsible for taking care of the environment and that their hard work produces beautiful things.

Learning this kind of responsibility will not only be good for their work ethic and behavior, it will also instill a love and accountability for the environment.  Just think, if coming generations know that taking care of the earth is an important responsibility… maybe our fragile planet isn’t doomed.

Outdoor spaces foster teamwork and teach responsibility, without need a lot of coaching.  Provide safe and fun places for children to enjoy the outdoors, and you’ll be amazed at the results!

Tags: children's outdoor spaces, kids garden benches, kids outdoor furniture, play cabins, play sets, playhouses

As you plan your outdoor spaces for the spring, don’t forget to consider the little ones in your design ideas.  Studies show that your children need more time outside than the majority of them are getting.  Often, simply creating a kid-friendly place will be enough to peel your children away from their video games and into your landscape.

Battle Nature Deficit Disorder:  Recent studies have shown that children not exposed to the outdoors enough are suffering from a specific series of concerns.  Most likely fueled by a more media-centered society and parents fearing that their children will be less safe outside… many effected children are suffering from a marked lack in creativity, anxiety and depression, attention deficit problems, and long-term inabilities to cope with stress.  And, of course, it goes without saying that these children are also much more likely to suffer from childhood obesity; a condition that will undoubtedly affect them for the rest of their lives.

Luckily, this is a problem that can be easily fixed.  If you have a mandatory amount of time your child is required to spend reading, doing homework, or even working on chores… consider extending this to spending time outdoors.  Even if it’s not playing, doing homework on porch swing or at a picnic table instead of at their desk will do wonders.  They will be more aware of what is going on around them and better able to evaluate a variety of senses at one time.  Being outside offers changing stimuli, unlike the constant décor of their bedroom, and the more time children spend outdoors, the more time they will yearn for the fresh smell of the open air.

And remember, children build their immune systems as they’re developing.  Kids that are kept away from any sort of dirt and germs will be unable to cope with them as they grow older.  Studies show that adults that spent more time outside as children were less likely to suffer from allergies.

Exercise… both mentally and physically:  It’s clear that children are getting less exercise with every generation.  Not only does this lead to a lot of pent-up energy, it leads to a long list of health concerns.  But, children are little balls of activity, and giving them a place outside to expend that is good for them.  Climbing trees, swinging on monkey bars, running, and jumping are all great for their health.  A few minor bumps and bruises may occur, but this is a natural part of being a kid!  Youngsters have an innate need to be active, it’s the constant push from the media encouraging docile sit-in-front-of-the-screen behavior that turns them off of it.

The earlier you foster their love for wind blowing in their face as they sprint after a little brother, the more they will love it as they grow older. But, the physical exercise is not where the importance stops.  Playtime outside will cause your children to develop their own story lines, create their own games, and pretend an old, scary witch is plotting great destruction from that outdoor rocker, or a far-away princess is sleeping on the chaise lounge.  Let your child’s mind deviate from the plot lines of their video games, the characters on their cartoons, and even the lessons in their schools—let their brains develop correctly by entertaining their active imaginations!

Plan play sets, play houses and kids outdoor furniture into your outdoor space design to keep your children active and outdoors.  Helping both their physical and mental development, more outside play time

Tags: chaise lounge, kids outdoor furniture, outdoor rocker, picnic table, play houses, play sets, porch swing

If you’re not quite ready to retire, try the next best thing: work from home. Although many of us will attest who have done it that cramming your desk into the guest bedroom is definitely not the best idea, working out of a backyard structure, like a pool house, most definitely works well if it is insulated, has electricity, and is shrouded in plenty of natural light.

Insulate Yourself: The first step to making your business or telecommuting position work from your guest house is to make sure it is well insulated above ground and on the floor. This will allow you to work year-round, with no humid or drafty excuses to detract from professional progress. It will also help to maintain any electronics – computer, printer, audio/visual equipment, etc. – that will be stored inside.

All About the Electrics: Since it is the 21^st century, most telecommuters and business owners are well-connected. By installing an electrical package into the plan for a custom pool house you automatically gear yourself up for success. Also, you can hook up the music, plug in a refrigerator, or set up an espresso machine besides finding inspiration using the worldwide web.

Shine Some Light: Lastly, natural light is a must for many hardworking individuals. It’s refreshing and adds a natural calm to otherwise drab and anxiety-provoking cubicle settings. Knowing this, make sure you choose a pool house with windows positioned just right to allow the sun and air to flow in. Proper placement of windows will work their magic while you work your own.

If you have the opportunity to save money on your commute by using your backyard space as a remote office, make sure it is setting you up for nothing but success with good insulation, electricity, and windows throughout.

Tags: backyard structure, custom pool house, Pool house

Your decisions for patio furniture and outdoor space design should always consider full functionality and practicality.  But, after choosing resilient materials and ensuring there are enough seats for guests, you can have fun creating focal points with splashes of color.  Whether you choose the shocking or the neutral, planning a successful color pallet should be a joyful activity.

Go Green (and still pick your colors):  Do your part for the planet, add color, and get indestructible outdoor furniture… all at once!  Polywood patio furniture is a synthetic material made completely of recycled milk jugs and water bottles once destined for the landfill.  Using recycled plastics for your porch not only decreases your carbon footprint, it also decreases your maintenance requirements! Polywood is impervious to all weather conditions and will last without upkeep for years.  But, don’t worry; you won’t be trading function for fashion: polywood is crafted to look and feel just like real wood, and is available in a rainbow of colors.  When polywood outdoor rockers are created, the color dyes are used all the way through the material.  So if someone bumps your polywood rocking chair and makes dent, no one is likely to notice as there isn’t any paint to chip.

Classically Painted Wood: If you’re looking to use paint on your rocking chairs to add color, be on the look out for pine and cypress varieties.  Cedars and Teaks do not accept paints well at all, so it’s important to choose a wood that will agree with your color choice.  But, a porch rocker in pine or cypress can be repainted as often as the mood strikes you, and will benefit from the durability paint adds to outdoor woods. This is the most traditional way to add color to your outdoor room, but it’s a classic because it works!

Soft Wickers: A colorful rocker may also come in the form of a wicker rocking chair.  Though they’re more likely to be found sporting neutral color schemes, using bright outdoor furniture cushions can give you that punch of exciting color and patterns. Mixing and matching colors can add depth, but do take caution before going too crazy with the patterns and styles.  Colorful porch design still needs a cohesive direction.  Synthetic wickers will hold up to the elements better, and will end up being the better buy in the end.

Whether you add colorful hues using through-and-through dyed polywoood, painting cypress or pine, or choosing colorful wickers, considering the color pallet of your outdoor space will benefit your overall design scheme considerably.  Always keep functionality and practicality in mind, especially in outdoor spaces, but never lose sight of the fun!

Have Fun!

Hazel

Tags: Outdoor Furniture, outdoor furniture cushions, patio furniture, polywood outdoor rockers, polywood patio furniture, polywood rocking chair, porch rocker, wicker rocking chair

Let me guess: You’re tempted by the aesthetic of a rocking chair – its nurturing gliding movement and wood construction – but the thought of sitting in it for too long makes everything from your neck to your knees ache. Fear not, the ergonomic features of a highback rocking chair come to the rescue with lower lumbar support, a built-in head rest, and the option to cushion its surfaces.

Lower Lumbar Support: One of the reasons the highback porch rocker appeals to the masses has a lot to do with its lower lumbar support. The highback rocker extends higher than your shoulders, and the back is angled to support the natural curvature of your spine.  It helps those with spinal aches and pains feel more comfortable. In fact, the Academy of Chiropractic Physicians suggest highback wood furniture for supporting the lower back.

Rest your Head: The highback porch rocker not only supports your back, but gives you enough to space to rest your head as well.  Being able to relax your neck and lean your head back will let outdoor relaxation last for hours.  Watch the birds for hours before slipping into an afternoon nap without having to move inside to find comfort. An outdoor rocker can be the perfect napping spot if it’s made right.

Add Cushions: If the highback isn’t soft enough, think about adding a head cushion and maybe even a regular outdoor furniture cushion for the seat. Serving as a comfortable pillow for your head, your porch rocker will become your favorite piece of patio furniture.  Be careful not to settle in so comfortably that you never leave!

If back or neck pain is an issue when choosing the right outdoor furniture for your backyard or porch, consider the added benefits of a highback rocking chair that will prove itself, far outweighing the competition.

Tags: highback porch rocker, highback rocker, highback rocking chair, Outdoor Furniture, outdoor furniture cushion, outdoor rocker, patio furniture, porch rocker, rocking chair, wood furniture

If an iron bench in your garden or patio area seems too stiff or impersonal for your taste, complement the natural environment surrounding your home with a spacious, double rocking chair.

Recall Rustic Simplicity and Unite Spaces: Especially popular this season are double rockers made from thick, whole logs in white cedar or pine. Using similar materials or styles for all of your patio furniture is a great way to carry out a well-rounded design in your exterior area.  Pastoral style is optimal for the expanded double rocker since it brings out a hint of country, shaking up what might be a more traditional or modern design in your backyard space.

Perfect for Relaxed Outdoor Areas: A double rocker can offer one person enough room to put their feet up and relax completely into the gentle, rocking motion. It brings a cozy, next-to-the-fireplace energy to any patio area, offering the same gliding feel with a touch more of the rugged outdoors. It might even reside next to a fire pit or under the glow of a summer sky to complete the scene.

Get Close to Nature and the Ones you Love: The eye-catching design of a double rocking chair can provide a couple of lovebirds or you and your child ample room to sit side-by-side comfortably Like the loveseat of outdoor furniture, a rocking garden bench gets warm and cozy quickly if two people decide to share its smooth, sturdy base while discussing the day or peacefully listening to the birds.

Enable the closeness you desire with loved ones or the distance and space you require to relax while maintaining a gorgeous outdoor design. Flowing from the trees to the flowerbed, the double rocking chair is a great touch to your backyard patio.

Tags: double rocker, double rockers, double rocking chair, Outdoor Furniture, outdoor rocking chair, patio furniture, rocking garden bench