Outdoor Living in Louisville

Louisville has been blessed this year with a mild winter (at least so far), and the warmer temperatures of late have made us all anxious for spring. Along with more hours of daylight and beautiful flowers in bloom, spring also brings with the enticing invitation to spend as much time as possible outside. But a moldy, unadorned deck is no setting for springtime fun. An outdoor oasis is more the ticket this season. Whether your goal is to enhance your affordable real estate in Fern Creek by updating your current deck, or you have grander plans in mind—such as adding a sumptuous outdoor living room to your luxury home in Lake Forest—many of us who live in Derby City are now beginning our outside-of-the-home improvements. 

Designers everywhere have one important piece of advice when it comes to improving outdoor spaces—make it like the inside! We spend countless hours picking out just the right curtains for our great room or finding the perfect kitchen table for the inside of our home but then be content to go to the local home improvement warehouse to purchase a sale-priced patio set and call it a day. But our outdoor spaces need every bit as much attention as our indoor rooms. Taking a few simple indoor design practices outside can make all the difference.

An essential item in outdoor design is fabric. Gone are the days of uncomfortable, sticky patio cushions in less-than-attractive colors. Today, there are countless options for fabrics to use on outdoor furniture that are able to both withstand weather and provide a great way to extend an indoor color scheme outside. And just as we accent our indoor sofas and chairs with pillows, we can now adorn our outdoor furniture in the same way.

Another decorating element that we often forget when designing outside is lighting. Indoors, we carefully choose floor and table lamps, ceiling mounted chandeliers and recessed lighting. The same should be true for our outdoor living spaces as well. Those that are enclosed can be appointed with the same kinds of lighting features, including chandeliers. But even our open-air decks and patios need lighting accents, too. Today, a variety of floor and table lamps specially designed to hold up to the elements provide a great way to turn an outdoor space into a cozy outdoor living room.

Finally, we need to consider the art work outside. Certainly, nature provides a lot of beauty by itself, but adding a few other touches can soften an outdoor space. We would never be content with completely bare walls indoors, so we shouldn’t accept the same outside either. Here again, the choices for outdoor art and accents are virtually unlimited today.

Spring will soon be upon us, and those who are anxious to spend quality time outside know that creating an outdoor space that is as warm and inviting as the inside of our home is essential. Whether we want to spend just a couple hundred dollars on our affordable real estate in Fern Creek or add an expensive, elegant outdoor living room to our luxury home in Lake Forest, Louisville is ready to make outdoor living both beautiful and fun.