INSIDE OUT
by Anita Rafael
How to create an outdoor living room. Our experts share their best advice.
Walls, flooring furniture, fabrics, heating, lighting, appliances and accessories – just about everything that went into planning your living room and kitchen are things you need to take into consideration when restyling your old patio into a new outdoor living area. When it comes to whether or not you really need to build a complete second kitchen outside, that’s up to you. Landscape architect Katherine Field of Katherine Field and Associates, Inc. of Newport says that she considers a dining terrace to be as much of a gathering place as the kitchen indoors. “We are putting in outdoor kitchens complete with Viking ranges and more,” she says.
While some outdoor places lend themselves naturally to the illusion of enclosure – a spot against the back of the house or a patio off the breezeway – property owners often have to think about “framing” their outdoor rooms with plantings that delineate the space.
Tim Brown of T. J. Brown Landscaping, a firm that his family has run since 1901, not only thinks about what his clients need to plant now to erect a “wall” of greenery for an outdoor room, he also thinks about how others will need to care for these trees and shrubs for years to come. The idea of living fences has been used for centuries as enclosures, and he likes creating pleached hedges, in which twig by twig, branches are trained to interweave.
“You see privet used for privacy everywhere in Newport, but I also like beech,” Brown says, “especially where the client needs 30 feet of height or more to block out a bad view.” There are beech hedges around town that Brown knows to be already more than 100 years old. One species he recommends is the salt-tolerant Dawyck purple beech, first discovered in Scotland in the 19th century. Planted in a row, they grow upright into a high, narrow screen.
The way Michael Cavanagh of Michael Cavanagh Landscape Design in Newport sees it, all plantings in a landscape ought to be “ecologically sound” even the select plants you choose to place in and around an outdoor room. For that reason, he prefers to use native plants.
Cavanagh’s motto is “The more plants the better.” However, he also knows that especially in Newport’s colonial neighborhoods, some yards are small. He looks for cultivars that spread slowly and stay compact so that the outdoor living areas he designs will not be overgrown in a season or two. Inkberry holly, one evergreen he particularly likes, is a good choice for borders because it can tolerate cold to minus 15° F. and it can be held to a 5-foot height.
While broad decks and deep porches will always be an indispensable feature of the typical seaside residence, especially where homeowners want to increase their elevation to take advantage of the view, more people are opting for terraces and steps of natural stone.
“People are choosing to use natural products rather than manmade blocks, say of concrete,” says Katherine Field, “because stone is low maintenance and reliably durable.” In her view, natural stone can be used to create a range of dramatic looks in a landscape that concrete simply cannot.
Where once it was left up to the masons to decide which piece of bluestone went where on a stepping-stone path Field’s clients are relying on her artistic talent to make sure that the overall design is precise and cohesive, and that the colors blend well with the other surfaces and materials on the property. Field says. “The paving patterns I am designing for outdoor rooms have more work in them. I am using more patterns within patterns, for example to create a focal point or define a border.”With an architect’s eye for balance she combines plantings, furnishings, paving, fencing and lighting into a single composition, the sum of which is always greater than the parts.
Put this tip high on your need-to-know list before you go furniture shopping: Those old-fashioned picnic tables with their knee-knocking attached benches are out. Wide, medium-height cocktail tables are in.
“People want casual dining tables, but the trend now is lower tables,” says Tom Purvis, manager of the patio store at McKay’s Front Porch in Wickford. “You can several arrange chairs nicely at a 42” or 48” round table, for example, and they’re not so low that people can’t eat comfortably.”
All things teak are always a homeowners best choice for outdoor furniture. Although cedar-built furniture is lighter, and vinyl-resin wicker is more popular than real wicker, he says, there is nothing like the look of silvery-gray weathered teak.
The best news for people who love cushions and pillows on their garden benches is that top designers, like Ralph Lauren Home, are expanding their lines to include outdoor fabrics, too. Customers can choose from a broader range of colors and patterns than were available in the past from companies such as Sunbrella®, the favorite for its UV-ray and rot resistant properties.
As for accessories there is a new trend in the umbrella department, as well. “The big 9-foot garden umbrellas used to come in either dark green or natural white,” says Purvis, “Now, customers are buying bright colors – sunny yellow and sky blue.” Another style tip: Before you buy a traditional center pole umbrella, look at the new offset models, which cantilever over your seating area.
If there is one person who knows how to heat up a chilly evening so that you can sit outside until midnight stargazing with your friends, it is Charlie Medeiros at Ash Aways Island Hearth and Patio in Middletown. He says that people who bought small, freestanding terra-cotta chimineas, became hooked on the pleasure of sitting by the fireside outdoors and they are back again shopping for something bigger.
“This season we have homeowners asking for a single unit where they can cook and build a nice fire later on,” Medeiros says. Once his customers have decided that they do not really need a Volvo-sized grilling station just to char a few shrimp on the “barbie,” he shows them a Nexo outdoor fireplace.
Imported from Mors, Denmark, Nexos are part chimney, part grill and part campfire, all in one. “The stone makes it look custom-built, but it actually comes in three or four sections that a mason mortars together on site,” he explains. It can burn either wood or charcoal. The Cape Cod model is only 31” deep and shaped to snuggle into a tight corner. Unlike a like a ground-level fire pit, the tall 83” stack sends the smoke up high and away from your seating area.
Get the all details right in your personal paradise, put together the right furniture, plants and accessories and who knows – the best room at your house may not even be in the house.
