Summer Checklist: Is Outdoor Living on Your Agenda?

As summertime approaches and the weather starts to warm up, many homeowners are beginning to make plans for vacations, activities, and events. Summertime is also a good opportunity to make improvements to your living space and complete those household projects you’ve been putting off since you moved in. No matter how much space you have available, making improvements to your outdoor living space can help increase your family’s enjoyment of those cool summer nights and make your home the envy of the neighborhood. Take a look at your outdoor space and use this checklist to ask yourself if you’re truly utilizing your outdoor areas to their fullest potential.

First Impressions

Try and ignore the fact that you’ve walked into your backyard hundreds of times and really evaluate what your eye is immediately drawn to. Put on a first-timer’s hat and truly evaluate whether or not you’d be impressed and drawn towards your outdoor space upon first impression. Knowing what you’re lacking is the first step towards improvement.

Get Comfortable

Sit as close to the center of your space as you can and just observe. Don’t read, use your phone, or listen to music. Just sit and take a few minutes to consider how your space makes you feel: Are you comfortable? Happy? Calm? Anxious? Distressed? Annoyed? Frustrated? Livability of a space is about emotion, so identifying which aspects about your existing space make you happy and which drive you crazy can help when the remodel occurs.

Get Inspired

You probably have a good idea of what you like in an outdoor living space. Your own personal taste as well as the style of your home should be incorporated in a redesign.  Be realistic about the amount of space you have available. Find 10-20 examples of outdoor living spaces you like and take notes on each one – what you’d like to try, what you don’t like, and what you can’t live without. This feedback will be the basis by which a landscape architect will begin their design process.

Ready to overhaul your outdoor areas and enjoy the summer in a whole new way? Contact the team at Urban Oasis and we’ll get started on an outdoor living space design that willll meet your needs and exceed your expectations. Give us a call and we’ll schedule a complementary consultation before summer arrives in earnest.