Home Sweet Home

Indoor-outdoor spaces are areas of your property that combine elements of both interior rooms and exterior patios or decks.  Sometimes known as transitional areas, these spaces are becoming increasingly popular as more and more people find it difficult to spare time to spend outside rather than inside the home, car, or office.  Use of these rooms can help encourage your kids to get some sun even while they play the latest iteration of ‘Super Mario’ or ‘The Legend of Zelda’ on that Nintendo console, and may even get your significant other away from staring at the TV nonstop for five hours after work.

These kinds of spaces differ from home to home, so knowing the dimensions and quirks of your home’s indoor-outdoor space will better allow you to plan its design.  If there is no roof cover, or even if there is but there are other ways for the elements (rainwater, snow, etc.) to get inside, you’ll want to purchase patio furniture for use in this transitional room.  Patio chairs and tables are better designed to withstand weather effects, and with the great diversity of furniture types available for the outdoors, you won’t have to worry about purchasing an unsightly or cheap-looking furniture set just to make sure it doesn’t accrue water damage.

Ventilation is another big area to consider.  If you have open airways from the outdoors, you’ll definitely drive more fresh air into the space, but fans or low-energy coolers might help to make the air more comfortable in very hot or humid regions.  If your indoor-outdoor space is too cold, some space heaters may work, while a makeshift fireplace or pit will encourage a more rustic vibe to come out.

Remember, there are no set items you need to have in an indoor-outdoor room, so long as at some level, there are features of both indoor and outdoor spaces present and prevalent in the room.  A regular living room with a patio table in it doesn’t count as an indoor-outdoor space, but a sun room with open doors, the old brick flooring from what used to be a patio, and a barbecue pit may just do the trick.  And once you have the room in shape, you’ll actually be able to enjoy elements of the indoors and outdoors simultaneously.  If that means your kid is playing ‘Mario’ while also getting a tan, that’s still better than him not getting outside at all.

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