Outdoor Influences & Interior Design

Outdoor Influences & Interior Design

When it comes to redecorating your home, to breathing new life into a room, trends come and go. Outdoor influences in interior design is one theme that does not go out of fashion. Bringing outside inside couldn’t be easier and it offers you a relaxing, calming and fun space to live in.

Having moved earlier this year we are thrilled with our new spaces. We waited until we’d lived in our new home a few months to get a feel for it and now we’re now ready to inject some colour and redecorate a little. Here are just some of the ways we plan to bring outdoor influences into our home.

Outdoor Influences & Interior Design: The Use Of Plants

It has long-since been a joke amongst my family and friends that the only growing things I’ve been able to keep alive are weeds and Sea Monkeys. Well, folks, it turns out that there are plants that I can keep alive (so there). I’ve opted for aloe vera plants, spider plants, some ferns and have my eye on some cacti. These all look great and help with oxygen in the house (seriously, plants in the house are really good for you).

I’m looking to expand my houseplant collection soon. I’ll also use the plant theme in some artwork around the home.

Outdoor Influences & Interior Design: Soft Furnishings and Windows

One of the quickest and easiest ways to breathe new life into a room and incorporate the outdoors theme is to use soft furnishings and window coverings that are inspired by the outdoors. We’ve been looking at Swift Direct Blinds for some curtains to pull together the plant-inspired prints, rugs, cushions and more that we have picked out. We’ve gone for soft, textured and with muted greens, creams and accent colours to create the look we want.

Outdoor Influences & Interior Design: Use Natural Materials

Scrap the MDF and flatpack. Look for real wood pieces to add to your home, from a rustic coffee table to driftwood on the mantle piece if the beach is your thing. You’d be surprised by how easy it is to add natural materials in a practical way to help build up the layers of your outdoor inspired home or room. Seagrass carpeting can be very practical and fits in perfectly with this theme. My favourite place for wooden creations is Nashwood Crafts – well worth a look.

Outdoor Influences & Interior Design: Natural Light

Light is important when creating a feel in a room. For areas inspired by nature, it makes sense to use natural light. Choose window coverings carefully so as to maximise the natural light coming in while maintaining privacy, arrange your room so as to make the best of the light, use mirrors to brighten darker corners and open the windows.

Yes, open the windows. You’d be surprised how some genuine natural fresh air changes the atmosphere in the home and it definitely has health benefits.

Outdoor Influences & Interior Design: What Top Tips Do You Have?

These are some of the things that I am doing or plan to do in order to bring outdoor influences into my home. I welcome any top tips that you have to offer on anything from paint colours to furnishings. If you’ve created an outdoor look indoors please feel free to comment and tell me what you feel worked best.

Spice Up Your Home

Spice Up Your Home

Living in a home is more than just having a place to stay. We’re moving shortly (10 days and we still haven’t packed) but the new place already feels like home. Your home is somewhere you feel at home, somewhere you love and somewhere you are proud of. We’re there already with the new spot!

We have grand plans for the new place and you’ll no doubt hear all about these soon enough! I’ll be posting about adding a new look to each room and so have put together these ideas for you to get started with thinking about what you can do with your home.

The Driveway

We are so grateful to have a driveway where we are moving. On street parking is an absolute pain. We’re determined to make the most of the driveway though as it’s one of the first things you see when you approach the home. First impressions are important so you’ll want to make sure that everything is tidy if your focus will be on making the most of your driveway too. It’s easy for the drive to become a little messed up with various bits of dirt and stone making its way onto it.

It’s wise to give the tarmac a little sweep every now and again to avoid the neglected look. You can also give the drive a spray with a pressure washer if you want to go one step further. After years of the floor taking a beating from the elements, it can slowly become very dirty over time – so slow that you don’t even realise it is happening. A blast with a pressure washer will show you the difference that was made.  

Your Garden, Your Home

When you think about making your living space better looking, what you do to your garden will be near the top of your list of priorities, surely? You’re going to want it to be either as close to flawlessness as possible – you’ll be looking at it a lot, or wonderfully wild (in a deliberate kind of way). The first thing you’ll want to do is to clean it and clear it. If it’s a bit of a mess, make sure everything vanishes – a tidy garden is very comforting. In terms of additions, things like potted plants, ornaments, and fish ponds are very lovely looking and add to the comfort of being sat out there.  We’re going with simply but with seasonal surprises. More on this later!

Get A Conversion

A popular thing to do nowadays is to take a certain part of the house and convert it into something more practical. The most popular choice is to take the loft and turn it into an extra bedroom or office. Obviously, your loft is going to be full of stuff, but if they’re no longer hold any value or you can find another area to store it all, then you could turn that attic into something beautiful. Another good idea would be to take your garage and make it into something other than a place to store old stuff – if you don’t use it for your car, that is. But who parks their car in a garage anymore?  

Our grand plans for the garage are very much steeped in geekery, which won’t surprise you if you know us or have read many of my other blog posts.

Get An Extension

If you need more room or just want to add an extra part to change the style up a bit, you could apply for permission to get an extension built onto the house. You might need an extra bedroom or an office space. You could even put a lovely conservatory out the back. This isn’t something we’ve planned but is a great idea if you are looking to add value and space to your home.

Move To A New Home

If you fancy a big change, you could just up sticks and move to somewhere new, like we have. Sometimes you need to pick a whole new place and carry on from there. A good idea to freshen things up would be to have a little look at some new homes that are being built. There are tonnes of companies that are creating new places every day, so if you wanted to check out some Redrow new builds, you could just head online and see what’s available from the likes of them and others. When you buy an entirely new place, you get to decide almost everything, so a personalised design would come as part of the purchase. If, like ours, your home is a little older, places like Rightmove can be great for having a nosy inside people’s homes for inspiration!

There is no wrong way to breathe new life int your home but if you are looking to make changes, this is a good place to start!