Whether you are struggling with a small patio or you’re looking to redesign a big backyard for outdoor living, the key to creating a breathtaking outdoor room is to plan the transformation in steps. It doesn’t have to happen all at once and it doesn’t have to be expensive. Use these budget-friendly tips and start increasing your home’s square footage.

Ideal location

If you can’t decide where to put your outdoor room, go inside and check out the garden view. If you choose the right place for the room, it will truly feel like a home extension and not an addition. Whether it’s going to be physically connected to the house or not, make sure you can access it easily. An outdoor room can implement anything between an attached, screened porch, and a gazebo to a tastefully landscaped area with a bench and a water feature. If you plan it as an independent area, create passageways with foliage or hardscaping to visually connect it to the house. The whole idea is to erase the feeling that you’ve stepped outside.

Furnish for comfort and durability

When it comes to furnishing an outdoor room, nowadays, there are more choices than ever – wrought iron and cast iron, durable aluminium or classic outdoor wood like teak, redwood or cedar. On the budget side, synthetic waterproof patio furniture is available in many forms, patterns and textures, providing the same level of comfort you would have inside your home. If you want to take occasional naps, why not hang a DIY daybed or convert an existing lounger. If your outdoor space has a permanent roof, consider a beautiful outdoor accent rug and match its colour to the warming blankets for evening readers.

Plant features

Plants can be used to soften hard edges like concrete flooring or stacked pavers, as well as add a sense of life and warmth. You can use miniature orange trees, jade plants and even a potted philodendron if you have a sheltered climbing area or meditative plants like gentle ferns and hostas. If you need to define the borders of your outdoor room, a woodsy ligustrum hedge can look informal if left to grow naturally, or formal if your trim it regularly. On the other hand, if you want to spend more time relaxing, choose plants that are undemanding. A hanging collection of potted succulents can be watered once a month, and can easily survive through a drought period.

Fire features

An invigorating fire or a cosy fireplace have become a staple of outdoor rooms, as they can extend the season of your outdoor room by several months. A two-sided fireplace with a weathered brick façade can provide additional seating on the sides, but fire pits are more convenient to fit into an existing arrangement. Apart from pre-cast fire pits, you can easily make your own by stacking rectangular pavers in a staggered pattern and lining the interior with fire bricks. You can finish the pavers with a concrete stain to darken and soften their utilitarian texture.

Flooring defines a space

An outdoor room needs to feel like a room. If it has a floor of grass, not only will you hardly convince anyone that you actually have an outdoor room, but you’ll rarely go there yourself. Deck floors are popular because of their richness of grain, warm sensation and ability to blend into almost every decorating style. However, although treated against the elements, wood needs a bit more maintenance and care during the year. On the other hand, decorative concrete floors are much prettier than natural stone, and they come in many colours and finishes.

Add a hot spa

Even if you have budgeted on other elements, a hot tub on the deck is a luxury you won’t regret spending extra money on. Consider privacy and access to the house when determining the best location. A curved trellis, outdoor curtains or a simple deck privacy fence should make the space more intimate when you need to relax and escape to your steaming spa retreat.

An outdoor room is a perfect place to end a day with a cold drink, lose yourself among your favourite pages, entertain a host of chatty friends or light up candles for two. Still, to make it a truly special place, it needs to be arranged and decorated more like a room and less like an outdoor area.