What goes great with your dream house? Your dream yard! Whether you’ve lived in your dream home for years or are just beginning its construction, summer is the perfect time to begin designing the perfect yard. There are a few things you want to keep in mind when preparing to landscape your yard. Take time to do a full blueprint for your yard just like you would for a house. This way, you can consider all of your options, see how various yard components work together, and spot potential problems before you even begin planting flowers or laying pavers. Here are a few tips that will help you with the design of your dream yard so that it truly is everything you want.
Don’t Limit Yourself
The first tip for designing your dream yard is to dream and dream big! Don’t limit yourself to what you’ve seen in other people’s yards. Do you want a water feature? Add one to your plans. Want to cover the fences with vines and add a lot of flowers to make a virtual oasis in your backyard? Go for it. Need a huge patio with an outdoor kitchen and fireplace? That’s completely possible. In fact, you can do many of these things in any-sized yard, though you may have to scale back that grand patio if your yard is on the small side. If you don’t dream big at the beginning, you may find yourself a little disappointed once the yard is done.
Think About Indoor/Outdoor Living
Many of the most popular designs, especially in warm areas, create an indoor/outdoor living space. These designs make use of patio doors, French doors, or even entire walls that slide open, linking your indoor space with the outdoors. If you know you’ll be entertaining a lot in your new dream yard, you may want to link your interior dining room, living room, or other space to the outdoors by using doors that open up to allow people to easily move between the two spaces. Now your parties can spill outdoors effortlessly.
Break Up the Space
If you have a large yard or simply can’t get a handle on dealing with your yard as one space, you can break it up into a few different zones. For example, you might have your patio area, your landscaping space, the section around your storage shed, or a space for your kids to play. Breaking it up lets you come up with plans for each space and can help you avoid being overwhelmed. Of course, once you design each space, you’ll want to put your plans together to see how the entire yard will work. A shed may seem great on its own, but when you place that plan next to the one for your patio, you may realize it completely blocks your view.
Create a Cohesive Color Scheme
Even if you’ve broken your yard up into spaces, you can still create cohesion by using the same colors throughout the yard. One easy way of doing this is through flowers. When you have gorgeous flowers blooming, the amazing colors across your yard will link all of your spaces together. There are a number of easy ways to add flowers and other plants to your yard. If you have trees, you can create circular flowerbeds around the base of each. This adds a little something extra to the tree, plus it provides you with that pop of color. You can add raised flower beds to your patio or deck, plant flowers along the side of your shed, and create tiered flower gardens along the fence by putting tall plants in the back and shorter ones in the front.
You can continue your color scheme by adding pillows to your outdoor furniture, painting your shed, and hanging windchimes and other décor. Don’t think of it as decorating the outdoors—think of the space as another room in your house and use your decorating skills to tie everything together.
Think About Lighting
Outdoor lighting can be just as important as your indoor lighting. One popular type of lighting for your outdoor space is string lighting. This type of lighting looks similar to Christmas tree lights, though usually the bulbs are bigger and offer more light. You can string them between trees, across your pergola, or around your gazebo. Just be sure you have easy-to-access outdoor electrical outlets. You can also use solar-powered lights, though they may not last as long as you’d like.
Another option is to use torches, candles, or a fire pit. All of these options work well to light up your space, plus candles and torches often include citronella to drive away mosquitoes. Your fire pit can double as a heat source if the evening takes a chilly turn. Many people use a combination of these lighting sources to really illuminate the space.
These are just a few options to keep in mind when designing your dream yard. Remember to dream big and think about what you really want for the space.
