Inspiration for your outdoor space from Irish homes
From covered areas to incorporating colour, there’s plenty of ideas to make the most of your exterior.
Our outdoor spaces might currently be in the spotlight, given that it’s (ostensibly) summer, but in reality your garden affects your experience inside your home all year round.
As you enter and leave, and as you look out your window, your outdoor space influences not only what you see, but also how you use your home. A covered entrance is welcome in both rain and sun, while an aesthetically pleasing patio makes the adjoining indoor spaces look better, too.
Here are some ideas from stunning Irish homes that we’re taking inspiration from.
Incorporate covered spaces
Adding a covered area, especially at doorways, provides shelter from weather, making the space more usable year-round. This project makes use of similar materials as the rest of the house, making it feel seamless.
Work with nature
It can sometimes feel like garden landscaping has to work against the natural landscape, but this Wicklow home that borders a woodland shows that doesn’t have to be the case.
Decking sits above the ground level, allowing ferns and trees to gently overhang, while large rocks mark off a small patio space.
Open things up
Not so much a change to your outdoor space as connecting it to your interior, windows or doors that open up completely can change how you view both your indoor and outdoor space.
Rather than two separate spaces, creating a flow between then will help you make the most of both, and you’ll find yourself opening up your doors or windows at any opportunity.
Colour isn’t just for inside
Photography: Al Higgins
Although most of us enjoy picking out paint colours for inside our home, it’s rarer to see people use colour in their outdoor spaces. This pink-hued extension shows the warmth and joyful mood colour can bring to a garden.
Although this colour is achieved through pigmented render, you can also use paint to inject a hue of your choice, whether on your exterior walls, a fence or garden furniture.
Use the same materials inside and out
This Galway home shows the value in repeating the same materials inside and outside your home to create a cohesive feel.
This can come in many forms, such as continuing a tiled floor out to a patio space, taking a wood colour in your kitchen as inspiration for fencing, or as done here, concrete and stone walls appearing both inside and outside.
Pattern creates impact in a small space
Although this courtyard is modest in footprint, it’s full of life with its patterned tiles and lush planting. It can be appreciated both when sitting outside and inside and turns what could have been an uninviting space into one that draws you in.
These homes originally appeared in IMAGE Interiors. Have you thought about becoming a subscriber? Find out more, and sign up here.
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