Houston Landscaping Creates an Outdoor Dinner Room

What is an outdoor dining room?
An outdoor dining room is an environment that is created through landscaping elements that creates a special space where dining feels appropriate and meals can be enjoyed in comfort. Traditional walls are typically not the norm for enclosing such spaces, although low-level architectural walls made from custom masonry may at times be used. More common enclosures are typically built from hedges that are low to the ground or from columns that set the space apart with a sort of “invisible wall between them” appeal that appears at once both contrasted from the surrounding landscape and simultaneously open to the full view thereof.

What are common furnishings in an outdoor dining room?
Common furnishings include chandeliers, fireplaces, and ceiling fans. Gas lanterns are also popular. Larger outdoor rooms can be decorated with curtains that partially enclose the space and still leave some space open to view the Houston landscape.

What does Exterior Worlds do to make this actually FEEL like an indoor room?
We make sure that the dining room tables have adequate space between the chairs. We set the room up on an axel basis to give it a sense of balance and proportion so that any vantage point looks equivalent to all others within the space. This contributes to a feeling of intimacy in the midst of open spaces.

We also sometimes add decorative stone mosaics beneath able to emulate the patterns seen on indoor rugs. If the room is designed between columns, these stones can also be placed between columns to create a feeling of grand entrance from either of two directions.

Where do you normally build these rooms?
Outdoor dining rooms are normally built near an outdoor kitchen or just behind a house.

Are they usually a part of an outdoor kitchen?
Yes.

Do they always have ceilings and hardscape walls, or can they be courtyard style surrounded by trees and hedges?
When it comes to using the term walls, we want to clearly define this term as meaning more than what you think of when you think of the walls inside your house. Walls that surround outdoor environments can never block the view of the Houston landscape. Instead, they have to be skillfully constructed to actually magnify its appeal by sectioning off a unique area which in turn provides a unique vantage point onto the rest of the Houston landscape.

What are common flooring materials?
We want these environments to be as comfortable as possible. Formality is something that nine times out of ten the homeowner prefers we avoid. Since a more casual environment is therefore preferable, any number of simple materials can be used to build a solid, attractive, floor surface that is workable and aesthetic enough to create mood—but never so overdone as to draw attention away from the moment and down to the ground.

What would be the point of that?

Do you place climate controls in these?
Normally we do not place climate controls in outdoor kitchens. Outdoor buildings like summer kitchens and entertainment rooms are better suited for AC and Heating. There have been exceptions to this per homeowner request, with the understanding that cooled air in such an enclosure is immediately lost to the environment.

Do you have restrooms in them?
Sometimes, yes.

What entertainment media, if any, goes into these rooms?
We can easily configure audio distribution centers, iPod connections, and television sets with all weather equipment.