Outdoor Gazebo

What is an outdoor gazebo?
It is an outdoor structure that can be used as either a garden shelter, outdoor room, or viewing pavilion. Gazebos go back 5,000 years in history to Ancient Egypt. The modern outdoor gazebo, however, is based on the combined design motifs of Japanese teahouses, Chinese garden shelters, and small Dutch buildings.

What types are there to consider?
There are several different types that you can choose from. There is the conventional style that is basically an outdoor room with a floor, supporting pillars, and a ceiling. Some people, however, prefer to have a custom patio substituted as the floor, or to have the gazebo itself built on top of a courtyard patio.
You can also have a portable gazebo constructed that can be moved from point to point within your yard.
What shape are they built in?
They can be built in hexagonal, octagonal square or rectangular designs.

Why should I consider an outdoor gazebo?
It is a great way to enjoy a view of your home, garden, and the surrounding Houston landscape. The covering gives you shelter from the sun on hot days, and it gives you shelter from rain on cloudy days. A screen can even be built around the sides to keep out mosquitoes.

What are these structures made of?
They are almost always made of wood. Cedar and pressure treated pine are the two most common wood types used. Cedar is much more expensive. Pressure-treated pine can be stained and painted to make a strong, sturdy structure that will last and that looks good near any garden, pool, pathway, or natural pond.

Can any other materials be used to build an outdoor gazebo?
Yes. In contemporary gardens, such a structure can be built out of metal, reinforced concrete, or even stone. The roof can be made from copper, slate, or some other inorganic material to contribute to the Mentalist themes of contemporary landscaping and contemporary gardens.

What are a few features to consider?
Outdoor lighting is always a good thing to have in any outdoor structure. It will not only make it easier for you and your guests to see each other at night, but it will also make the gazebo itself a notable landscape element in its own right.

You can also have a small bar installed, complete with an electrical outlet so you can plug in a blender for mixing drinks. Most Houstonians also want a ceiling fan installed in the top of their gazebo.

What is the best architectural style for an outdoor gazebo?
To a certain extent, the style is flexible. The only absolute here is that it has to compliment the architecture of the home. Beyond that, anything from an Amish design (which you typically see in garden pictures) or a wrought iron Victorian style will work with a variety of outdoor landscaping themes.

Try not to restrict yourself to a preconception of style, however. What we prefer to do is to create a landscape master plan that reflects the entirety of your dream of an outdoor lifestyle. The many elements of your landscape will both individually and collectively create this experience. The actual style of your gazebo will ultimately be determined by its location. If it is built near the home or garage, it will compliment building materials in those structures.

If, on the other hand, it is built in or near a garden, or setback among the trees, it will reflect a more organic theme and geometry. The colors and stains used will also support these motifs, so that when you look at your outdoor gazebo, you see an extension of the landscape itself in the form of a structure that both pleases the eye and invites your attendance.

Outdoor Living Space Design

What is the purpose of outdoor living space design?
It connects the home, outdoor rooms, and outdoor buildings to the environment. This link between the inorganic and the organic results in a fusion we call outdoor living space.

What are some considerations in outdoor living space design?
You want to subdivide your lot into zones of activity and special interest. This will make your landscape an outdoor equivalent to a house with many rooms inside. Without this process of subdivision and allocation, your yard will remain only a yard that lacks the structural complexity needed in a true living environment.

What types of zones do you create?
Generally we create zones that enhance mood or zones the serve a specific function. We can also blend mood with function with many of the elements that we design. Outdoor kitchens, for example, create a feeling of fine dining outdoors. They also serve a very practical function by making it possible to cook and enjoy an entire meal without ever once having to go inside. Play areas for children are another example. Play creates a feeling of fun for kids. A professionally designed play area can be built that gives them a place to practice for a sports team they may belong to, and it gives them a safer place to do it than simply playing in an open yard or a park without supervision.

How important is vegetation in outdoor living space design?
It is the heart and soul of everything. You can think of architecture and hardscape as the body of the design, and the organics of gardens, lawns, and trees as the spirit within the body. It is very important to develop organic element with as much care and deliberation as possible. The more of a feeling of life you have in your yard, the more apropos it feels as a living environment in its own right.

What types of vegetation do you plant?

• Special grasses more vibrant and attractive than San Augustine
• Vines and creepers that cover iron and brick with living matter
• Hedges of all kinds, ranging from tiny boxwoods to man-sized topiaries
• Trees of all sizes, ranging from trees barely taller than a child to towering oaks
• Flowering plants to add color to planters and patio edges
• Traditional and highly sophisticated garden designs

How do gardens contribute to outdoor living space design?
Gardens focus the eye onto geometric patterns that are formed out of multiple shades of green and many different colors. These patterns are formed as direct compliments to your home architecture and surrounding residential landscape design. Gardens also attract wildlife. You will see more butterflies, birds, squirrels, and even wild rabbits if you plant something that provides food and shelter for these creatures.

How do tree contribute to outdoor living space design?
Trees play a major role in two respects. The first is curb appeal through vertical impact. Because the Houston landscape is so flat, anything that rises up perpendicular to the ground is going to make the entire yard look uplifted to some degree.

The other role that trees play in your yard is providing you with shade. Just think about how hot it gets in the summer here and how important shade is to us all. We want the sun, but not too much of it. However, too much shade blocks out the sun in the winter time so you freeze if you go outside.

One of the marks of a good landscaper is the ability to judge where the sun will be travelling through the sky during the summer versus where it will be during the winter and plant trees according to the sun’s path. That way, summer sun is blocked, while winter sun is allowed to break through and warm the ground.

Patio Outdoor Room

When we design a patio outdoor room, there are certain common denominators we adhere to. These commonalities are intended to create structure and a sense of special purpose.

Why does an outdoor room need a patio?
A patio is an outdoor room’s equivalent of an indoor floor. People need some type of surface to stand and walk on because no matter how flat the Houston landscape is, the soil is too muddy and clumpy to provide the same stability as a patio does.

What types of patio outdoor rooms do you build?
We build everything from simple garden seating areas to elaborate outdoor kitchens, and everything in between. Many patio outdoor rooms have fireplaces, courtyard gardens, luxury furniture, and arbors. Architectural style, detail, and size of structure are based upon the intended use of the room and the number of people expected to use it.

What do you build outdoor patio rooms from?
Both organic and inorganic building materials can be used. The boundaries of the structure can be made from something as basic as a row of hedges or low-growth trees, or they can be physical walls made of sophisticated masonry much like that used to build a custom home. Again, it’s what the room will be used for and how it compliments both the home and the landscape that determines all of this. The most complex patio outdoor rooms are actual buildings that have three walls and ceilings, so you have one side open to the world, and the rest of the room sealed off in a controlled environment.


How do these rooms compare to rooms inside the home?
Other than having one side left open so you can view the landscape, they can be built almost identical to indoor rooms. Climate controls and lighting systems can be added to bring creature comfort to summer night outings. In fact, even open-aired rooms with no ceilings will always have some kind of lighting in order to create visibility and establish emotional tone. Summer kitchens with walls and ceilings will have modern appliances, living room areas, and dining areas. Kitchen areas are just like those found inside, and can include ovens, stoves, pizza ovens, and cocktail bars.

What about patio rooms built around gardens?
Such rooms are often called entry gardens and are ideal developments for unused property to the side of larger homes. They provide a warm, inviting setting for conversation under the trees, moon, and stars and can designed with a fusion of artwork and softscape. Planters, pottery, and garden elements keep the senses grounded in Nature, while fountains, bird baths, and statuary seamlessly blend with the best representations of human creativity at its finest.

As multitudinous as the possibilities are here, one thing is absolute. A patio outdoor room by Exterior Worlds is an outdoor lifestyle extravaganza that remains accessible throughout the year and at any time of night. It will give you luxury living that is never more than a few steps away from the vast world of Nature that surrounds you.

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.

Outdoor Fireplace Design

The fireplace has long been a symbol of intimacy, warmth, and domestic harmony. Fireplaces are very ancient and have existed in homes of all types in most cultures for millennia. Now, with outdoor fireplace design, you can enjoy one of the most treasured amenities of classic home interiors as a key element to the pursuit of quality outdoor living.

Outdoor fireplace design offers more aesthetic diversity than its indoor equivalent. This is because the firebox and chimney are built independently of a large, primary wall. A fireplace that is built outside normally is not a part of a wall of any real size. The firebox and chimney rise up from the ground as unique architectural elements.

By this we do not mean that all outside fireplaces are stand-alone landscape elements. Much to the contrary, outdoor fireplace design is a major part of many custom hardscape themes. As outdoor rooms such as entertainment rooms and outdoor kitchens become increasing popular, a fireplace is a common center point for the back wall of any such structure.

Such a wall, however, is typically very different from the wall within a home. The wall inside a house must support the roof and adjacent walls. Outdoor rooms, however, are usually built as open-air structures that do not need the same structural supports that houses require. Because of this, the rear wall of a summer kitchen living room area can actually be designed around the aesthetic of the outdoor fireplace design, rather than the other way around.

The landscape architect consequently enjoys a tremendous creative freedom that allows him or her to match fireplace aesthetic to the exterior architecture of the home and compliment the geometry of softscape elements.

Other hardscape designs that often include outdoor fireplace design are courtyards and entry gardens. Both of these elements often use a lighted fountain as a central focal point of design. However, many Exterior World clients want fountains built in other places, and for this courtyard or entry garden would rather have the charm and warmth of a fireplace instead.

Such patio-fireplace hardscapes again offer tremendous latitude for design freedom provided a few basic principles are observed. Home architecture has to be respected in every form and size. We never want to build a chimney that is taller than the house or a firebox that completely eclipses the entirety of the house.

We have to make certain that regardless of whether or not we build with brick, stone, or decorative concrete that we remain consistent with other materials used to build other structures on the landscape. Certain elements complement one another very well, while other elements simply do not work all that well with some residential architectural designs or landscape design themes.

Outdoor Living Designs

What is outdoor living?
Outdoor living designs by Exterior Worlds bring the inside world of the home into the outdoor realms of social opportunity and natural wonder. Conversation and relaxation are always to be found somewhere in an Exterior Worlds landscape master plan. Mobility is essential so people can move from point to point freely and escape the feeling that often accompanies being confined within four walls of a room. Special activities such as dining can also be integrated into a landscape design so that creature comforts and luxury transform the outdoor world into a world of refined Houston outdoor living.

How does it differ from indoor living?
Outdoor living designs differ from interior design in a number of respects. To begin with, they are far more organic in terms of sense. Even in the more modern landscape designs where vegetation is minimized and contained within geometry and abstract forms, living presences are still more common in the world outside the house than they are inside the house. Other, more traditional landscape designs are even more abundant in life force. The green elements of French, Italian, English, and Mediterranean gardens punctuate areas of growth and vitality that form the organic softscape constructs of superior landscape design.

Outdoor living designs are also more open than indoor equivalents and therefore give you far more. There is always a view of the sky, the many different elements occurring throughout the yard, and the trees, hedges, flowers, and grasses of the lawn. Even when residing in the enclosure of a so-called outdoor room, you are far less confined than you are inside a typical house. Outdoor rooms normally have at least one wall open to the rest of the landscape, and some do not even have walls per se at all. What we call a wall in such as structure can be a row of boxwoods or special planter with year-round blooming flowers. With outdoor structures, geometric focus is the intent more so than surrounding and complete enclosure.

What landscape elements are necessary to create differentiation?
To make outdoor living designs interesting and engaging, we have to break up the monotony of too much of any one thing. We avoid devoting too much of any one section of the yard to any one form. Instead, we like to build patios near gardens, and outdoor buildings under trees. We prefer courtyards to be integrated into entry gardens, and ornaments like statues and fountains to occupy otherwise empty space to provide unique focal points along transit areas that link the various gathering places that are designed around homeowner lifestyle and preferred activities.

How do we maintain comfort?
Comfort is a relative term when it come to outdoor living designs. The biggest complaint that Houstonians voice is the searing heat and humidity we experience for most of the year. There are a variety of ways we can compensate for this, including ceiling fans, AC in outdoor buildings, and outdoor fireplaces that can provide heat during cold and damp winter months.

Fine furnishings can be place d in both indoor and outdoor rooms regardless, and transit areas can be built to mimic the rhythm of the human footstep. Forms can be built around activities and personal preferences. For example, small seating areas can be built in a circle around a disappearing fountain or lighted garden area to create a sense of privacy and isolation for a few select guests chosen to be removed from the jostle of the crowd.

Outdoor Garden Design

Outdoor garden design is one of the most important pieces to creating a truly superb Houston landscape.
One thing to keep in mind when discussing your new Houston landscape with your professional design team is that you do not have to limit yourself to only one garden.

There can be many different gardens installed in both your front and back yards, and there are many different roles these gardens can play. A few of these new forms will ultimately occupy positions of central importance and significance. Others will work in a deliberately supportive fashion to accentuate specific structures and landscape elements.

Perhaps the most significant supporting role of this type could arguably be the aesthetic contribution it makes toward accenting home architecture. With the right vegetation and form, home architecture can be extended beyond its inorganic boundaries and given organic expression and added dimension. The actual style of the garden will be based upon the intended tone of the landscape in general and on the necessary forms and colors required to support surrounding architecture.

Many architectural designs have a specific cultural origin or reference a specific historical period.
Many outdoor garden designs also reference specifics of historicity and culture. For example, there are French, Italian, and Mediterranean styles. These specific garden types help establish the visual motif of the home as the predominating thematic component to the landscape. A French home supported by French garden design becomes a French landscape.

Other outdoor garden designs may not be intended to support architecture. English gardens reflect the order and symmetry of the British rural countryside. Knot gardens turn backyards into reflections of Celtic and Renaissance embroidery, making the landscape itself into a fabric of utility where herbs and spices can be grown as well as used for decoration. Zen gardens create quite retreats for meditation and reading in the private corners of the yard. Shade gardens help center growth and activity in areas beneath stately trees.

Outdoor garden design can occupy a more central role in residential landscape design. In front yard landscaping, it can lead the way to the front door of the house, establish boundaries between a home and neighboring residences, and create dimension in the open areas of the lawn. In backyard landscapes, gardens can center divergent elements on a common focal point.

In contemporary landscape design, the modern outdoor garden is used to create pockets of organic presence in a landscape of geometry and inorganic hardscape structures. In other forms of professional landscape design, the organic presence is much stronger than it is in contemporary landscaping. Outdoor garden design is even more important to these developments because it accentuates the vitality and diversity of vegetation and provides the much needed sense of vitality that is so vital to differentiating the amenities of outdoor living from the comforts and enclosures of indoor lifestyle pursuits.

Outdoor Living Space

The intent of outdoor living space is to extend the definition of home beyond the boundaries of the house proper into the open areas beyond the walls and into the hardscapes and softscape beyond.

Outdoor rooms are a very important part to the creation of this whole thing we call outdoor living space. An outdoor room is not necessarily four walls and a ceiling. It can be anything from a courtyard surrounded by small architectural walls, or it can even be a patio ringed by clipped hedges. The important thing is the furniture. Furniture defines both décor and supports activity, so choosing the right style and pieces of furniture is a major factor in creating the right look and feel of outdoor living space.

Space management is always a big driver of cost and design when developing outdoor living space in a landscape master plan. The type of occasion hosted and the anticipated number of guests are two major criteria for determining outdoor living space. For example, we recently designed an outdoor summer kitchen that featured a living room and fireplace adjacent to the kitchen. Space was an issue in this project, like it is in so many others.

We had to really talk a great deal with the homeowner to determine if this was going to be a room primarily used for cooking and dining, or primarily for seating. The homeowner really wanted more of an outdoor living room and outdoor fireplace design. A fully functioning kitchen was needed here in order to prepare meals, but the main attraction was the living room setup. We helped consolidated the two requirements much like many indoor custom kitchens where the kitchen and dining areas are really one floor plan adjoined to the living room. With the right living room furnishings, our outdoor living space mimics a home interior very closely.

Transition spaces are also very essential to the ultimate success of outdoor living space design. It is simply not feasible to create points of interest throughout a landscape without also creating a motivation to move from point to point. Transition areas can be very many different things. Walkways and pathways are obvious transition areas. Other areas include stairs and special custom hardscapes. The form is established by the emotions you are looking to create.

For example, to put people at ease, you have to make everything on the landscape extremely comfortable. When we design stairs, for example, we build all steps to be 5-5 ½ inches high. This mimics the natural gate of people walking across the ground. They hardly ever notice they are climbing up or down the stairs. It lends a nice feeling to any occasion. Such natural ease turns outdoor living space into a comfort zone that rivals home interiors, and gives guests time to admire structural elements such as pools, gardens, fountains, and tree lines.

Houston Covered Outdoor Kitchen

If you are looking to create a new realm of Houston outdoor living for your family and friends, invest in a covered outdoor kitchen designed and built by Exterior Worlds. These all-purpose outdoor rooms are nothing less than fine indoor living space inverted and transformed into outdoor luxury areas that are constructed with everything a custom indoor kitchen or living room can provide.

In addition to convenient and dependable functionality, we can build your outdoor kitchen with any number of special features, amenities, and luxuries that you desire. Furniture and media systems that you would typically associate with living and family rooms can also be added to your outdoor floor plan in to give your landscape a central hub of fine food preparation, comfortable dining, luxury repose, quiet conversation, and high-tech entertainment.

Many of the features we build into our covered outdoor kitchens are standard, functional features that are essential to the function of the structure. These features designed first and are intended to make the room completely self-sustaining. There is no point in building an outdoor living environment that is dependent on the world inside. Instead, our outdoor rooms are so constructed that it is possible to begin and end an afternoon or evening outside no need to return to the house.

This high-level of convenience is made possible by a wise choice of essential appliances and conveniences.

Refrigerators Rated for Outdoor Use Separate Freezers to give you plenty of storage space Side burners for soups and sauces so you do not have to use us precious stove space for liquids Full-feature ovens Weather-resistant, attractive, stainless steel cabinetry Ice makers Granite or Marble countertops for food preparation Dining room areas Lighting systems and controls

There are also a great many custom options that can be added to any covered outdoor kitchens. Much creative license can be taken here, and the power of that license lies in the hands of you—the client. We want this room to be a room that you feel you personally customized as an expression of your core values, lifestyle, and personal taste. Provided nothing added violates safety regulations of interferes with the functionality of appliances, you practically have free reign in selecting the options that best meet your home entertainment needs.

Side grills for barbecuing on rainy Labor Days, Memorial Days, or Fourth of July Holidays Custom maple, oak, or mahogany cabinets and drawers Living room areas with couches, fireplaces, or fire pits Entertainment systems with the finest audio, visual, and mood lighting you can imagine.

Visualize fine living and ultra-convenience when you picture a covered outdoor kitchen by Exterior Worlds. This is one of the wisest investments you can make in landscaping design and personal luxury living. It is also one of the better ways to improve your property value should you ever decide to sell your home and move on.

Outdoor Lounge Design Houston

By definition, an outdoor lounge is a seating area whose design creates the sense of an outdoor living room without the confines of enclosure. Instead of ceiling, you have open sky or overhanging tree branches. Rather than adjacent wall structures, you are either surrounded partly on one hand by the side of the home and the greenery of gardens and foliage on the other. The strength that outdoor lounge design contributes to the landscape is its unique ability to combine this sense of openness and freedom with a feeling of unspoken separation from more busy and activity-prone areas of the yard.

Outdoor lounge design originally got its name from the furnishings that tend to populate these special seating areas. Typically, couches, chairs, sofas, and papa sans used here are every bit as comfortable and opulent as equivalent furnishings used indoors. This does not mean to say that indoor furniture is an appropriate choice for an outdoor open setting.

Furnishings used here are specially designed to withstand the wear and tear of being outside, but they are made with an equivalent level of fashion sense and colorful appeal to the senses. Exterior Worlds includes furnishings such as this in its outdoor lounge design plans in order to save the client the expense and added trouble of having to go out and find these exceptional items on the open market.

In recent years, we have seen an increasing demand for outdoor lounge design throughout the Houston area. Interest in this unique aspect of landscaping appears to be linked to homeowner concerns about improving the market value of their properties. One of the many things that an outdoor room can do for any given portion of the yard is to increase its useable space up to 10 times. This is very important to homes that have intersecting sections that form something of an “L” shape between areas like the main living room, master bedroom, or a long hallway extending to a separate wing of the house. Leaving such an area just behind the home fallow leaves little more than an unused grassy area that is too small to plant a formal garden or build a custom patio. Such an area is wasted unless something measurably creative and useable can be developed that will turn this empty space into special space that contributes form, function, and added aesthetic to the yard.

The flooring for an outdoor lounge can either be wood or stone, depending on the design of surrounding terrain and the style and nature of home construction. Wooden decks with opulent furnishings are typically more popular when built immediately adjacent to a house, although this is not a hard-fast rule. More Old World style homes or the veritable mansions of River Oaks are more appropriately complimented by some type of custom stone work. Dimensions and geometry are planned in strict accordance with the laws of custom landscaping design: namely, nothing is ever done that does not first and foremost respect the architecture of the home and simultaneously work to unify that architecture with the surrounding elements of Nature.

Houston Outdoor Living

When developing the organic aspects of a Houston outdoor living environment, we focus on creating geometric forms that communicate the energies of Nature without violating the sense of order and system that has been ingrained in human consciousness for the past 10,000 years. This is why we put such a great deal of effort into garden services and tree maintenance. Plants need to be contained within the boundaries of a recognizable form whose style reflects the aesthetic of the landscape proper, and whose geometry and color scheme reflect the architectural style of the home. Tree maintenance protects number of parasites, diseases, so other elements of the landscape such as wooden arbor and shade gardens can be richly enjoyed both as gathering places and purely decorative elements when viewed from afar.

Once organic elements have been thematically developed, the focus of our work normally shifts toward landscape design for entertainment. Swimming pool remodeling often plays a major role in this because of the central position that the pool takes in so many events. More often than not, we find that the swimming pool the client either bought with the home or installed at a previous time does not quite fit the architecture of the home or surrounding landscape architecture. Redesigning a new custom swimming pool is the first step toward creating a more balanced and amenable back yard that creates an immediately noticeable upgrade in Houston outdoor living quality.

Other structures, of course, will be needed beyond the pool to create an environment that is more attractive to the visitor than the interior of the house. Hardscapes are also very important to comfortable Houston outdoor living because they provide areas for people to stand and sit on a solid surface. Think of a patio, walkway, or motor court as an outdoor floor, and you will immediately realize how important something as elementary as stone or concrete suddenly becomes to outdoor landscape design. Without attractive, well-constructed solid surfaces, people are left standing in the grass or the mud on spring and summer evenings—something you don’t want at your next party.

In fact, you do not want your guests to ever feel the need to go inside once they are outside. Outdoor rooms can be built that rival anything a living room or game room has to offer. Not every outdoor room has to have four walls and a ceiling, either. Some may have a fire pit, or be built in a courtyard design as part of a private entry garden. Others may be built alongside of a pool, near a fountain, or next to a natural pond to put activities an arm’s length away from nature.

Certain activities will require more than hardscape and residential landscape lighting. Things such as cooking, dining, playing video games, watching movies, and listening to music will require outdoor buildings such as summer kitchens, game rooms, and fully-functional outdoor living rooms can be built to make every aspect of Houston outdoor living a veritable rival to any conceivable experience you can have inside.