Creating Outdoor Living Spaces – Part 3

Curacao Bed and Ottoman by Zuo Modern

Welcome to the third installment of our series on creating desirable outdoor living spaces.

The first ‘Creating Outdoor Living Spaces‘ showed how to transform an area of your yard into a miniature oasis.

Creating Outdoor Living Spaces – Part 2‘ covered ways to seamlessly incorporate outdoor dining and an outdoor kitchen into the seating area.

Here’s a way to create a central gathering space in your backyard or deck using a strategic layout:

We’re going to take the traditional design scheme of arranging seating around a central focal point and apply it to our outdoor spaces.

Instead of a television, however, place an fire pit in the center of your outdoor space and arrange your benches, chaises and lounge chairs around it. Not only will this encourage interaction between your guests, but the design will created a feeling of being connected and appear seamless.

If possible, use benches that can fit together like modular seating and cover them with tons of throw pillows to create a comfortable and casual environment that you and your guests will gladly spend hours.

This central seating arrangement will allow room on the side for cooking and food prep as well as an outdoor dining area for formal entertaining.

But when the entertaining isn’t formal and the grill isn’t in use, none of those items are “in the way” and interrupt the socializing.