How Do I...

Top Ideabooks

Appears in

Popular Houzz Series

Outdoor Entertaining

Top Ideabooks

Outdoor Areas

Top Ideabooks

Appears in

Outdoors

Popular Houzz Series

Top Ideabooks

See also

Before & After Budget Breakdown Stickybeak Of The Week Creatives At Home At Home With... Best Of The Week Room Of The Week Project Of The Week Picture Perfect Designer Profiles Made Local 3 Things I Wish My Clients Knew How Do I... Buyer's Guides Expert Eye Innovation Alert From The Pros So Your Style Is... Spotted! Fun Houzz Houzz Around The World Quizzes Home Time

How Do I... Decorate My Outdoor Entertaining Area?

An outdoor-design expert reveals how to decorate your outside entertaining area for comfort and wow factor

Georgia Madden 22 February 2019

Comment8

Click "Embed" to display an article on your own website or blog.

In this practical series, we ask experts to answer your burning home and design questions. Here, Timothea Jewell, a director at Lump Sculpture Studio, shares her top tips for giving your outdoor entertaining area some decorative flair.

Create Construction

When the weather is warm, there’s nothing quite like entertaining outdoors. Like any other space in the home, you’ll need to invest time, effort and budget in your alfresco area if you want to make it special. But the rewards will be worth it – you’ll extend your usable living space and create a spot that you and your guests will love to spend time in. Here are the main things to focus on.

Villa and Villa

What are the main points to consider?
When planning your outdoor entertaining area, think about the following:

How you want to use the space: Do you prefer to relax on comfortable sofas, dine outdoors at a table, or gather as a family around a fire pit?
How many people you usually entertain: This will help determine how much seating and table space is required.
Take your design cues from your interior: We entertain outdoors in a similar way to how we do indoors, so take the aspects you like best from your living and dining rooms and translate them into your outdoor space.
Floor space: If outdoor space is tight or you like to entertain large numbers, you’ll want to keep the floor as clear as possible. In our outdoor area, we positioned the barbecue and seating around the perimeter to maximise floor space.
Indoor-outdoor access: If you’re building or renovating and putting in new exterior doors, look for a wide-opening style – this will help guests move comfortably from inside to out, and allow you to take things from the kitchen to the alfresco area with ease.

Saunders Building Company Pty Ltd

Get the foundations right: It’s important to get the nuts and bolts right, including floor levels, plumbing and hard landscaping. This will ensure the area is comfortable and beautiful, and that any elements such as water features, outdoor lighting and outdoor kitchens will function properly.

KES Studio

What should I include?

Comfortable seating: An outdoor sofa where you can curl up with a good book and, if you have the space, an outdoor dining table with comfortable chairs for meals.
A couple of portable stools and side tables: Versatile pieces like these are a boon when you’re entertaining as they provide extra seating and somewhere to place a drink, and can be moved around easily. If your outdoor area is small, a couple of small side tables can also take the place of a large coffee table.
Heating: Keeping the area cosy will allow you to use it well into the autumn months. There are many outdoor heating options, including portable heaters and wall-mounted styles, but for a fuss-free look we love electric, overhead-heating strips.

Lighting: Ensure you have sufficient lighting so guests can move safely around your outdoor area at night; plus uplighters to softly highlight sculptures or feature plants.
A fire pit: For ambience and warmth during the cooler months, a portable fire pit is hard to beat. They’re also easy to store away in the summer months. If you don’t want the mess or fuss of a wood-burning fire, consider an ethanol burner, which provides a subtle heat and comes in various styles, including tabletop and floor-mounted.
Outdoor speakers: No party is complete without music. There are loads of inexpensive, portable speakers available today that you can use both inside and out to play music from your smartphone or tablet.

Lump Sculpture Studio

What special features can I add?
Creating a feature or a focal point in your outdoor area is a great way to draw the eye where you want it, and away from where you don’t. A feature can be small or large and anything from a sculpture, decorative screen or planter to fabulous lighting – just make sure it’s something you love, and it’s bound to be a topic of conversation when you have guests over.

Lump Sculpture Studio

Image by Little Red Photography
Screen and planters by Lump Sculpture Studio

A screen: An outdoor screen makes an appealing feature in an exterior space. They’re also very versatile; display one as a work of art on the wall; use it to divide a space into different zones, say a cosy area for relaxation and a dining zone; or hide items behind it that you don’t want out on show. For a natural, rustic look, consider a screen made from Corten steel with a rusted finish that will age beautifully over time; or for a more sophisticated look, consider an aluminium screen with a powder-coated, matt-black finish.
Planters: To add a touch of magic to your outdoor area, planters work well, particularly on balconies and in courtyards. Hang planters of different sizes around the space to create the illusion of a lush garden, or use a row of planters to divide a large area into zones. Floor-mounted planters in rust-finish Corten steel or slender, wall-mounted styles in a dark powder-coated aluminium are two of my favourites.

Bowerhouse

Tell us
How did you make your outdoor entertaining area special? Tell us in the Comments below, like this story, save your favourite images and join the conversation.

More
Looking to spruce up your outdoor area? Find a local landscape design expert here with access to industry prices and know-how

Comment8

Comments (8)

See 5 more comments

Thank you for reporting this comment. Undo

Miri

Thanks for that reality check Double D! It's handy to be aware of how much maintenance is involved before committing to a purchase.

1 Like 26 February 2019 at 1:10pm

Thank you for reporting this comment. Undo

lene_skovsted

Some lovely spaces.
However we really should not be heating open areas - most of the heat and therefore energy, will be wasted. If you need heating, it is probably time to move back indoors.

2 Likes 26 February 2019 at 3:10pm

Thank you for reporting this comment. Undo

Double D

Yes your right Mira, must admit when I have cleaned and hosed everything it looks great.... but always fighting the elements to keep it looking good is a challenge. I have thought of enclosing both sides and making it more of an outdoor room, but have never got round to it. Lol

Like 26 February 2019 at 3:24pm