8 Tips for Planning a Relaxing, Functional Outdoor Living Space

Achieve a Relaxing, Functional Outdoor Living Space with these 8 Pergola Tips

Creating a useful, enjoyable outdoor living space should not revolve around a bargain store impulse buy. A comfortable, sought-after space requires careful planning around your outdoor living needs. How can you ensure an outstanding outdoor design?    

The Formula for a Winning Outdoor Living Space Design:

1. Determine the Purpose & Size of Your Outdoor Living Area
   What are you and your family looking for in an outdoor living space? A private, relaxing retreat? Added kitchen and dining space? A place to work while the family plays? The necessary features of your outdoor space will largely depend on these decisions, with size restricted by your property’s unique footprint, zoning, and HOA limitations.
2. Ponder Placement
   When considering placement, don’t overlook the influence of natural elements that can add to ambiance, as well as those that could detract, such as prevailing winds and sun orientation. Instead of the typical locale (just out the back door), consider alternatives such as breaking up your outdoor space into several small patio ‘rooms,’ connected together with landscaping or hardscaping, adding a pavilion as an outdoor focal point, or locating your space in an off-the-beaten-path, secluded area of your yard for quiet and privacy.
3. Consider Convenience
   The placement of your outdoor room should allow for easy movement into/out of the house. Safe, convenient access to power and water are key. Good zoning of your space, properly installing/locating amenities, spacing and separating various activities and furnishings allow for safe traffic flow and ease-of-use.
4. Set the Scene
   Adding greenery with a living wall, large planters, water and fire features, or taking advantage of surrounding natural views.
5. Ensure Comfort
   Create intimacy, define your space, and provide integral sun and rain shelter with an adjustable Arcadia aluminum pergola. Unlike fixed patio shade structures, the Arcadia lets you take advantage of all each season has to offer, sealing out the rain, basking in the sun, or dialing in the perfect amount of shade via remote control or iLouver app-driven technology.
6. Complement Your Home’s Décor
   When selecting your pergola design, choose a scheme that harmonizes with the architecture of your home and your signature style. The Arcadia comes in a wide variety of custom colors and trim variations to accommodate this, including faux-wood wrap, architectural columns, and custom trim, including corbel ends to meet your unique design needs.
7. Plan for Privacy
   Ensure privacy from neighbors and noise reduction with motorized privacy curtains, or strategically placed fencing, decorative stone screening wall and/or tall landscaping plants. Consider the addition of screens, which alongside privacy, can also offer protection from pests.
8. Ask for Help When You Need It
   Unsure of how to accomplish your dream outdoor living space design? The pros at Denver Pergola Systems have the experience you need to help you bring even the most imaginative outdoor living ideas to life.

Turn your outdoor living dream into a reality, ensuring an investment that will last for years to come. Contact Denver Pergola Systems today.

This post was originally published at http://www.denverpergolas.com/8-tips-for-planning-a-relaxing-functional-outdoor-living-space/

Instead of Eating Out, Eat Outside!

A major monthly expense for families of all sizes, food can put a huge dent in family finances if you’re not careful. In many of today’s families, food funds diverted to eating out have surpassed funds spent on groceries for home-use. Exacerbating the issue, the cost of dining out is up 2.7% (according to restaurant industry news) while the cost of homemade food has dropped 0.5%, ballooning the food budget for those on the restaurant bandwagon. Are you among those struggling not to become ‘food poor?’

Eat Out in Your Own Backyard
Home cooked meals are by far cheaper and healthier than dining out, while the prep and partaking of food make for a great bonding activity – especially when that time is enjoyed in an amazing outdoor kitchen and dining environment. Instead of stretching yourself thin with repeated restaurant purchases, save a ton of money while increasing the quality of your time at home, nutritionally and emotionally building your family unit with the addition of an outdoor kitchen and dining space.

Why Prep & Eat Your Next Meal Outside with the Family?

• Cooking meals is healthier.
  You control portion size and ingredients, freely making substitutions for health and allergies/sensitivities, ensuring the quality of nutrition over high-fat, high-salt/sugar, mass-produced, cookie-cutter restaurant fare.
• Cooking outdoors is a tremendous opportunity to learn new skills & bond.
  Involving kids with cooking helps build and safeguard family traditions, rather than the marketing culture of major food corporations. Hang and chat while prepping for dinner, enjoying the fruits of your efforts as a family. Studies show kids that eat at home are healthier, happier, do better in school and engage in fewer risky behaviors than those who don’t share dinner with family.
• Grilling is a crowd-pleaser.
  New gas grill technology is quick-to-heat, making weeknight grilling a snap. Allowing for the easy customization of dinner plates, vegan or carnivore, attending picky eaters is seriously simplified when grill-side. Grilling takes less prep, involves less cooking paraphernalia, and makes cleanup a snap as well.
• Eating outside reduces stress & boosts immunity.
  Studies clearly demonstrate the stress-busting benefits of being outdoors. Time in nature reduces heart rate, blood pressure, and stress hormone (cortisol) levels, easing tension. Sunlight exposure boosts Vitamin D production, which safeguards your body against cancer, heart attack, stroke, osteoporosis, and depression. These benefits in-turn boost your immunity, helping you ward off colds, flu, and serious chronic health issues.
• Food tastes better in the outdoors.
  When you’re present in an enjoyable outdoor experience, as opposed to zoning-out while under stress, you are more tuned-in to your observations, including the flavor or your outdoor feast.
• Digestion is improved.
  Because stress has a negative impact on digestion, and being outside reduces stress, digestion is markedly better in outdoor environments.  
• Outdoor dining boosts mood and cognitive performance.
  A natural mood booster, emerging yourself in nature while dining, rather than in the digital world, helps you focus, recharging you mentally and emotionally with its awe-inspiring sights.
  

Earn Maximum Return with Minimal Time Investment
Planning ahead makes outdoor cooking and dining a breeze. Shopping bi-monthly for non-perishables and taking advantage of sales, and weekly for perishables, keeps your pantry stocked and on-budget. A weekly menu tacked on the fridge helps you thaw on-time, every time, ensuring fast, 10-30-minute prep - the average time it takes to wait for food and dine in fast food establishments.

Reinvest your restaurant savings, ensuring a trouble-free outdoor cooking and dining experience no matter the weather. Have experiences with your family you wouldn’t trade for a lifetime of dining out.  Uncover the benefits of a fully-functional outdoor kitchen and dining space topped-off with an adjustable aluminum pergola from Denver Pergola Systems today.

This post was originally published at http://www.denverpergolas.com/instead-of-eating-out-eat-outside/

10 Reasons to Add an Outdoor Living Space in 2018

Looking for an excuse to splurge on an outdoor living space this year? How about because it’s good for you? Cheaper than prescriptions and with no negative side effects, spending time in your outdoor living space is proven to boost your mental and physical health.

Because Harvard Says So

According to Harvard Medical School spending time outdoors, whether grabbing a bite to eat, working, or kicking back and relaxing, offers significant health benefits…

1. Spending Time Outdoors Boosts Vitamin D
   Vitamin D, ‘the sunshine vitamin,’ is essential to overall health. The form gained outdoors is more bioavailable (more easily used by your body), with known protective effects against an impressive variety of serious illnesses: Cancer, heart attacks, stroke, depression, osteoporosis, and more. However, the vast majority of Americans don’t get enough, leading some doctors to write prescriptions for this essential nutrient in the form of time outdoors.
2. Going Outdoors Makes You Happy
   Natural light elevates your mood. A known and effective treatment for seasonal affective disorder or winter depression, it can also boost workout benefits. Studies show just 5 minutes of ‘green exercise’ offers mood and self-esteem boosting benefits. As an added bonus, the refreshing, invigorating surroundings of an outdoor workout space help motivate workout intensity and length.
3. Being Outdoors Reduces Stress
   Being outdoors alters physical manifestations of stress, decreasing heart rate, lowering blood pressure, and reducing cortisol levels, the hormone marker used to identify a body under extreme stress.
4. Enjoying Time Outdoors Helps Fight Fatigue
   Eliciting feelings of awe, the amazing sights of nature can inspire you to get your mind back into gear and bounce back from mental fatigue.
5. Outdoor Interaction = Exercise; Exercise = Good
   Being indoors is associated with a sedentary lifestyle, especially in children. American children spend 6 hours a day on electronic media, on average. Time spent outdoors, on the other hand, is associated with activity, with studies showing children are more than doubly-active when outdoors.
6. Spending Time Outdoors Improves Concentration
   Research has shown children with ADHD perform better on tests of concentration following exposure to nature (a walk in the park versus one through urban settings). Similar walks have likewise been proven to aid the working memory of those suffering from depression.
7. ‘Nature Therapy’ Boosts Performance
   In studies, those immersed in nature for 4-days experienced a 50% improvement in performance on creative problem solving tests. Unlike caffeine or side-effect laden pharmaceuticals, ‘nature therapy’ improves cognitive function at zero cost.
8. Outdoor Experiences Support a Healthy Mood
   Studies have found time outdoors an ideal supplement to existing treatment modalities for anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues. Exposure to green environments offers relief, boosting self-esteem and mood. These effects can be increased in combination with exercise and the addition of outdoor water features.
9. Natural Light Exposure Aids Healing
   University of Pittsburgh studies indicated views of nature improve patient recoveries post-surgery, with those exposed to natural light experiencing less pain and post-op stress, and requiring fewer medications. Overall, time in nature has been shown to keep the inflammatory processes seen in connection with depression, inflammatory bowel disease, autoimmune disorders, and cancers in check.
10. Indulging in the Outdoors Safeguards Health
    Studies have shown a strong, positive association between exposure to green space and health. A wide variety of diseases are less prevalent among those living close to green spaces compared to those residing in urban environments. Studies also show the higher the residential green vegetation exposure, the lower mortality rates, citing a 12% lower mortality for those with the most exposure.

Because You Deserve It

Longing to spend more time outdoors, but weather keeps getting in the way? Design a space that is comfortable and functional year-round with the addition of an Arcadia adjustable aluminum pergola. Dial-in the perfect amount of sun or shade, or seal out the rain with the touch of a button, taking advantage of all the health-boosting benefits the outdoors has to offer no matter the weather. Incorporate built-in ceiling fans, infrared heaters, and motorized screens for improved comfort and protection against pests, with a flexible, custom-designed patio shelter solution built to blend seamlessly into your home and lifestyle.

Got the outdoor itch? We’ve got the cure. Schedule your complimentary outdoor living space design consultation with Denver Pergola Systems today.

This post was originally published at http://www.denverpergolas.com/10-ways-an-outdoor-living-space-boosts-health/

Add Green to Tight Spaces by Going Vertical

Tiny, lackluster outdoor spaces surrounded by concrete and fencing are a dime a dozen. Far from inspiring, they make it difficult for the uninitiated to envision the possibility of a beautiful, green outdoor living space where square footage is at a premium and life fails to exist. Yet with vertical gardening, the sky is quite literally the limit of outdoor greenery additions, allowing for the addition of a lush, verdant outdoor space you never before dreamed possible...

 photo credit: http://www.livingwallart.com/grow-a-vertical-garden-indoors/

What is a Vertical Garden?
Also called living walls or green walls, vertical gardens are typically mounted on the interior or exterior walls of buildings, and occasionally on fences. Vertical planters vary widely in size, shape, scope, and technology. However, each is beautiful and functional, providing a refreshing green backdrop that offers all the benefits of nature, even to spaces once totally devoid of life. This allows for the incorporation of an amazingly green outdoor living space to nearly any location. And the benefits don’t just stop at looks. A growing practice in the green building arena, vertical gardens reduce the heat island effect, decrease noise pollution, improve air quality, and provide opportunities as a food resource.

What Kind of Plants Can You Add to a Vertical Garden?
People tend to be pleasantly surprised by the variety of plants compatible with vertical gardening. But you can’t just toss any old plant into vertical garden setups. Like your family members, each plant variety is most comfortable in a specific climate. When deciding among plants to incorporate into your design to enhance your pergola-covered patio, sun exposure, watering needs, and clearance are important things to keep in mind. Once your adjustable aluminum pergola is installed, will your vertical garden reside primarily in the sun, partial sun, or shade most of the day? Will you leave the 170-degree adjustable louvers of your pergola open or closed in your absence? Choosing plants compatible with available sun and seasonal temperature shifts is key to success. With less dirt, and more exposure to wind and sunlight, drip irrigation is also highly-recommend to meet watering needs. In addition, it is essential to consider plant growth. Massively bushing behemoths and crazy climbers could both interfere with the motor, louvers, and rain/wind sensors of your adjustable aluminum pergola and are best avoided.



Best Plants for Pergola-Side Vertical Gardens

• Sun

• Geranium
• Petunias
• Rock Rose
• Dichondra
• Baby’s Tears
• Chili Plants
• Sempervivum
• Sedum
• Blue Fescue & Blue Oat Grass
• Partial Sun (less than ½ day of summer sun)
• Lipstick Plant
• Sweet Alyssum
• Pothos
• Aloe
• Bugle Plant
• Elephant Ears
• Coral Bells
• Shade (less than 3 hours of direct sunlight; typically morning light)
• Ferns (most varieties)
• Hostas
• English Ivy
• Staghorn Fern
• Peace Lily
• Violets
• Bromeliads
• Dracaenas
• Crotons

Looking to Eat Out of Your Garden?

• Sun

• Cherry tomatoes
• Strawberries
• Basil
• Thyme
• Sage
• Oregano
• Coriander
• Chives
• Marjoram

• Partial Sun (less than ½ day of summer sun)

• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Kale
• Parsley
• Shade (less than 3 hours of direct sunlight; typically morning light)
• Mint Varieties
• Watercress
• Sorrel
• Lemon Balm
• Thai Basil

Think the possibility of a beautiful outdoor space in a barren backyard is a pie in the sky fantasy? See your outdoor space in a different light with the help of Denver Pergola Systems today.

This post was originally published at http://www.denverpergolas.com/add-green-to-tight-spaces-by-going-vertical/