Emanate & Co | Outdoor Room Specialists Sydney
Learn how to get the perfect Flow into your Alfresco Outdoor Room for your home. Create an outdoor space which is a seamless transition from the indoors to the outside.
“Flow” is one of the most important aspects in the design of your outdoor living room.
It can make the difference between having a space where it almost feels like it was just thrown onto the back of the house, compared to being a seamless extension from the indoors to the outside alfresco… it just feels right.
What is ‘flow’?
You could say it is more like a feeling or even a connection. A feeling where you can just move with ease through your alfresco outdoor space & a seemless connection from your exisitng internal kitchen &/or living room, out into the alfresco.
‘Flow’ can be achieved through actions such as getting the floor levels to match, or moving a post, or opening up a back window & turning it into a doorway.
”We are the difference between you having a pergola,
Versus your family enjoying an Outdoor Room
Below are the 3 first steps you should not neglect so you can get the seamless transition from your back door out into what should be one of the most used spaces in your home.
- Start with the end in mind
- What do you want to put out into the space?
- An outdoor kitchen…
- That perfect outdoor table setting that you’ve seen with the long bench seats on
eachside?? - Or, a separate lounge area to the side that is more casual just for the morning coffee?
- Write it all down & then highlight the top 3 must have inclusions. These are the things that you can’t live without.
- The rest would be ‘nice to haves’
”We are your top 3 must haves??
- 2. Get the hose & the pot plants out
- What? Yes, you heard me. Use these to mark out the floor space in your backyard where the outside edges or corners of the room will be.
- Using these markers will help visualise the space better
- (Another good tip is to compare the size of this new alfresco outdoor room, with say your living room. You know this space well. How does this space translate outside?)
- To read more on getting your space right, have a look HERE where we’ve outlined how to create the best space for your alfresco living area.
- Go back to those top 3 must haves. Where will they be placed into the space?
- Start with the main table setting & then work around that.
- Its a bit like a jig saw puzzle, you might have to move
- 3. Stand at the back door & walk through
- Where will you most walk through to? Is it the kids running to the pool gate? Or are you heading to the back stairs to get down to the washing line in the backyard?
- What is in your way? Do you need to adjust where the table setting goes?
- Could you move the new set of stairs to a different location? This might minisize the overall size of the stairs & win you back more space to the main ‘real estate’ which is the floor space of your outdoor room
- This can be the tricky bit & can be the point where you have to be brutally honest.
- If it’s not working – it might be too cramped, you might have tried to fit too much into the space.
How we achieved ‘the flow’ for Andy & Emily…
Andy & Emily came to us with some plans already prepared.
We still took them through our process as they got themselves to a point, but were stuck & weren’t moving forward. Something just wasn’t right with where they were at.
We repositioned the stairs out to the side of the home & actually right on the side boundary. (to read further about stealing some more space for your alfresco & building to your boundary CLICK HERE)
By doing this, we opened up their main real estate space on the deck which enabled them to include their main entertaining table, but also another separate less formal space with a coffee table & corner lounge.
See the end results below, with the three panel stacker doors opening out onto their new alfresco space, which soon became the most used room in the house.
What else could help you??
-
- Podcast – here Adrian interviews industry leaders in ‘Out the Back Door’, which is a podcast that gets you in front of some industry experts to give you the best advice about all things building in your backyard.
Listen Here - Get some inspiration through our Case Studies
Have a look here at our previous works to get some ideas. - Have a look at this Outdoor Room journey. This is a beautiful alfresco room we’ve created for this family which has essentially added a whole new element to their home.
Have a closer look at this transformation here
- Podcast – here Adrian interviews industry leaders in ‘Out the Back Door’, which is a podcast that gets you in front of some industry experts to give you the best advice about all things building in your backyard.
