Outdoor Rooms - Still Hot for Summer 2008

Thursday, while visiting Canada Blooms - The Toronto Flower & Garden Festival, it became clear to me that outdoor rooms and outdoor kitchens would continue to be a hot home design trend for the summer of 2008. For Canada, parts of the United States and in many other places around the world, the spring and summer seasons seem to come and go in the blink of an eye. With such a small window of opportunity it’s not at all surprising that we want to maximize our enjoyment of outdoor living by enhancing our outdoor spaces.

To get you thinking ahead to sunshine-filled days and warm, sultry evenings, I thought I’d give you a peak at some of the outdoor room displays from Canada Blooms.

Outdoor Rooms

I loved everything about this picnic display - from the funky umbrella and the coordinating outdoor cushions, to the picnic mat that came complete with embroidered ants!

In another part of the same display there was a contemporary outdoor furniture setting - sleek and shiny white acrylic chairs against a contrasting wall of deep charcoal.

Evenly spaced on that charcoal colored wall were white wall-mounted flower pots (again very contemporary in style) filled with herbs. It was a beautiful graphic display, as well as a unique form of outdoor wall art.

Outdoor Dining

The options on display for outdoor dining included numerous intimate bistro sets for two, a large square patio table for eight, and this unusual stone slab dining table with matching slab benches set for four.

Focal Points for Outdoor Rooms

Outdoor design follows the same principles as interior design - creating a focal point is key. Many of the outdoor room displays included an outdoor fireplace as a focal point.

Outdoor Furniture

As evidenced in the first shots above, the furniture featured in the display rooms was far from your average, run of the mill patio furniture. There were exhibitors selling the more traditional styles of patio furniture, but it was the untraditional outdoor furniture that stole the show. My favorite - the Shell Chair by Hans J. Wegner. Definitely not something I would classify as outdoor furniture, but gorgeous all the same.

Outdoor Kitchen Designs

Long before there was air conditioning, there was the summer kitchen. Still indoors, this kitchen was developed so that the heat created by the cooking fires in the kitchen didn’t infiltrate the main house. Time and technology have taken the kitchen completely out of doors. Today’s outdoor kitchen includes all the conveniences we would typically expect to find indoors such as:

Food Prep Areas

A Sink, Countertop & Refrigeration

And of course, the essential cooking area.

No detail is overlooked.

Visiting Canada Blooms and seeing such a wide variety of outdoor rooms has given me some spring and summer inspiration. I feel some new storyboards / inspiration boards coming on. Stick around and see if there’s anything that inspires you!