The woman behind Creative Home Expressions is none other than Kathy Passarette, expert interior designer, home staging, redesigner and color consultant extraordinaire.  Her articles and tips have appeared in Newsday,  Newday’s How To Guide, New York, Resident Magazine, the Gwinnett Daily Post, the Denver Post and the Miami Herald.  She has given us a plethora of tips she wanted to share with our customers, and this would be the first in tips we will spotlight.  You can catch up on Kathy at the Creative Home Expressions Blog.

• Lighting – garden lights, candles or a mix of the two can give your yard a warm glow and extend your daytime enjoyment into the night.  With the variety of lighting options from easy to install light kits to solar lighting, you can create ambiance in your own back yard.  Candles can be used from floating tea lights to pillar, there are numerous ways to incorporate them into your décor.  There are many decorative candle holders that fit in with themed décor or blend in with your landscape.
• Outdoor fireplaces – not only extend the hours you can spend outside, but can also extend your season outdoors.  There are many different styles to choose from; you can even build your own fire pit.
• Fabric – outdoor fabrics have come a long way over the years offering a lot more than the usual awning stripe.  You can use these fabrics for pillows, to cover cushions, make tablecloths or even be used as outdoor curtains.
• Furniture – your outdoor rooms are a great place to use found furniture pieces.  They can easily be freshened up with some spray paint.  Metal baker’s racks made great vertical storage and also help break up all the horizontal surfaces.  Don’t be afraid to bring pieces from the inside out for the day – just bring them back in at night.
• Pillows – pillows add softness to your chairs and benches.  How inviting a cushioned chair looks for reading a book or just sitting quietly.
• Outdoor area rugs.  Define the seating areas, just like they do inside your home.

Today, we’ve got another tip from an awesome design and decor expert, the Nester!  I absolutely love her motto “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful” and reflects why she’s such a great source.

Lighting is the finishing touch in an outdoor room that transforms an every day space into an inviting retreat.  We all know the sun will light up the outdoors in the day but at night when the sun goes down, you’ll want to include some outdoor lighting.  There are so many choices, torches, outdoor chandeliers or chandeliers, paper lanterns, a string of lights draped around the umbrella over the patio table, candles or even a fire pit.  Any of these light sources will add to the ambiance of your outdoor room and your neighbors will long to be invited over for a relaxing evening.

]]> http://blog.cushionsandumbrellas.com/expert-advice/outdoor-expert-tip-nester/feed/ 2 http://blog.cushionsandumbrellas.com/expert-advice/outdoor-decor-expert-southernhospitality/ http://blog.cushionsandumbrellas.com/expert-advice/outdoor-decor-expert-southernhospitality/#comments Wed, 20 May 2009 23:45:37 +0000 rgarcia http://blog.cushionsandumbrellas.com/?p=84

This is the first in a series of quick tips from Design and Decor experts who have graciously given some great advice for our customers and readers.

Southern Hospitality is the wonderful design and decor blog featuring the work of the ever helpful Rhoda, who came to her expertise status the old fashion way, by designing and decorating her own home, and sharing her adventures with the world.  We asked her for a tip on Outdoor Rooms and Outdoor decor, and she shared this with us.

We added a great little patio area under our unused deck last year, which has completely transformed our backyard:

Take a look at the area under your deck (or another unused area) for a possible outdoor room. We transformed the unused area under our back deck into a cozy spot for entertaining just by adding large pavers and pea gravel. The project was easy to do and cost about $350 total and now we have a wonderful area to entertain and enjoy ourselves. I stocked the patio with yard sale finds, keeping an eye out for garden décor, iron, candle holders, and anything else that could be used in an outdoor space. We really enjoy the area now, not to mention it changed from nothing but mud to a beautiful little room.

To see the great decor change she created, check out her post, The Decorated Patio.