Essential Outdoor Design Tip: Take Pictures

Designing or redesiging your outdoor space has a different set of challenges than your indoor space.  The one thing in common is you, and how you want to treat it.  What most of our clients ask when starting on their outdoor room is:

"Where should I start?" 

You see, for the interior of you home, you can create a plan.  Start with one room and let your design unfold.   Or plan it out room by room.  But with the outside of your room, everything is basically connected.  Your front door is connected to the wall, which runs down to the end and is covered by flowers, which you have in your garden, etc, etc.  Start at one spot, and you're not exactly sure where this particular project ends. 

Our number 1 tip has always been to take plenty of pictures before you start any outdoor project.  Pictures give you a frozen moment in time that you can take with you anywhere.  Pictures also give you a chance to take a break from looking at your outdoor space over and over again.  You can stop, work on something else for a few days, then take a look at the pictures around your home with a fresh eye.  A few days from pouring over everything will let you look at your outoors with a new angle. 

You can take your pictures shopping with you as well, or keep them by your computer as your researching on the web.  This is awesome for those times like matching patio furniture to the sorrounding wall, or outdoor decor like statues.  When your buying flowers, you might not remember the names of the flowers you already have (happens to me all the time, my wife is the green thumb), or you want to match colors to your flora. So when you go garden shopping, just whip out the right set of pictures, and viola, you can easily match up to what you already have. 

So here's some tips we've put together for those who would like to try this around their own home. 

1. Any camera will suffice, but we really recommend a digital camera.  The digital camera offers much more flexibility in saving and storing your photos, and you can alway email them to shops or gardeners so they know a little more about your outdoor space.
2. Be natural with the pictures.  This is not the time to do a setup as if your home is being photographed for Home And Garden.  These pictures should be snapshots of your exterior as you see it on a daily basis.  Take picture as you walk around your house and in your back yard.  Take pictures from where you normally sit and lounge, or from where your guests normally lounge. 
   
3. If your in an apartment, but you'd like to make your balcony a little more natural, step 2 works for you as well.  Take pictures from the angles that you see everyday.  Take pictures from where you sit and where you stand.
   
4. Walk FAR AWAY from your house and take a nice wide shot.  Nothing fancy, just a big shot so you can take it all in. Do this from different angles as well.  The little pictures are important, but the BIG PICTURE is as well.
   
5. Make sure to not take too many close up pictures.  Keep the sorrounding area in the picture as well.  Your decor is not just what you put out there, like pots or furniture or statues.  It's also the foliage in the background, the trees and flowers behind your view, even the other homes arond yours affects your final decor.
   
6. Take both close ups and wider shots of a particular area.  If you have a pool, take a few shots of the general pool area, then different closeups of sitting our lounging areas.

This excersize of taking these pictures is a great way to start any outdoor decor project.  If it's just one area your going to be working on, it's a good idea to take pictures of everything anyway, so you can move on to other outdoor projects in the future.  

May 18, 2008

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