Using Your Interior Colours Outdoors

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If you live in a nice location at the beach or in bushland, or you have a nice garden you want to enjoy more, extending the interior colours of your home into your outside living areas is a great idea. It helps to blur the line between the two and leads your eye (and your feet) out into the view. There are several ways to extend your interior colour scheme outdoors. These include:

Floors

Your floors are the most effective way of merging indoors and out. If you have tiles, slate, or wooden floors, it’s simply a matter of extending these beyond the boundaries of your doors. If you have timber floors, make sure the grain flows the same way in your extension, otherwise it may spoil the effect. Nice earthy colours work best and doors and windows that fold back out of the way add to that indoor/outdoor feel.

Walls

If your interior walls are painted shades of blue or green then they already reflect the outdoors and applying similar shades to exterior walls, fences and pergolas will make the theme flow through the entire living space. The theme of sea, sky or trees can be further enhanced if your interior rooms have a lot of natural light. This can be achieved by replacing heavy drapes or curtains with roller blinds that draw back to allow in plenty of light.

Another option is skylights, which will not only give you lots of natural light, but help with your electricity bill as well. A third option is transparent sunscreen blinds, which keep out the sun without spoiling the view.

Furniture

Another simple yet effective way to merge your indoor and outdoor colour schemes is to choose outdoor furniture that matches your indoor pieces. Outdoor furniture has come a long way from plastic chairs and tables and you can now buy outdoor pieces that would look just as stylish in your lounge room. If you already have outdoor furniture and the budget won’t stretch to buying replacements, painting it to reflect the colours of your interiors will work just as well to visually link the two areas.

Greenery

A scattering of potted plants both inside and out also helps to blend the two areas together. Use similar varieties of plants, preferably with lots of green, leafy foliage. If you live by the sea and have a deck, knick-knacks such as rocks, shells and driftwood scattered tastefully about can also help to smooth the transition from one space to the other.

If your garden is a showpiece, then placing vases of bright flowers in your interior rooms will allow the garden to flow into the house. And outdoor lighting can allow you to enjoy the view of your garden even after the sun has gone down.

Bringing your interior colour scheme outside is a smart move for many reasons. It extends your available living space and provides you with a much more relaxed and natural environment. It also puts you in touch with nature on a daily basis; for that reason alone, it must be a good idea.

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