Tips to connect the inside and outside of your home

Collaborative Post | Gardens have grown in importance over the last few years and many of us now see them as an extra room or an extension of the home. So, it makes sense to think about increasing the connection between the inside and outside, to bring the two spaces closer together. There are numerous ways to do this, from making impactful changes to the layout of your home, to smaller, decorative tweaks. Here are some of the most effective tricks to use.

Photo by Arno Smit on Unsplash

Create a wide opening into the garden

Being able to throw open the doors from your lounge, dining room or kitchen area, gives you a much closer connection to the garden than simply looking at it through a window. And the wider the opening, the bigger the connection will be. That’s why fitting bi-fold doors can prove better than traditional sliding patio doors and French doors. As bi-folds can be pushed neatly to the side, nothing impedes your connection to the garden.

To improve this connection when the doors are closed, it’s worth choosing floor-to-ceiling doors that extend as far across the room as possible. You could also choose an ultra-slim frame to minimise the interruption of your view outside. However, when you have large bi-fold doors, it’s also important to choose a high-quality product with a well-built running system, to make opening them smooth and effortless.  ​

Extend your living space outwards

Doing this creates an opportunity to extend your living space out into the garden, increasing your connection between the inside and outside. This could be as simple as adding a second lounge area to your patio or going much further with an additional dining area and outdoor kitchen.
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Whatever you decide to do, it’s beneficial to tie the indoor and outdoor areas together somehow. This could be through the use of a single colour scheme or design style. Or it could be done by continuing the flooring outwards, say with stone, slate or porcelain tiles that are suitable for indoor and outdoor use.

Mirror your indoor and outdoor planting

Another way to boost the connection between your home and garden is through plants. By mirroring your garden planting inside the home, you can achieve a more cohesive design and bring the two spaces closer together.

You could do this simply, by growing the same plants on the inside and outside ledges of your windows. All you need are herbs and flowers that grow happily as both garden and houseplants. So, you might have pots of parsley, chives and mint growing. Or perhaps colourful window boxes full of begonias, ivy and jasmine. Similarly, you might place containers of leafy plants, like Fatsia japonica, on either side of your doors to create a seamless transition.
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But you needn’t be so obvious or exact in your planting. You could simply match the style, colour or leaf shape of your plants, or go with a matching theme. So, for instance, you might use a tropical theme with tree ferns, harts tongue ferns and crocosmia outside, matched with crispy wave ferns, Boston ferns and bird of paradise plants inside. Or perhaps you’ll choose variegated leaves, with a mix of hostas and coleus plants in the garden and Chinese evergreens, elephant’s ears and begonias in the house.

Or use actual mirrors

Another way to mirror your garden planting indoors is to use actual mirrors. Positioning mirrors on the wall opposite your window, patio or bi-fold doors will reflect the garden inside your home without the need for houseplants. However, placing houseplants around your mirrors, will provide more symmetry and deepen the connection.

Combine your colour schemes

Even if you’re not the best at keeping houseplants, you can still mirror the inside and outside of your home by using colour. If your garden is lush with deep greens from foliage and blues and yellows from flowers like hydrangeas and rudbeckia, you could use this as the colour scheme for your interior design. You might choose to paint a green feature wall and use accessories and soft furnishings to provide pops of green and blue throughout the room. Or you might use a wallpaper with a similar botanical or floral theme to the one in your garden.

Bring your garden inside

If your garden is full of flowers and foliage but your house isn’t, you could bring some of it inside to help increase the indoor-outdoor connection. You might collect cut flowers such as tulips, achillea, and agapanthus along with plants like witch hazel and forsythia. Or dry lavender, hydrangeas and teasels to create arrangements inside. Ornamental grasses like hare’s tail grass and miscanthus grass also look good in vases. Foliage, such as the stems of eucalyptus and holly, can also be used for vases and garlands.

Add a picture window and frame it

Fitting a bi-fold or patio door isn’t always possible, so a good alternative is to add a picture window. Picture windows tend to be big with slim frames and no crossbars to hinder the view, so they’re a real bonus to have.

Your picture window could be positioned to get the best angle of your garden or create a window seat. To bring you closer into your garden, you may choose to frame the view with a leafy mural or surround your seat with houseplants. So, your indoor-outdoor connection is complete.


Disclaimer: this is a collaborative post