Luxury Outdoor Living: Creating Stunning Exterior Spaces

When we’re designing luxury outdoor living retreats for our clients, our greatest hope is for them to feel like they’re experiencing their most favorite resort setting — all the time.

Indeed, that forever-vacation inspo is the metric we use. We take the best of resort relaxation, refinement, and luxury and marry it to a space that’s tailor-made for daily home use and enjoyment.

Here are some of the things that make for the perfectly crave-worthy backyard oasis. Just make sure you have that “High Style SPF” ready, so this IDH design sizzle doesn’t burn you!

Invite Your Interior Designer Outside

Just as there can be pitfalls and missed design potential in your interior home design when you don’t engage an interior designer early in the process to work on your home build or renovation, the same exact thing can happen with an outdoor living space.

Hint, hint: Always invite designers outside, dear readers. Landscape architects, pool builders, and other contractors are great at what they do — but they aren’t thinking about the space through an experiential, live-in-it and entertainn-in-it  design lens.

But your designer is! This is where our expertise, vision, and skillset as a sought-after luxury interior design firm comes in.

Here is just one example: For this outdoor pool, we worked with the builder to widen the pool deck because, as it was initially planned, it was far too narrow for ideal pass through and comfort for the kind of lounge seating we knew our clients wanted. And we caught it not a moment too soon! I’m so glad we identified this issue in time because the deck would have been a MUCH different experience for our clients had we not done so.

Early in the process, we love to collaborate with builders and architects to not only identify opportunities to capitalize on, but also costly mistakes to avoid that can rain on your luxury outdoor living retreat.

Create Synergy with the Pool House

If a “pool house” is in the picture, this is the time to be super-intentional about this structure. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be a close cousin to the main house.

We love to take cues from the architecture and aesthetic of a home’s exterior and interior and iterate those elements for the pool house interior design.

Soaring ceilings, organic elements like rattans and woven textures along with warm woods and cool stones, and cozy and oversized yet sophisticated furnishings can make for an incredible pool house experience that’s perfect for entertaining — from casual pool days with the family to moonlit dinner parties with friends.

The flexibility for a pool house to blur the lines between inside and out is also key. Windows that open fully to the outside create immediate connection to the outdoors yet provide shelter when you are seeking some respite from the sun.

Consider the Color Scheme

A soothing, organic-inspired palette is a must in a luxury outdoor living space because we are balancing the impact of the surrounding earth, sky, and pool — all of which are delivering their own big color story!

But that doesn’t mean you can’t integrate wisely dosed color. For one design, we implemented a clean and crisp blue-and-white scheme that brings that luxe retreat vibe in an incredibly fresh, chic way.

Have a Pool, But Make It Art

A swimming pool is as much art and ambiance as it is pleasure and fun — so, we are all about making this body of water really sing, whether it’s being actively used or not.

When you’re lounging on that (appropriately sized) pool deck, you’re going to want to gaze at a pool that you love — that’s not only functional, but that also brings a calming allure to the setting.

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If you’ve found yourself swooning over this gorgeous IDH backyard oasis, see more here. Now’s the time to chat with our interior design firm, lovely; let’s create your own luxury outdoor space that’s sizzling with comfort and a relaxed chic vibe.