Having a pleasant place to sit outdoors adds to the enjoyment of your patio or backyard. Whether you love to entertain, or just have a summer weekend morning cup of coffee on the patio, including different kinds of outdoor seating is a great way to make the most of your outdoor spaces. Before you buy patio furniture, think about other types of seating too, which will give you a better idea of what you want and need.
Outdoor Entertaining Considerations
If you often have friends and family over for cookouts or outdoor get-togethers, you might have the standard patio table with four chairs, and then resort to folding lawn chairs for additional seating. While functional, they are not exactly aesthetic, and take up a lot of storage room.
One way to add casual seating that doesn’t detract from the use of your patio or mean storing chairs in your shed is considering a seat wall. Seat walls are simply low masonry walls at seat height and a comfortable sitting width. You can paint them to match your house, or decorate with tiles, decorative rock like flagstone, or use tinted stucco so they either blend in to your patio or contrast with a complementary color.
A step above the seat wall is a built in seating area with a raised planter at the back. This gives people something to lean on, and a planting area for adding colorful perennials or annuals. The raised planter behind the seating is a good place to add a small water feature, where the sound, smell and cooling effect of water is nearby for greater appreciation.
Seating Locations for a Change of View
While sitting on your patio looking into your yard is a pleasant experience for many; having other, less formal, places to sit looking back to the house add a new and pleasing perspective of your home. If you have a scenic view or an interesting specimen plant, placing a comfortable bench away from the house to take in that view or plant, gives you time to appreciate the view even more.
Looking Beyond Normal Seating
If you are planning an in-ground pool, now is the time to plan for places to sit. Aside from a concrete, shaded area poolside, seat walls are a great place to lay towels or sit to dry off. To enhance your pool area, why not add a few extra large boulders near the pool edge for sitting? It would give you the feel of the pool being located in nature, not just your back yard.
Thinking outside the box of standard patio tables and chairs will make your yard a more pleasant place to spend time. Also consider having places to sit in both sun and shade, so no matter what the temperature, you can enjoy being outside.
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