I’m going to make a call that may not be popular. Of all the exterior design trends I’ve watched arrive over the past few years, there are three I believe will date homes much faster than people expect.
I’ve been designing façades for a long time – long enough to see plenty of ideas arrive with great enthusiasm and then quietly disappear. And the ones that age badly usually have something in common. They were chosen because they were everywhere at the time, rather than because they suited the house. So here are my three, along with what I’d lean towards if you’re building or renovating now.
But first…
Why some exterior design trends age faster than others
A trend isn’t a problem in itself. Every era has its look, and some of Australia’s most loved homes carry clear signs of when they were built.
The trouble starts when a feature is added as decoration instead of growing out of the architecture.
When a detail has a reason to be there, it tends to hold up. It might frame a view, shade a window or soften a hard corner. When it’s there because it photographs well this year, it becomes a date stamp.
That’s the lens I’ve used for all three of the trends below.
1. Decorative arches
Arches are everywhere at the moment. Arched front doors, arched windows, arched openings cut into fence walls and porticos. I understand the appeal. After years of hard-edged boxes, a curve feels soft and welcoming.
But I think the decorative arch will become one of the clearest timestamps of the mid-2020s. In ten years, I suspect people will look at a row of arched windows on a new build and know almost exactly when it went up.
Curves versus arches
There’s a distinction worth making here. Soft architectural curves are a different thing altogether.
A rounded corner on a rendered wall, a gently curved balustrade or a sweep of front steps can feel calm and enduring, because the curve belongs to the form of the building.
The arches I’d be cautious about are the ones that sit on the surface. Arched recesses with nothing behind them. Arch-shaped timber panels. The same arch repeated across every opening on the façade. When one shape is used that many times, it stops being a feature and starts being a theme.
If you love the softness an arch brings, I’d usually suggest one considered moment, such as a single arched opening into a courtyard, rather than making it the language of the whole house.
2. Pale, whitewashed timber
I still love pale timber indoors. Light oak floors, limed joinery and soft blonde tones create a lovely, airy interior, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.
Outside is a different story.
Pale, whitewashed timber has been used so heavily on façades here in Australia, that it’s starting to feel like the default. Pale battens at the front door, a blonde garage door, light timber-look screening wrapped around the upper level. Paired with white render, it all blends into one soft, washed-out palette.
There’s also the question of how it sits in our light. Australian sun is strong, and very pale timber against pale render can flatten a façade. There’s little to tell the eye where one material stops and the next begins, so the detailing gets lost from the street.
What I’d lean towards
I’d rather see richer timber tones used with stronger contrast. Warm mid-browns, the depth of spotted gum, or walnut-toned finishes.
A darker timber against light render, or a warm timber beside charcoal, gives a façade definition. It reads clearly from the kerb and it ages with far more grace.
Contrast doesn’t have to mean drama. It simply gives each material room to be seen.
3. Desert-style landscaping
Desert-style front gardens, with large cacti, agaves, golden barrels and expanses of gravel or river stone, have become a popular answer to the question of how to make a front yard easy. It’s true that these gardens need very little water or attention. But they can look incredibly stark, particularly against a white or cream house. Rather than softening the architecture, they tend to sharpen it.
It reminds me of the yucca craze years ago, when spiky yuccas seemed to appear in every second front yard. They felt modern at the time. Before long, they were the first thing new owners wanted removed.
Layered planting lasts
What I’d much rather see is layered planting. A mix of ornamental grasses, soft-leaved shrubs, groundcovers and a feature tree or two creates depth and movement. It changes with the seasons, it grounds the house, and it makes a home feel lived in.
You can still choose hardy, drought-tolerant plants. Many native grasses and silvery shrubs suit our climate beautifully and ask for very little. The difference is in the arrangement. Height, texture and softness matter far more than any single statement plant.
Landscaping is often the last thing considered on a build, yet it’s the frame for the entire façade. It deserves the same thought as the render colour or the front door.
What tends to stand the test of time
After three decades of looking closely at houses, I’ve noticed the façades that age well share a few qualities:
- proportions that feel balanced from the street
- a restrained palette of three to four materials, with clear contrast between them
- details that do a job, rather than simply decorate
- planting that softens the architecture instead of competing with it
None of these belong to a particular year, and that’s exactly why they work.
It’s also why I put so much care into a full façade design plan for my clients who are building new or renovating, before anything is built. When colours, materials, proportions and landscaping are worked through together on paper, it’s much easier to see whether a feature genuinely suits the house or is simply of the moment. That plan sits alongside the work of your architect and builder, so everyone has a clear picture of the finished exterior before construction begins.
Changing a drawing is easy. Changing a finished façade is not.
Before you commit to a look
Exterior design trends can be fun to borrow from. The trick is knowing where to use them. If you’re planning a new build or renovation and want to feel confident your home’s exterior will still look right long after these trends have passed, I’d love to help. You’re welcome to book a complimentary consultation, and we can talk through your home, what you love about it and what’s most likely to last.
Jane
This beachside home in Curl Curl, NSW was one of those houses that wore their decade like a name badge, but its 90s house facade makeover is a good example of how much can change without touching the roofline. Three storeys of orange face brick, ornate metal balustrades and pale cream window frames.
It’s something I see a lot of. Many dated homes don’t need major structural work. They need someone to pinpoint the details tying them to their era, then replace those details with choices that will still feel right in twenty years.
✨ Designed by The Facade Design Co ✨
Inside This 90s House Facade Makeover
The owners wanted a modern look, and they wanted to add an ensuite by enclosing part of the lower balcony. The roofline and structure would stay as they were, with the new room built within the existing footprint.
My biggest challenge was the height of the building. With brick running from the garage to the eaves, the house read as one tall wall. I broke it into three clear layers, with a charcoal frame around the top level and soft white render wrapping the floors below. That single move gave the house proportion and depth.
The ensuite needed careful thought too. Bathroom windows facing the street are never ideal, so I placed a timber-look battened screen across the enclosed section which gives the owners privacy and filters the light, and from the street it reads as a design feature rather than an addition.
Because the owners were working within an existing structure, everything was resolved in a detailed Facade Design Plan before work began. They and their builder knew exactly what was being built, which takes a great deal of stress out of a renovation.
The result feels calm, settled and right for its coastal setting. For me, that’s what a good 90s house facade makeover should do. You’ll find more before and after projects in my portfolio.
Signs Your Facade Is Stuck in the 90s (and What to Do Instead)
Most homes from this decade share a handful of tell-tale details. Here are the ones I see most often, and what I’d do about each.
Pale aluminium windows with colonial bars
Cream frames tend to look chalky now, and lots of little glazing bars make windows feel busy. If you’re replacing windows, choose a darker frame in black, charcoal or white with uninterrupted glass. If they’re staying, check whether the bars are clip-in and can be removed and/or have them sprayed in a modern colour.
Face brick from top to bottom
Red, orange, salmon or mottled brown brick, often with contrasting mortar that highlights every joint. Render will give brick a fresh start. You don’t always need to cover every wall with render, though. Add in cladding, timber look battens or feature stone for extra interest.
Orange terracotta or brown concrete roof tiles
The roof is often the largest surface you see from the street. Tiles can usually be restored and recoated in a deeper neutral, and if replacement is due, Colorbond in a considered colour opens up a more contemporary look.
Federation revival details
Decorative gables, finials, turned posts, fretwork and bullnose verandahs in heritage green, cream or burgundy. I mean revival details on newer homes here, not genuine Federation houses, which deserve to be restored. Remove the ornamental add-ons, swap turned posts for square ones and replace curved verandah roofs with a simple skillion or flat awning.
Heritage trim colours
Deep green, burgundy, cream, dusty blue and heritage red outlining every edge. A tonal palette works far better today, with trims that match the walls or quietly recede. Let materials carry the interest instead. I’ve written more about choosing exterior colours if you’d like a starting point.
Stained timber doors with leadlight
Moulded panels and leadlight date a home almost instantly. A simpler door makes a much stronger statement, whether that’s flush timber, vertical grooves, slim glass strips or a solid colour. If there’s room, go wider or taller.
Lattice, roller doors and coach lights
Three small details that add up quickly. Replace lattice with horizontal or vertical battens, swap roller garage doors for a sectional door in a timber look or the wall colour, and trade lantern-style coach lights for slim wall lights and soffit downlights.
Patterned concrete, paling fences and curved garden beds
The garden and boundary matter as much as the house. Exposed aggregate or honed concrete suits a modern home far better than stencilled patterns. Treat the fence as part of the facade, and replace curved, brick-edged beds of palms and yuccas with straight rendered planters and fewer plant varieties repeated in groups. It’s all part of the whole street view.
Before You Change Anything
A dated facade is rarely one big problem. It’s usually a collection of small details pointing back to the same decade. The homeowners who get the best results:
- look at the whole house before changing any one element
- remove era-specific details before adding new ones
- repeat a few materials rather than introducing many
- plan everything before the first trade arrives
That last point matters most. Decisions made on site, one at a time, rarely add up to a cohesive result.
If Your Home Feels Stuck in Another Decade
If a few of these signs sound familiar and you’re not sure where to begin, I’d love to help. You can book a complimentary consultation with me here at The Façade Design Co. (formerly Hotspace Consultants – currently rebranding so forgive some inconsistencies as we roll out the new look!), and together we’ll work out which changes will make the biggest difference to your home before you commit to anything.
Jane
By the time most people building a new home get to the exterior, they’re pretty much running on fumes. The floor plan has been through countless revisions, the kitchen has been debated for weeks, and the façade gets whatever energy is left.
I’ve spent 30 years in the design world and close to a decade designing nothing but façades, and I see the same five things squeezed out of new builds again and again. They’re the ones I’d hold onto in any project, because they decide whether a house feels thoughtfully put together or just finished.
✨ Designed by The Facade Design Co ✨
Why these details slip through
The architects and building designers I work alongside carry an enormous load. Planning, structure, orientation, council requirements and the way a family will live inside the home all sit on their desk, and that’s a lot to get right.
The finer exterior decisions often land in the space between their drawings and the builder’s schedule. Which stone, exactly where. Which lights, at what size. How the fence relates to the cladding. Nobody has dropped the ball. These details simply belong to a different stage of thinking, and that’s usually where I come in.
1. Stone cladding, used with restraint
Natural stone brings something no other material can. It has weight, texture and a variation in colour that changes through the day. Used well, it makes a house feel grounded and permanent. If it’s used too generously, though, it does the opposite. I’ve seen beautiful stone spread across so many surfaces that it loses all its impact and the house starts to feel heavy.
For me, placement matters far more than the product. I’ll usually give stone one clear job. That might be a single feature wall framing the entrance, a strong vertical element that breaks up a long frontage, or a low base that anchors the house to the ground.
I also look closely at how the stone relates to everything around it. The roof colour, the render, the window frames and any secondary cladding all need to sit comfortably beside it. When I’m combining cladding tones with intention, stone is often the element I build the rest of the palette around.
Enough to add interest and texture, but never so much that it competes with itself.
2. Lighting chosen like jewellery
Exterior lighting is one of the most underrated parts of new home exterior design. It’s often decided late, picked from a standard list and installed wherever the electrician finds convenient.
I treat light fixtures the way I’d treat jewellery on an outfit. During the day they add style, finish and personality to the façade. At night they create mood and make the house feel welcoming from the street.
The layers I think about on almost every home are:
- Wall lights that frame the front door or garage and are scaled to be read from the street
- Eave lights that wash gently down the walls or garage door and show off texture like stone or battens
- A pendant at the entrance, which instantly signals where you’re meant to go
- Garden lights that pick out trees, plants and the path without flooding the yard
One observation I’d share with anyone building: exterior wall lights almost always need to be larger than people expect. A fixture that looks generous in a showroom can look like a postage stamp on a two-storey wall.
And like good jewellery, less is usually more. A few well-chosen pieces placed with purpose will always look more refined than a scattering of lights everywhere.
3. A front entrance that’s clearly the hero
Your front door should never have to compete for attention. On a lot of new builds it does, usually with a double garage that takes up a huge share of the frontage.
When I design a façade, I decide early that the entrance will lead. From there, everything else is arranged to support it. Wall forms, material changes, the line of the path and the placement of lighting all gently direct the eye towards the door.
There are many ways to give an entrance that presence. A taller or wider door, a recessed porch, a change in material, a lined ceiling overhead or a feature pendant can each do the job. Often it’s a combination, carefully balanced. Getting the door size right is a big part of getting scale and proportion right across the whole façade.
The garage matters here too. I’ll sometimes design the garage door to blend into the surrounding cladding or colour so it recedes, leaving the entrance free to stand out.
I also think about how people actually reach the door. Wide, comfortable paths and well-placed steps are part of designing an entrance that works for every stage of life, and they make the front of the house feel generous rather than squeezed.
4. Fences and a front yard that belong to the house
So many front fences are chosen after handover, when the rest of the money and attention has already gone elsewhere. The result is a fence that has nothing to do with the house behind it.
I much prefer to design the fence, front yard and façade together. That way they read as one considered composition from the street.
Often this means repeating something from the house. A stone pier that echoes a stone feature wall, battens that match the cladding direction, or a colour borrowed from the window frames. These small links tie everything together without anyone quite noticing why it looks right.
I also think about height and openness. A fence that’s too solid can hide the very façade you’ve invested in. One that’s slightly open lets the house be seen while still giving privacy.
Landscaping finishes the picture. Planting softens hard edges, frames the entrance and helps the house settle into its block. It’s worth checking your council’s front fence requirements early too, so the design you love is one you’re allowed to build.
5. A design that’s entirely yours
This is the one I feel most strongly about.
It’s tempting to find a façade you love online, or admire a house down the street, and ask for the same thing. I understand why. But a house that works beautifully on someone else’s block, facing a different direction, under different light and on a different street rarely translates when copied.
If this is your long-term home, it deserves to be designed around you. Your block, your orientation, your climate, your street and the way you live all shape what will work. So do the materials and colours you’re drawn to, not just the ones that happen to be popular this year.
Inspiration is a wonderful starting point. I’d never discourage anyone from collecting images they love. The skill lies in understanding why you love them and translating that into something that suits your own home.
That’s what a complete façade design plan does. It turns the ideas you’ve gathered into clear, buildable decisions made specifically for your house, before construction begins, so nothing is left to guesswork on site.
What I’d take away from all this
If you’re about to build, a few principles will serve you well:
- Make exterior decisions alongside the floor plan rather than after it
- Choose one clear focal point and let everything else support it
- Get your lighting into the electrical plan early, with fixture sizes confirmed
- Design the fence and front yard at the same time as the façade
None of these ideas are dramatic. They’re about care, restraint and making sure every part of the exterior is working towards the same goal. In my experience, that’s what gives a house lasting street appeal. It still looks right ten or twenty years on, long after the latest trends have moved past it.
Thinking about your own build?
If you’re in the planning stages and want a second set of eyes on the exterior before anything is locked in, I’d love to help. You’re welcome to book a complimentary consultation, and we can talk through what your home needs to feel considered and completely your own.
Jane
Over the past decade, white and grey became the go-to palette for Australian homes. Crisp white render, charcoal trims, a grey roof. It was clean and safe, and for a while it felt very current.
Lately, though, I’m hearing the same thing from homeowners again and again. Their house looks fine, but it feels a little cold. And when they show me the façades they’re drawn to now, almost every one is built on warm exterior colour schemes, with earthy neutrals, a touch of stone and some texture.
The good news is that you rarely need to start from scratch to get there. Here I’ll break down what makes those warmer façades work, and how I’d adapt that inspiration to an existing white and grey home in a realistic way.
✨ Designed by The Facade Design Co ✨
Why white and grey can start to feel flat
There’s nothing wrong with a white and grey house exterior. It’s a solid base. The trouble is that cool whites and greys can read as quite stark under our strong Australian light, especially on larger, simpler forms. Without texture or variation, the whole façade flattens out into one plane.
What people respond to in the homes they admire is usually a combination of elements working together. When I look at warmer façades I’ve designed, or ones a client has saved (on Pinterest etc), I find four ingredients doing most of the work.
Breaking down the inspiration
Warm exterior colour schemes that are still neutral
Colour is always where I start. The façades people love right now aren’t bold. They’re still neutral, but the undertones have shifted.
Instead of cool, blue-based greys and bright whites, you’ll see warm whites, soft creams, mushroom and stone tones, and deeper earthy shades for accents. They feel more inviting from the street because they respond better to natural light, picking up warmth in the morning and late afternoon rather than looking clinical at midday.
On an existing white and grey home, a shift in colour often makes the biggest difference with the least disruption. Repainting render, trims and even the front door can change the whole character of the house.
I always test colours against any fixed elements first: eg the roof, existing brick, pavers, window frames etc. Whatever is staying, the new palette has to work with them.
Feature stone, used with restraint
Look closely at the façades you’ve been saving and you’ll notice there’s usually only a small amount of stone. It might wrap a front pier, frame the entry or sit on a single wall.
That restraint is deliberate. A little stone adds weight and a grounded, natural feel. Too much and the house starts to look heavy, or the stone stops feeling special.
I also prefer stone that doesn’t create a strong contrast with the rest of the house. A stone in tones that relate to your new paint colours will sit comfortably. A high-contrast stone against white render tends to look added on rather than designed in.
Texture through cladding
The third element is texture, which usually comes through cladding in smaller quantities. This is what stops a rendered façade from reading as one flat surface.
There are a few ways to approach it:
- Vertical cladding adds height and works well to give the optical illusion of a home appearing taller
- Horizontal cladding can feel more relaxed and visually lengthen a home
- A colour close to your main house colour lets the texture do the work quietly
- A contrasting timber-look finish brings instant warmth and pairs well with an earthy palette
Where you place cladding matters as much as which profile you choose. I look for the parts of the house that deserve emphasis, and the large walls that benefit from a change of material.
Lighting at the right scale
Lighting is the last item on this list, and the one people most often underestimate.
The most common issue I see is fittings that are too small for the façade. A tiny wall light on a tall wall looks a bit dinky and lost. Lights should relate to the wall they sit on, the height of the door and the overall size of the house.
I also encourage clients to treat lighting as part of the daytime design as well as the night-time effect. Black or dark bronze fittings in a considered shape add a layer of character even when they’re switched off. They finish the house, a little like jewellery, rather than disappearing into it.
Bringing it together on your own home
The real skill lies in balancing these elements against what you already have. Some white and grey homes have great bones and simply need warmth. Others have competing materials that need simplifying before anything new is added.
Warm exterior colour schemes, stone, cladding and lighting all need to be considered together. I’ve seen homeowners choose a lovely stone, a beautiful cladding and a warm paint colour separately, only to find they don’t quite sit well together once they’re on the house.
When I prepare a Façade Design Plan for a client, every colour, material and fitting is chosen in relation to everything else, and to the parts of the home that won’t change. The decisions are made with confidence before anyone arrives on site, and your builder or painter has clear direction to work from.
What to keep in mind
If you’re starting to think about your own home, these are the observations I’d share:
- Start with colour, and test it against any fixed elements in natural light
- Use stone sparingly, in tones that relate to your palette
- Place cladding where it adds emphasis or breaks up large, flat walls
- Choose lighting that suits the scale of your façade and looks good by day
Most of all, see your white and grey house as a starting point rather than a problem. It’s a calm, neutral canvas. With some warmth, texture and layering, warm exterior colour schemes can make it feel far more personal and welcoming without losing its simplicity.
When you’d like a second pair of eyes
If you’re looking at your home and not sure which of these changes would make the most difference, I’d be glad to help. You’re welcome to book a complimentary consultation, or send me an email to the address below and we can talk through the possibilities for your façade before you commit to any paint, stone or cladding.
📧 jane@hotspaceconsultants.com
Pinterest is a brilliant place to start when you’re planning a renovation or new build. The problem usually isn’t finding inspiration. It’s working out what to do with all of it.
You might have saved a contemporary home with dark cladding, another with beautiful stonework, one with vertical timber battens and another with an entrance you absolutely love. Individually, you know you like them – but when you look at your own home or your building plans, it can be difficult to imagine how those ideas could actually work together. And that’s where facade design comes in.
✨ Designed by The Facade Design Co ✨
Your inspiration doesn’t need to look like your house
One of the things I often tell clients is that my designs aren’t entirely my ideas – at least, not to begin with.
My starting point is you.
Clients generally come to me with photographs of their existing home or plans for their new build, along with a collection of inspiration images they’ve gathered from Pinterest, Instagram, magazines or homes they’ve seen.
And those inspiration images can be completely different from their own house.
You don’t need to find a photograph of a house that looks exactly like yours. What matters is understanding what it is about those images that you’re responding to.
I’m looking for the common threads
When I look through a client’s Pinterest board, I’m not searching for one house that we can copy.
In fact, copying another facade onto a completely different house rarely works.
Instead, I’m looking for the common threads running through the images.
Are you repeatedly saving houses with dark exteriors? Do you love vertical timber? Is there always natural stone somewhere? Are the rooflines strong and contemporary? Do you gravitate towards warm, earthy materials rather than crisp black and white?
Sometimes clients don’t even realise they’re repeatedly choosing the same things until we look at their inspiration as a whole.
That collection starts to tell me what their personal design language is.
From Pinterest board to actual facade
The project above is a great example.
My clients already had their house designed by a local building designer. They were happy with the overall plans, but they weren’t 100% sure about the exterior and wanted help finessing the facade.
So we started with their inspiration images. There were some very clear themes: dark contemporary finishes, strong architectural forms, vertical timber detailing, black elements and natural texture.
The challenge wasn’t to choose which Pinterest house we liked best. It was to work out how we could take those individual ideas and make them work with the architecture that had already been designed.
A facade shouldn’t be a collection of ideas
One of the biggest mistakes you can make when designing an exterior is trying to include everything you like.
You love stone, so you add stone. You love timber battens, so they go in too. You’ve saved a black house, so perhaps something needs to be black. Then there’s a beautiful garage door you saw, an entrance from another house and a cladding profile from somewhere else.
Before long, the exterior can start to feel like a collection of separate ideas rather than one resolved design.
The designer’s role is to decide what to use, what not to use, where to use it and how much of it is enough.
That’s where proportion, scale, balance, repetition and material placement become so important.
Your inspiration needs to work with your architecture
This is also why two clients could give me very similar Pinterest boards and end up with completely different facade designs.
The inspiration might be the same, but the houses aren’t.
The existing roofline, windows, entry, garage, building proportions and surrounding landscape all influence where and how those ideas can be introduced.
If you’re renovating, there is also the question of what should stay and what is worth changing.
Good facade design isn’t about fighting against the existing architecture to make it resemble an inspiration photo.
It’s about finding a way to translate the feeling and elements you love into something that belongs on your particular home.
The finished facade should still feel like you
I don’t want every house I design to look the same. In fact, I’d be concerned if they did.
My personal style shouldn’t be imposed on every client. My role as a designer is to understand your style, recognise what you’re responding to in your inspiration, and then use my design experience to interpret and refine those ideas.
The result should be a home that feels cohesive and considered – but, most importantly, still feels like yours.
So if you have 100 Pinterest images saved and you’re wondering how on earth you’re supposed to turn them into your home, don’t worry.
You don’t need to find the perfect inspiration image. You just need to understand why you love the ones you’ve already saved.
And sometimes, that’s exactly where you need a designer.
Need help turning your inspiration into your dream home exterior?
If you’re renovating, extending or building a custom new home and you’re struggling to bring all your exterior ideas together, The Facade Design Co. works with homeowners Australia-wide to create a cohesive facade design tailored specifically to their home.
Send through an enquiry and let’s have a look at what you’ve been saving.
Jane
📧 jane@hotspaceconsultants.com
Most people who come to me about outdoor living design arrive with three decisions already half made. The colour of the walls. The paving. The colour of the pool. That’s the mental list, and it feels like a reasonable one, because those are the three things you can actually see in every photo you’ve ever saved.
This project had hundreds of decisions in it. I’m not being dramatic about that number. By the end of the first briefing meeting we’d already worked through more than three, and we were nowhere near finished.
✨ Designed by The Facade Design Co ✨
What we were starting with
The home itself was designed by a very good architect, and it shows. A long, low form with a beautifully handled raked roof over the central living space, generous glazing, and a plan that opens properly to the rear. That’s the hard part, and it was already done well before I came anywhere near it.
What I was looking at when I started was the working render of that design. Grey, untextured, no finishes applied. That’s completely normal at this stage. A render like that exists to show form and massing, not to make the colour and material decisions for the outdoor space. Those decisions were still open, which is exactly why the owners brought me in.
So the pool was drawn as a rectangle parallel to the house, with paving around it and glass fencing. Placeholders, essentially. A sensible starting position waiting on the several hundred smaller calls that turn a footprint into a place you actually want to spend time.
The owners had an ambitious wish list to fit into it. Pool and spa. A separate shaded area next to the pool. Alfresco dining. A barbecue and a pizza oven. A fire pit. And a small soccer pitch for the kids, which had to sit somewhere without turning the yard into a sports field.
The problem with a long wish list
Here’s what makes a list like that difficult, and it isn’t the number of items.
It’s that each one usually comes from a different supplier. The pool builder specifies the pool. The landscaper handles the planting. The cabinetmaker does the outdoor kitchen. The fencing contractor does the fencing. Every one of them is good at their part, and every one of them brings their own default palette. Left alone, that produces a backyard that reads as five separate projects sitting next to each other, all built to a decent standard, none of them talking to one another.
My job on a project like this is to sit across all of it, so the outdoor space carries the same intent as the architecture rather than drifting away from it. The house was strong. The outdoor area needed to be worth standing in and looking back at it from.
The other challenge was the ground itself. A long, low house with a wide face to the yard needs the landscape to do some work, otherwise the whole thing sits on its slab and stops there.
What outdoor living design actually covers
This is the part I’d most like homeowners to understand, so let me run through it the way it came up.
Pool interior colour. Waterline tile. Coping profile, and whether it’s flush or has a shadow line. Whether the pool has an infinity edge, and if it does, where the water lands and how you reach the plant that runs it. Where the spa sits and whether it’s raised. Paving. Where the paving changes and why. Render colour. Wall detailing. Feature stone, and whether it does a second job as a screen from the neighbours. Built-in planters. What goes in them. The fire pit, and whether you sit around it on loose chairs or built-in seating or both. The cabana. Its roof pitch. Its ceiling lining. The battens on its end wall. Wall lighting. Ceiling lighting, and whether it’s angled so it isn’t in your eyes at dinner. Garden lighting. Fans. Heating. Screening from the western sun. The pizza oven, and where the flue points relative to the breeze. The barbecue bench height. Dining. Bar. Stools. Seating beside the pool. Seating in the pool. Where the towels go, or they end up over the good furniture. And where a soccer ball is going to end up when someone misses.
That’s not even half of it. Every one of those is a chance to get it slightly wrong, and they compound. Get four of them slightly wrong and the space feels off in a way most people can’t quite name. They just don’t use it as much as they thought they would.
How it sits now
What I like most about the finished design is that it doesn’t announce itself. There’s a lot happening, but the palette is tight enough that it reads as one place rather than a collection of features, and it sits comfortably alongside the architecture rather than competing with it.
It also works on a Tuesday. Large outdoor spaces are usually designed for the twenty-person Christmas gathering, and then they feel cavernous the other three hundred and sixty days. The fire pit terrace, the cabana and the planted edges give this one enough enclosure that two people with a coffee don’t feel like they’re standing in a car park.
In ten years the planting will have thickened, the stone will have settled, and none of it will look like it belongs to a particular season. That’s the aim.
If you’re planning your own
A few things worth carrying into your own project:
- A good architect gives you a good building. What sits around it is a separate design problem, and it’s worth treating it as one.
- Decide the things you can’t retrofit first. Services to the cabana, gas to the pizza oven, conduit under paving for lighting, drainage falls and where the pool plant lives. All simple before the concrete goes down and difficult afterwards.
- Choose one or two hero materials and repeat them. Restraint is what makes a large outdoor area feel considered rather than busy.
- Think about level changes early. They do more for the feel of a yard than any single feature you can buy.
- Design for the ordinary evening, not the party.
The reason we work all of this out on paper first is that outdoor living design is cumulative. No single choice sinks a project. Twenty unconsidered ones will, and by the time you can see it happening, the paving is already down and the trades have moved on.
Before you start digging
If you’re at the point where you’ve got a wish list, a block, and no clear sense of what order any of it should happen in, that’s the moment worth talking. A conversation early on saves a lot of reworking later, and it’s usually far more interesting than people expect.
You’re welcome to book a complimentary consultation with me and we’ll talk through what your outdoor space could actually become.
Jane
📧 jane@hotspaceconsultants.com
🌐 https://hotspaceconsultants.com/preliminary-enquiry/
