Garden Rooms: Creating Outdoor Living Spaces in Your Backyard

A trendy concept today is "garden rooms"—distinct areas within your yard for eating, swimming, napping, or themed gardens like butterfly, zen, or rose gardens. This isn't new. My grandmother had an herb garden, a rock garden (giant rock with tiny plants), formal perennial borders, and areas for napping or drinks. She never heard "garden rooms"; we rarely discussed gardening except when she told me which flowers I could and couldn't pick. But I digress.

The modern garden room mirrors a traditional indoor room: walls, flooring, windows, doors, furniture, and soft furnishings.

Feature	Inside	Outside
Floor	Rug, tile, hardwood	Lawn, gravel, groundcover, mulch, sand, tile, flagstone, stone
Wall	Wallpaper, paint	Tree trunks, screens, vines, lattice, hedges, woven bamboo, bushes, fence
Ceiling	Crown molding, pressed tin	Canopy of tree branches, vine-covered pergola
Window	Curtains, valance, shutters, shades	View to another garden area
Doorway	Doorknob, door, molding	Passageway to another area, gate
Hall	Interior hall, balcony	Path, walkway, road, steps, track
Furniture	Chairs, tables, footstools, sofas	Same, plus benches; visually use shrubs
Decoration	Pictures, lamps	Sculpture, garden art, wind chimes, butterflies, birds, flowers
Extras	Pillows, linens	Pillows, cushions, gardening gloves, tools

An important design element: you shouldn't see the whole garden at once. Unless you have Versailles-scale space, discovering the garden bit by bit is more enjoyable. That's part of garden rooms' appeal—they conceal areas from each other, creating intimacy. They also expand usable outdoor living space.

Marketing drives the trend too—selling weatherproof furniture, indoor-outdoor rugs, barbecues, and "necessities." But I dream of a homemade garden room from plant material. We haven't rearranged indoor furniture in years—let's rearrange outside! Prune that tree, plant a shrub, and voilà—a hideaway for reading or iced tea!

You needn't wait for poured concrete walls from magazines; a flowering hedge works perfectly. I plan to drape the old swing set with flowering vines as a wall between the dining area (near kitchen) and a sunbathing area (still imaginary). If you have a barbecue/kitchen, that's one room; pool area another. Go for it!

Photos thanks to gabagoo, Dea, and LarryR.