Transformative Homes with Mitchell Thompson Interiors

Outdoor Living: Extending Your Home's Beauty and Comfort

• Roy & Diane Mitchell • Episode 15

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 How Do You Upgrade Your Space To Enjoy Outdoors?

Ever dreamed of transforming your backyard into a space so inviting you'd rather stay home than go on vacation? Roy and Diane Mitchell, the creative duo behind Mitchell Thompson Interiors with over 50 years of combined expertise, reveal exactly how to achieve this luxury in your own home.

The Mitchells dive deep into the art of bringing the indoors out, starting with the critical planning stages that many homeowners unfortunately overlook. Before laying a single stone or building a deck, they emphasize creating a comprehensive vision that includes seating arrangements, lighting plans, water features, and landscaping details. This strategic approach prevents costly mistakes and ensures your outdoor space functions as beautifully as it looks.

What truly sets this conversation apart are the revelations about recent advancements in outdoor living. Did you know today's outdoor furniture can closely mimic indoor upholstered pieces, with slip-covered sofas featuring antimicrobial, quick-draining fabrics? Or that a harmonious design flow between indoor and outdoor spaces creates a psychological sense of expansiveness in your home? The Mitchells share a breathtaking project featuring a combination fireplace-fountain that paired fire and water elements to completely transform an ordinary backyard into an extraordinary entertainment space.

Ready to create outdoor spaces that truly reflect your unique dreams? Schedule your complimentary 30-minute discovery call with Roy and Diane today and take the first step toward a home that embraces both indoors and out with equal sophistication.

To learn more about Mitchell Thompson Interiors visit:
http://www.MitchellThompsonInteriors.com
Mitchell Thompson Interiors

Speaker 1:

Welcome to Transformative Homes with Mitchell Thompson Interiors. Join hosts Roy and Diane Mitchell, the creative force behind Mitchell Thompson Interiors, who together bring over 50 years of expertise of residential interior design across the US. Are you navigating a major life transition, upsizing or downsizing your home, purchasing a vacation home or redefining your space? You've found the team to guide you so your home truly reflects your unique dreams. Stay tuned and learn how to schedule a complimentary 30-minute discovery call. Let's delve into today's topic.

Speaker 2:

Bring the indoors out. Learn how to create stylish, functional outdoor living spaces that extend to your home's beauty and comfort. Welcome back everyone. I'm Sofia Yvette, co-host slash producer, back in the studio with Roy and Diane Mitchell, owners of Mitchell Thompson Interiors. Roy and Diane, how's it going today?

Speaker 3:

Wonderful.

Speaker 2:

How are you, Sophia? I'm also wonderful and for your listeners today, can you provide some ideas on how to upgrade their space to enjoy the outdoors?

Speaker 4:

Absolutely. You know a lot of people will start with the hardscape, meaning you know you need to add a deck, or you need to add a stone patio surface, or maybe you're laying concrete. You know, one of the biggest mistakes that we see people make is they go into that hardscape without planning the seating groupings, where the lounge chairs are going to be, where they want umbrellas. Lighting has to be incorporated at the very beginning of the process.

Speaker 3:

There's one more Water.

Speaker 4:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 4:

Yep, whether you're doing a little stream, whether you're doing a fountain, whether you're doing a fountain, whether you're doing, you know, a full-on, you know, maybe adding a pool, anything like that well, that in your flower pots you need oh yeah, saving for your for your landscaping yeah, so all the landscape, design your lighting where you're putting the pots.

Speaker 3:

It's number one. Yeah, you have to do those before you start anything else.

Speaker 4:

So you may notice a theme here where, just like when we work inside the home, there has to be a vision, there has to be a complete strategy put together in order to successfully make an outdoor space truly livable for your family. Make an outdoor space truly livable for your family.

Speaker 4:

Now speaking of outdoors and flow how do you create flow between indoor and outdoor design styles? You know one of the things that's happened in the outdoor world in the last probably five years you can literally get a slip covered sofa, so it's all upholstered. It looks almost exactly like an upholstered sofa that would be inside your house, and these fabrics are amazing.

Speaker 3:

Oh, and the other thing is, it's comfortable. You'd want to probably go outside then you would take your nap, take your nap indoors yeah, and they, the cushions are made to drain quickly.

Speaker 4:

The fabrics are anti microbial microbial, yes, stain resistant, water resistant. So there's so much that can be done outdoors that truly now reflects the inside of your home. One of the things, one thing I do want to point out a lot of times we see kind of a maybe it's a more traditional interior and then people will create this modern exterior and I'm not sure we really understand why that happens or the reverse modern, you know, interior. So it is again going back to having the vision it is important to be able to seamlessly walk from your probably indoor living space or master bedroom out to an outdoor space that feels very much like you it's a creative balance.

Speaker 3:

keep creating that even balance, just when you go from the outside indoors or vice versa, and that flow same way with at night, you, you have lighting, you know when your eyes, you know, move around the backyard, you know the trees, how the trees are lit, the shrubs are lit, your pots are lit, just creating a softness, and you maybe have a fireplace going, just creating a home, homey, outdoor, somewhere you just don't want to leave and, matter of fact, you may not want to go on vacation anymore. Yeah.

Speaker 4:

I mean you're really adding. It's not, it's not under, you know, air conditioning or anything, but you're adding rooms to your house. You're adding livable rooms to your home.

Speaker 3:

Well, the other thing is let's talk about the furniture rooms to your home. Well, the other thing is let's talk about the furniture, the furniture. 99% of the time, if you're buying really good outdoor furniture, it has to be made three times better than the indoor furniture because it has to be built to last. The woods are different.

Speaker 4:

The metals are different, the, the fabrics are different, and there's been a lot of advancement in that arena in the last, like I said, about five years now can you describe your favorite number one outdoor transformation you've done recently?

Speaker 3:

you've done recently. Well, we did. We did a combination fireplace fountain. Love that one. Yeah, that was actually my favorite. It fire and water. I wanted to do this and these clients took me up on it, took both of us up on. It was like, yes, and oh my god, it turned out beautiful, having the fire going and water flowing at the same time and looking at the scape where you have the water, waterfall and fire at the same time.

Speaker 4:

What a transformation of that backyard just that one piece yes, yeah that that that project also featured what people call astroturf, basically turf grass rather than real grass, in a quadrant pattern where there was travertine and then a square of grass and travertine. So travertine and the and the astroturf making up a very beautiful carefree surface for that backyard you know it kind of reminded me of that courtyard when we were in london.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely, it was like huh, okay, that's the reason why they took me up on it. Seeing it before most people haven't seen what we imagined in our head and it came mm-hmm, and it worked out it was great yeah.

Speaker 2:

Wow, Now how did that home, the backyard of it, begin before you ever put your magic touch on it?

Speaker 4:

Oh, it was just Bermuda grass and you know spotty Bermuda grass. There was nothing.

Speaker 2:

It sounds like quite a transformation.

Speaker 3:

It was beautiful. And then, you know, the clients had us over for dinner, mm-hmm, and we got to sit out there with the fire, and you know they just they well, they really enjoyed it. We enjoyed it, but we loved how it made them feel Right.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Now what are some creative ways to use lighting in outdoor spaces? I could imagine that's very important.

Speaker 3:

Oh my God. Yeah, cause it's kind of like accentuating your art in your backyard. So you have beautiful trees, you have beautiful shrubs, you know flower pots where you have lighting up, lighting on the pots and creating the color. So you're adding natural art and that's really important and it's really cheap to do that and I don't understand why more people don't do it, because it's so inexpensive to run wire to a box. But you have to have a plan. You have to have a plan.

Speaker 4:

But you have to have a plan.

Speaker 2:

You have to have a plan Now. As always, thank you both for sharing your knowledge about interior and, in this episode's case, outdoor design. Roy and Diane, we'll see you both next time. Have a great rest of your day.

Speaker 3:

You too.

Speaker 4:

See you later, Sophia.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in. That's a wrap on this episode of Transformative Homes. Are you ready to begin the journey toward elevating your home and lifestyle? Visit MitchellThompsonInteriorscom and schedule your complimentary 30-minute discovery. Call Roy and Diane will explore making your vision your reality. Join us for the next episode as we continue discussing elevated lifestyles through the lens of interior design. One unique and exquisite home at a time.