When you love to entertain, expanding your home to an outdoor living space makes every occasion more festive. Outdoor celebrations enhance the enjoyment of beautiful natural surroundings and make events feel more spontaneous and memorable. A louvered roof extends the possibilities for your home by providing a protected, stylish space where you can entertain family and friends outdoors day or night, in any season.
What is a Louvered Roof?
Louvered roofs are built with slanted horizontal slats that can be opened and closed to respond to changing weather conditions. The largest single unit is typically 12′ wide by 22′ long. For larger spaces or unique shapes, multiple roofs can be linked together yet operated individually or jointly. Roof louvers can be rotated a full 180 degrees allowing you to customize your outdoor living space to respond to sun, shade, rain, or wind. When rain arrives, louvers in the closed position form rain channels that fill, go over the lip, and flow onto the ground.
How Louvered Roofs Enhance Your Space
With a thoughtfully designed louvered roof for your outdoor living space, the separation between inside and outside disappears. Fresh air and natural light flow into your home with a seamless connection to natural surroundings. You can easily enjoy your surroundings in comfort and privacy and adapt to any season and any weather.
Other Ways to Expand Your Home
The more planning you do before you select professionals to help you expand your home into outdoor living, the smoother the process and the more satisfying the result. Consider all the practical elements you will want as well as dream additions such as a pool or an outdoor kitchen. Lifestyle questions are essential when you’re thinking about how you’d like to enhance your outdoor space and emphasize indoor/outdoor living. Are your events usually an intimate group gathering? Do you like to invite a friendly crowd over to watch sports on TV? Is a pool party your favorite way to have fun? A professional designer helps you select the elements that will work best for how you entertain, from kitchens and BBQs to pools and seating areas. A louvered roof can be expertly integrated with your design to provide a stunning focal point and an exciting hub for your backyard retreat.
Easy navigation between your interior and exterior is essential when you entertain outdoors. And, while you’ll want a distinct look for your outdoor space, it’s important that it relates visually with your interior. Louvered roofs are an impressive architectural addition to your home and dramatically define your outdoor living space. They can be custom designed with a myriad of colors and materials to balance with the overall look of your home, from traditional to ultra-modern.
Heating and Lighting Add Comfort and Shimmer to Outdoor Entertaining at Night
No matter what part of the country you live in, the evening hours typically bring a cooler temperature. There are many creative and appealing options to keep you and your guests comfortable as the weather changes. A fireplace or fire pit is a dramatic choice that establishes an amazing focal point. You can also select from innovative gas heaters that can be seamlessly mounted onto your louvered roof for discrete, safe, and durable heating with modern style.
Thoughtfully planned lighting is essential when you’re entertaining during the evening outside. Lighting can be designed with a smart system you can easily control as the sun sets and the stars arrive. Wall sconces offer flexible illumination of overall space and help to delineate one area from another. Uplighting elements define architectural details. Artfully placed lighting emphasizes the texture of design and materials. Outdoor kitchens and eating areas require levels of task lighting to ensure safety and comfort. Louvered roofs with an integrated LED lighting system skillfully illuminate your entire outdoor living space and can also be modified to create a colorful “party” mode in red, blue or green.
Create an Outdoor Kitchen
A welcoming outdoor kitchen makes entertaining more colorful and relaxing. Integrating your indoor and outdoor kitchens allows for appealing entertaining in any season. Think of your outdoor space as an extension of your home with easy flow and visual harmony. The space allowed for your outdoor kitchen starts with determining the size of your grill and the selection of any other appliances you want to include, from storage to wine refrigerators. Consider how you entertain and your typical group size to plan for a possible bar area and flexible seating. Determine the size of your grill and other tools you may elect to include in your outdoor kitchen area based on how often you entertain and the size of your typical party. You may want to include a bar area in addition to generous and diverse seating areas.
Tips for Outdoor Entertaining
When you plan with different types of weather in mind, you can get maximum enjoyment from your space. Accommodate for sun and shade and for day and night enjoyment by integrating elements such as a louvered roof, retractable shades, heat and lighting, or fireplaces and fire pits. Other party tips:
- Clean up inside and out. Make sure the outdoor surfaces are mowed or raked and free of clutter.
- Don’t forget the inside spaces your guests will use, from powder rooms to living rooms.
- Choose a music play list that adds atmosphere without overwhelming conversation.
- Prep your grill early for BBQ parties and make sure you have enough charcoal or gas.
- Have some fun with yard games! Frisbee, croquet, badminton or bocce are some favorites.
Indoor/outdoor entertaining transforms the way you feel about your home. There’s something about being outside that makes it easier to put down our phones and engage with each other and the beauty around us. Welcoming guests into an expansive space that embraces nature in a stunning design will create memories for a lifetime.
