California is the most populated state in the country, a place filled with titans of industry, celebrities, and everyday people that define the nation’s taste. It is considered a stylish and on-trend state, from its clothing and art to design. Californians make an outsized impact on the country’s preferences, with what’s popular in the state likely to spread elsewhere.
The California real estate market is flush with some of the country’s most appealing and impeccably designed homes. These homes have immaculate interiors and incredible outdoor spaces that are up-to-date with the outdoor living design trends currently sweeping the nation. Let’s look at four of these California outdoor living trends to keep an eye on.
Fire Pits
While California is known for its great weather, winters are still chilly across much of the state. One backyard design feature that many are implementing to make their home’s outdoor spaces a year-round gathering place is fire pits. Fire pits are a design element that house flames, often with seating surrounding them.
Fire pits are ideal for homeowners that want their backyard to be warm, comfortable, and brightly lit. They are useful throughout the year as a central area in the yard for people to gather and offer an aesthetically pleasing and useful design element for the modern home.
Blended Gardens
Gardens are often built for either utility or aesthetics. Homeowners will typically plant ornamentals, like flowers and shrubbery, or edibles, like tomatoes and herbs. However, blended gardens are a design trend that many homeowners prioritize, giving them the best of both worlds. These are gardens with both edible plants and ornamentals. They look great, and they offer homeowners fresh ingredients.
Blended gardens, or fusion gardens as they are also known, are the latest trend in home landscaping and gardening. Maintaining a blended garden requires a significant amount of work, but the benefits of having a beautiful design that combines with the utility of an edible garden are significant.
Walled Spaces Defining Key Areas
The line between the indoor and the outdoor is blurring. Outdoor spaces are no longer intended to be large open areas; they are like an extension of the home. One thing many homeowners are doing to dictate the spacing of their backyards is implementing walled areas. This will control the flow of the space and how it is used. Many homeowners are creating areas like kitchens or outdoor living rooms and utilizing walls to separate and define these areas. It is also common to wall off areas like pools to create a more private feel.
While these walls shouldn’t be intrusive or break up the space too much, they add an element of privacy to a yard. They separate certain areas from others and create more of a defined region within a yard. To avoid contrasting looks, many homeowners choose to have these walls made from natural materials to blend with the home’s outdoor look.
Outdoor Technology
Just because a yard is outdoors doesn’t mean it has to be devoid of technology. While some homeowners prefer their outdoor spaces to be a haven from technology, others want to implement tech into their backyard. This is all the more viable in a state like California, which has incredible weather throughout the year.
There are many different ways to implement technology into your outdoor living spaces. One thing many homeowners will do is equip their homes with Wi-Fi boosters that give them access to the internet outdoors. This makes the outside a possible working space. Other homeowners will hang projectors and screens in their backyard, taking family movie nights to new levels. Homeowners can also implement new lighting technology into their outdoor spaces to create a new look and feel.
Summary
Californians are often on the cutting edge. That is part of what makes the state so appealing. As the most populated state in America and the home of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, it is one of the centers of American commerce and culture. This positions it uniquely as one of the places that define current trends.
California currently has several major trends playing out in outdoor spaces, including fire pits, blended gardens, walled spaces, and outdoor technology. These current trends are set to define outdoor design across the state and country for the next several years.
