There are lots of surveys that indicate Americans really love their home’s outdoor spaces. Nearly half of the nation’s homeowners use their yards for entertaining, 57 percent use their yards for recreation and more than three quarters just like to relax in their yards on a monthly basis.
Four out of five surveyed homebuyers said a yard is an important feature when choosing a home (full disclosure, the survey was performed on behalf of the National Association of Landscape Professionals).
Most people really like their backyards, which isn’t that big of a surprise.
Indoor-outdoor home modifications don’t always include resodding your lawn or planting more trees, but it may include revamping your patio or adding a backyard kitchen/living area. Many people who invest in thoughtfully designed indoor-outdoor living additions use their outdoor spaces a lot more because their backyard becomes a seamless extension of the indoor spaces they use daily.
Creating a Continuous Living Space
An ideal indoor-outdoor setup should make your patio feel like an organic extension of your living room, dining room, kitchen or bedroom. Design features like flooring, ceiling and lighting fixtures can be closely matched so it feels like one contiguous room rather than two separate areas.
Closely aligned design features combined with the most important indoor-outdoor element – patio doors – can convince the viewer’s subconscious that it’s seeing one big room instead of two separate spaces.
Ideally you want doors that can virtually disappear when they’re open to create a wide, expansive space that eliminates the barriers between your inside room and your outside patio.
This opening is great from a functionality standpoint as well, especially if you’re adding a backyard kitchen or living area.
Two excellent door options for creating this effect are sliding stacing doors and bi-fold accordion doors.
Sliding stacking doors slide on a rail like you’d find with most two-pane sliding glass doors. The rail can be deeper so you may have four or more panes that stack on top of each other as the door slides opens. This minimizes the amount of glass and door frame that’s still visible once the door is completely opened.
Bi-fold accordion doors fold on top of each other like an accordion. When entirely open there’s a very narrow profile of the stacked doors off at the end of the guide rail. Many people are likely familiar with bi-fold style doors because they operate using the same principal as many closet doors; as you pull the door with the handle towards the edge of the track the doors fold left or right until they’re stacked together.
Both bifold stacking and accordion doors are available in a variety of lengths and heights. The taller and wider the bifold or sliding door is along the exterior wall the greater the open space can be achieved once the doors are entirely opened.
The size of individual panes also varies based on the preference of the purchaser. Slimmer panes in stacking doors allow for a smaller footprint when the panes are fully stacked, but larger panes allow for a greater uninterrupted view of the outdoors when the doors are closed.
What you choose is really up to you, although you may want to consider how often you’ll leave your doors closed and which style best balances ease of use and impact to your view of the outdoors.
Indoor-outdoor setups are great in the Seattle area thanks to the beautiful weather we have for much of the year, but they’re also fantastic when things get cold. When you have high-quality energy-efficient doors installed you’ll enjoy great insulation value and lots of natural light. You can experience the same contiguous-room visual effect thanks to crystal clear glass, and you’ll keep the cold air outside where it belongs.
Making the Necessary Modifications for Indoor-Outdoor Living in Seattle
Most homes in Seattle, especially if they’re older, aren’t built with indoor-outdoor features included. Incorporating a wall of windows or large openings for sliding stacking or bi-fold doors will likely require significant modifications between your living room, dining room or kitchen and the outdoor patio you wish to connect.
These modifications aren’t always straightforward since it will require heavily modifying a structurally important exterior wall. You’ll definitely want to work with a window, door and carpentry company that possesses the necessary expertise to safely make indoor-outdoor living modifications without destabilizing your home.
The window and door experts at Procraft Windows provide the safest, highest quality indoor-outdoor home modifications. We’re one of the best Seattle-area contractors for adding new window and door openings and offer a diverse array of customizable sliding and bi-fold doors for flawless indoor-outdoor living modifications.
Call us at 206-361-5121 to schedule a free design consultation or installation estimate.
