Garden Makeover Ideas That Will Make Your House A Home

Seven garden makeover ideas that will make your house a home

A well designed garden goes a long way towards making a house feel like home. It’s extra living space. It’s a place to relax, to entertain, to chat, to switch off and to feel indulged. These 7 garden makeover ideas are all adapted from interior design touches that you would use indoors to personalise your home and make it feel more welcoming and comfortable.

Build A Spacious Patio

Just about every interior design show involves somebody, somewhere knocking down walls to make the living space bigger. This trend for large communal areas can easily be carried on out into the garden with a generously proportioned patio and/or wide open lawns.

Whenever I’m asked for garden makeover ideas I ask my clients to list all of the ways they hope to use their outdoor spaces.  Relaxing and entertaining are usually top of the list. A good sized patio can have an area with sofas and coffee tables as well as an outdoor cooking dining zone.  Rather like the inside of an open plan home where kitchen, dining area and comfy seating have no barriers between them.

Have A Logical Flow Between Garden Areas

When an architect designs a home they will think about the journey between rooms and/zones.  For example, there’s no sense whatsoever in having the dining area a long way from the kitchen with corridors and corners to negotiate between the two. However, the office might be best positioned well away from the general melee.

Garden design is based on the same principals. Your house will feel less like a home if you have a twisty turney trek across an expanse of mud every time you want to put something in the wheelie bin. 

Any garden makeover ideas need to build in easy ways to journey around the garden. Strategically placed gateways, steps and ramps should be combined with enticing views to encourage garden users to move around the space.

In this garden for example, the planters act as a balustrade to prevent anyone toppling off the decking. But a break in the barrier and a set of sturdy steps make it easy to move from the deck to a path which ultimately leads to the driveway.

Make Room For Privacy

Having talked about the importance of space and how a garden should ‘flow’, I want to mention privacy. All of us need time alone sometimes.  Time to think, study, reflect or just calm down after a stressful day at work.  So it’s good to have some privacy in the garden. Ideally, somewhere that you won’t be disturbed by your housemates, or by nosy neighbours.

Your garden makeover ideas should include an intimate space where anyone can retreat to whenever they need to.

You might want to consider a comfortably furnished summer house that will feel dry and cosy in the worst of weathers.  Perhaps a pergola so that you cannot be seen from any upstairs windows. Or maybe you’ll opt for a sheltered seating area in a quiet corner.  I’ve designed many gardens where the side return of the house, or that spot behind the shed have been repurposed as a retreat.

Garden Lighting

What’s the one thing that we all have indoors but rarely feel the need for in the garden? Lighting. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine how I’d negotiate my way around my home after dark if it weren’t for some kind of illumination.

Our gardens feel far more welcoming if they can be lit up for safety and for comfort.  Being able to cool off on the patio on a summers night once the heat has gone out of the air is a real joy to me. Especially if I’ve been landscaping outdoors all day long.

In winter time, garden lighting seems to keep the darkness at bay and make your house feel more like a home.

Personalise Your Garden With Art

Your home is a reflection of your family’s personality. Photos and nick racks tell the story of your life. It’s comforting to be surrounded with all that beautiful things. It makes a person feel at ease. You can use art in the garden to that same effect. 

Whenever I’m designing and building gardens I try to inject the family’s personality into it too. Perhaps the garden will take on a bit of a boho vibe, or maybe it will have a more contemporary feel with clean lines and minimalist planting. In fact, my garden makeover ideas are often inspired by the interior of  the home.

Art helps the outdoor space to feel more like the interior. It then feels more natural to use the garden for every day activities. Thus you effectively have a larger and arguably more relaxed home.

Manageable Maintenance

If a beautiful garden can make a house feel more like a home, an overgrown jungle of weeds can do just the opposite.  If your garden feels so out of control that it’s imprisoning you within your house, then it’s not doing you any favours.

One of the most important things about a garden makeover is ensuring that the finished product is easy to maintain. You may decide to have a smaller lawn – or no lawn. Perhaps you’ll adopt raised beds so that plants are easier to tend. Or maybe you need to make the entire space more accessible for a wheelchair or mobility aid.  Never be afraid to think outside of the box – your garden should make you happy, not make you more work than you can cope with.

Lovely Scents And Aromas

You know you’re home when your nose picks up those familiar scents of dinner cooking, furniture polish and fabric softener combined. Even if you have lived somewhere long enough to be ‘nose blind’, you’re subconscious brain still registers the smells and releases feel good hormones.

One of the garden makeover ideas that I think helps to make a house feel more like a home, is to use scent in the garden too. Mediterranean herbs, roses, jasmine, freshly cut grass, autumn leaves – they are all wonderful natural scents that our brains associate with contentment and relaxation. 

A waft of perfume will encourage many of us outside to discover its source and that’s when the garden can start working it’s magic on our wellbeing. So please don’t be afraid to add aromatic plants to your list of garden makeover ideas.

I hope that these garden makeover ideas have inspired you to improve and personalise your outdoor spaces. If you’d like some help with garden design and landscaping services, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.