The addition of a patio cover of some sort can allow you to enjoy your patio and outdoor entertaining area, no matter what the season or the weather brings to your California home.
Home Awning Tips Perfect All Year Round
Whether you already have a patio cover for your home or you are considering purchasing one, you can make several additions to your outdoor oasis so that it can be used all year round. Your outdoor spaces are an extension of your home and they should be just as inviting and comforting as the indoor areas of your home.
Benefits of Adding Awnings To Your Home
When you add an awning to your home over a patio or outdoor space, you increase your living space by quite a bit of square footage. You have a few choices of materials in the main types of fabric or metal awnings. Metal awnings are stationary and may attach to your home as well as having support legs to hold it up in bad weather.
Fabric awnings are usually retractable so you can open and close them as you wish. You can block out the bright sunlight or retract it when you want to soak up a few rays of sunlight. Take note that you do need to close a fabric retractable awning either by hand or by automation with a motorized version in high winds and strong rain to keep it from possibly twisting the frame or tearing the fabric itself.
If you plan on having any type of heat or cooking source under your awning, you should opt for the metal stationary type, because a heat source can catch a fabric awning on fire.
Awnings also shade your large patio windows and sliding glass doors from the sun and harmful UV rays to give you an energy-efficient home. An awning can lower the temperature under it by up to 20 degrees in the summer, keeping you calm, cool, and collected. The shade underneath them also protects all of your outdoor furnishings, such as furniture and tables.
Tips to Season Proof Your Awnings
You have many different choices in products to make your outdoor covered patio useable and comfortable all year round.
Outdoor Furniture
Premium outdoor furniture can include powder-coated metals, such as aluminum, steel, or wrought iron, treated wood, such as teak, eucalyptus, and cedar, built-in weatherproof seating, or synthetic resin. You do need to make certain that the furniture is stated as being outdoor furniture to hold up to blowing rain that may wet them repeatedly and UV rays if you have a retractable awning. The fabric cushions made for comfort and beauty should be made from Sunbrella fabrics, the leader on the market for UV protection, sturdiness, and color retention. Built-in seating is especially nice to curl up on a couch with removable cushions and have storage underneath the seats to store the cushions when they are not in use to make them even longer-lasting products.
Light up the Nights
No outdoor area is complete without lighting. You can choose twinkling fairy lights for mood lighting or special LED lights that are made to clip onto your awning. LED lights are bright so you can even see to use your phone or tablet as well as making your patio a safe area to walk and entertain guests. If you choose to go with traditional lighting you may need additional electrical wiring for outdoor receptacles.
Entertainment
You can also add several types of entertainment to your outdoor oasis. There are outdoor televisions, pool tables, and ping pong tables that withstand humid conditions. This will enable you to have an outdoor movie night or a gathering to watch the big ballgame. You can also have a game night and play board games or beer pong with your friends and family.
Add a Grill or Outdoor Kitchen
You can add a grill, pizza oven, or outdoor kitchen under a metal awning at your home. This allows you to make some delicious food no matter what the weather is for all to enjoy. You can make BBQ all year round or some tasty burgers and hot dogs. You can fire up the pizza oven and let it be a pizza party in which everyone makes their own personal size pizza complete with all of their favorite toppings. If it’s in the fall or winter and chilly outside, you can make a delicious soup or stew to warm everyone up. If you have a fabric awning you can place a grill or outdoor kitchen several feet away from the covered patio.
Warm up the Winter
It tends to get a bit chilly in winter and you can add instant warmth with a fire pit under a metal awning. If you have a fabric awing, you can install a fire pit with seating several feet away from the patio for a warming station. You may alternately use an outdoor radiant floor heater under your fabric awning. Fire pits also lend themselves to entertainment in the form of roasting hot dogs, marshmallows or making s’mores.
Making it Cozy
Add the comforts of home on your patio by adding the comforts that you enjoy inside your home when it’s cool outside. Add pillows, soft and fuzzy throws, and blankets to the backs of chairs or couches so anyone that’s a bit cool can snuggle up in them. An outdoor rug by the seating area is also a very nice touch to make your space cozy and inviting.
Going Green
Another nice and homey touch is to grow seasonal flowers, vegetables, and herbs on your covered patio. When cooking outdoors, you can have your favorite herbs to pick fresh and add to dishes for flavor or use them for garnishes for drinks.
Adding Privacy
You can add privacy with sidewalls on an awning or a custom drop shade. When it’s cool outside the walls will keep your heat source operating smoothly under your awning and when it’s summer, it will give you extra protection as a solid wall of shade while giving you complete privacy from your neighbors.
Living Windbreaks
If you live closer to the shore or in any area where you get quite a bit of wind, you can plant fast-growing coniferous trees as a natural and beautiful windbreak. This will work to block the wind all year round and give you the added benefit of reducing the moisture in the air, resulting in less extreme temperatures. Make certain you take note of which direction the wind is coming from to make your windbreak. It can be a medium-sized hedge for some protection of it can be lovely trees that are as tall as skyscrapers, but make certain they won’t interfere with power lines as they grow.
Connecting Your Indoor and Outdoor Spaces
You normally decorate indoors for holidays and parties. It’s a great idea to also decorate your outdoor space and connect both indoors and outdoors seamlessly. For Halloween, you can have a party with apple-bobbing and pumpkin carving outside on your patio. For a Halloween party, you can hold a costume contest and have areas for selfies with others.
Thanksgiving is a real hit when you can prepare the meals inside and serve all of the food outside on your patio in the cool fresh air.
Make Christmas special by decorating a small living tree or conifer with non-breakable and weatherproof ornaments on your patio. Add Christmas and winter-themed throws and blankets to warm your guests and enjoy warm wassail or apple cider outdoors.
A patio with an awning over it can be one of your favorites spots to entertain and relax after you add all the amenities of home and the comfort is extended from inside to outside. This allows you to use this extension of your home all year round and comfortably.
