Looking to add square footage to home? It’s time to look beyond the four walls of your home.

As more and more homeowners choose to remodel their homes, they’re finding additional living space in their own backyards…literally. The concept of a backyard is being redefined from green grass, a small patio with table and chairs to outdoor living spaces that include kitchens and bars, sitting areas and hot tubs. Thanks to advances in outdoor heaters and patio fireplaces, you can even enjoy your outdoor living space all year round whether it’s an extension off your master suite, a second kitchen or an alfresco dining room.

Like your indoor living space, your outdoor living area should be divided into distinct rooms or areas. You’ll want to determine what purpose will each “room” or space will serve and how much square footage should be dedicated to each area. With proper planning and guidance from one of our trained custom installers, you can make the most of your newly found living space. Once you decide what purpose each area will serve, you can then begin the transformation. Beyond pergolas, outdoor furniture and barbecues, there’s a ton of A/V equipment designed to help make the great outdoors feel a little bit more like home.

Outdoor TVs
Home entertainment is as much a part of outdoor living as grills and pools. Flat-panel TVs—including HDTVs—that have been specially treated to withstand elements such as extreme temperatures (hot and cold), dust, humidity and moisture allow you to enjoy your favorite shows and movies outside, whether it’s college football on a Saturday afternoon or family movie night. Some TVs also feature an anti-reflective screen that allows for viewing at any angle, regardless of the sun’s glare, and with a wide variety of available mounting hardware, your outdoor TV can be placed just about anywhere.

Audio Equipment
The same sources available to you inside your home can travel outside, enabling you to listen to everything from your favorite radio station to your favorite tunes on satellite radio, Spotify or Pandora or a party playlist from your MP3 player. With the right equipment and proper placement, you can even create surround sound effect outdoors.

Weather-Resistant Speakers
Weather-resistant speakers are a must for the outdoor living space, too. By installing outdoor speakers under eaves, by the pool, in the landscape design or in a specially designed wall or hutch, you can enjoy your favorite tunes on the patio and in the pool without having to go inside to control the music. Speakers can be flush-mounted into walls, painted to blend with the environment or disguised as rocks or planters to fit into the landscaping design.

Lighting
No living space is complete without lighting and there’s certainly a variety of outdoor lighting options available to help enhance the outdoor living experience with one of the newest and biggest trends being LED lighting. Lighting can be integrated into your design to highlight open areas or pathways as well as draw attention to architectural and/or landscape details. And like outdoor speakers, lighting fixtures can be incorporated as featured elements of your space or camouflaged to blend in. Add a lighting control system to manage your lighting effects all with the touch of a button.

Keep in mind that outdoor entertainment systems have special installation and control requirements due to the harsh conditions in which they operate. Speakers, for instance, don’t have the benefit of walls to reinforce the sound and more may be required to adequately serve an outdoor space than what’s required indoors. We can help you understand the underground cabling, installation and control issues involved and can fashion an outdoor system that’s an extension of a whole-house audio/video system. Customized housings and sealed enclosures to protect electronics, along with carefully positioned TVs and speakers, ensure that your electronics perform to the highest level.

Want to learn more on how you can transform your backyard into an outdoor living space? Contact us today for a consultation.