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Land and Yard—How to Unify Your Home and Garden
Keeping up both your home’s exterior and lawn are essential to creating curb appeal, but your efforts can go to waste if your outdoor spaces don’t blend together in harmony. Many homeowners treat their home and yard as two separate spaces, but uniting them into a cohesive design is a great way to take your property’s aesthetics to the next level. Here are four tips to help unify your home and garden.
Repeat Colors and Shapes
An easy way to tie your exterior design together is to pick up colors and shapes from your home and echo them in your landscaping. For example, use the same slate gray as your roof’s shingles for a stone walkway or paint your mailbox to match your front door. Consider trimming your trees and hedges to match your roofline. Use a triangle shape if you have a sloping roof or squared edges if you have a flat roof.
Photo by Bill Fry Construction
Move Utility Cables Underground
Unsightly power lines and television cables can distract from your curb appeal and break up your exterior layout. Solve this problem by having utility cables buried out of sight beneath the ground. A contractor can bury the cables between the utility connection and your home and use soil grouting to protect them from settling, shifting and groundwater seepage.
Match Materials
Materials are one of the most important elements when it comes to unifying your home and garden. Try to stick with the same materials used in your home when designing your outdoor landscape. A wood siding home looks great surrounded by a picket fence painted to match, while a low masonry wall perfectly complements a stone exterior. If your home is brick, use brick pillars to construct your fence and surround your mailbox.
Photo by deckerbullocksir
Blend Indoor and Outdoor Living Space
Bring the outdoors in and the indoors outside by blurring the lines between your home and yard. A sunroom or screened porch is a great way to invite nature inside without abandoning the comforts of home, or make a second living room outside with a covered deck or patio. Features like large windows, skylights and screen doors also help to blend indoor and outdoor space.
Photo by Western Window Systems
Although unifying your home and garden can make your property look pretty and polished, don’t make it look too perfect. The best home designs are both attractive and livable. Remember to add your family’s personal touches like play spaces for children or pets, eccentric accessories and favorite hobbies.
