If you intend to host backyard barbecues or relax on weekends, extending your outdoor living space is easily achievable by adding an attractive outdoor kitchen.
With thoughtful planning around elements like cabinetry, countertops, and fixtures, you can seamlessly match the aesthetics of your outdoor cooking area to your existing interior decor. This enables a graceful flow between your indoor and outdoor rooms.
It also creates an entertaining, unified backyard environment that encourages fun for you and your guests. In this article, we’ll share helpful tips you can apply when designing your outdoor kitchen.
10 Essential Tips for Styling an Outdoor Kitchen
Creating an outdoor cooking space that effortlessly complements your interior requires meticulous planning and attention to detail. The following tips will help you build a harmonious outdoor kitchen:
- Consider Materials: Select natural materials like stone, wood, or composite that integrate well with your home’s siding, roofing, and exterior. For example, if your house features wood siding, use wood cabinets and facades in the outdoor kitchen to seamlessly tie the spaces together. Choose materials that can withstand the elements, like pressure-treated lumber, cedar, redwood, and natural stone.
- Play with Color: Identify the prominent interior colors used in your living spaces and incorporate those same hues into your outdoor kitchen’s cabinetry, countertops, or architectural details. Using coordinated, cohesive colors between indoor and outdoor rooms establishes harmony. Paint or stain your cabinets to match interior wood tones.
- Extend Design Details: Reflect indoor details in your outdoor cooking space by adding matching backsplash tiles, sconces, hardware finishes, and other decorative touches. Installing your kitchen backsplash tile outside or adding exterior pendant lights that match your indoor dining fixtures creates a smooth, natural aesthetic flow. Outdoor wall sconces that weather well bring charming accent lighting outside.
- Enable Flow: Incorporate paths, stepping stones, and ample outdoor seating to allow easy circulation between your indoor living areas and outdoor cooking/dining spaces. Avoid creating bottlenecks that disrupt the transition from inside to outside. Lay out your space to make moving between interior rooms and the backyard easy and intuitive.
- Highlight Focal Points: Strategically orient your outdoor kitchen around focal elements like an upscale grill, food prep space, or wet bar area. Not only does this provide an aesthetically pleasing spot for gathering, but it also draws the eye to your most impressive features. Invest in a high-end barbecue grill as your kitchen’s showstopping centerpiece.
- Factor in Lighting: Use exterior lighting fixtures with a style and finish similar to your interior lighting. For instance, if your kitchen boasts black pendant lamps, install matching black pendants over your outdoor counter and dining areas. Consistent lighting strengthens the indoor-outdoor connection. Outdoor recessed lighting and pathway lighting also help extend your interior ambiance outside.
- Link Furnishings: Choose outdoor furniture, counters, and seating options that closely align with your interior decor style and color scheme. Matching or coordinating pieces promotes synergy between indoor and outdoor living. Look for weather-resistant cushions and pillows to echo your interior textiles.
- Add Unifying Structures: Incorporate permanent overhead structures like pergolas, trellises, and porticos that help shelter and link your indoor living rooms and outdoor cooking/dining space. Repeat building materials to create unity. Use compatible outdoor beam materials to build deck and pergola supports.
- Include Overhead Landscaping: Strategically place trees, vines, hanging plants, and shrubs to provide cooling shade similar to an indoor atrium. Not only does this bring the spaces together visually, but it also enhances comfort and ambiance. Outdoor ceiling fans also promote air circulation and comfort.
- Blend Styles: Focus on complementary exterior details and materials that create continuity with your interior without matching everything exactly. The goal is a cohesive yet unique extension of your home’s style. Incorporate eclectic outdoor wall art and decor for personalized flair.
Final Thoughts
By implementing these fundamental tips when designing your outdoor kitchen, you can create an alfresco entertaining space that seamlessly extends your home’s existing style. Every detail contributes to a harmonized flow between indoor and outdoor areas, from complementing building materials to unifying lighting schemes.
Imagine mingling with guests as appetizers are prepped at a spacious countertop grill station. Then they gather intimately around a firepit under string lights as evening sets in, while music plays softly from concealed outdoor speakers. Your outdoor kitchen becomes the centerpiece of enduring backyard memories.
By treating your outdoor area as an extension of your home rather than an afterthought, you’ll create an outdoor kitchen and living space that offers the aesthetics, functionality, and comfort of an indoor room in the open backyard air.