How to Begin
Outdoor Living Room Design Planning
The first step in planning and designing your outdoor living room is to make a map or survey by locating upon paper the outlines of your property. At least map the portion on which you expect to develop the garden room. This will give you something definite to work with in visualizing different schemes. Include on this map all buildings, trees, or other existing features that should be considered in making a final landscape plan. In order to show the proper relationship between various features and to accurately show space size available for planting and development, it is necessary to go outside and make actual measurements of the grounds and features.
Take a sheet of cardboard or a notebook and sketch in the features that are to be located. Measure all the buildings and locate important doors, windows, porches and steps for your outdoor living room. Locate the buildings on the lot by measuring to the lot lines, making all measurements at right angles. Trees and smaller objects are located by measuring their distance at right angles from established points, such as the lot line or sides of the house. While out on the grounds, be sure to get all the measurements needed and record them on the sketch.
Next is drawing the measured survey on a sheet of paper at some definite scale. Eight feet to the inch is a convenient scale for small places while sixteen feet to the inch will be found more suitable for large places. Often the use of coordinate or grid paper, found at any art supply store, will facilitate getting measurements properly transferred to paper. This paper is ruled into squares which can be taken as equal to a square foot of property each way. In order to preserve it for future reference, it is advisable to make the survey drawing in ink upon durable paper.
Before any drawing is complete, a visit to an art supply store will repay us huge dividends. Find small sketch board with T-square, triangles, and coordinate paper -- all of which will prove helpful in making plans for your outdoor living room. Such a small board, with just the right paper, can be purchased with very little strain on the outdoor gardening budget.