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Formal Type
If designing a room along formal lines, it should be harmonious with its surroundings. For instance, we should not attempt to plan Italian garden effects if our home is of Colonial architecture. Neither should our garden room be so crowded with architectural features and statuary that it seems like a museum. There is a point in landscape planting when good taste demands restraint. It is almost as important to stop when a pleasing effect has been achieved as it is to continue development until the outdoor living room presents a harmonious whole.
When possible, make the formal outdoor room an extension of the house. Level property is often coveted as being likely to save time and effort. Yet less level tracts often have very real charm. Diversity in grade may prove a veritable "open sesame" to beauty. It has, somehow, a magic touch which proves effective in the garden spread below one or whose charm urges one upward. This is the secret of the sunken garden.
Many interesting arrangements are possible for formal outdoor living rooms. When we begin to think about design, attractive schemes have a pleasant way of presenting themselves.
When viewing attractive outdoor living rooms the most effective are those that leave the center plantings free. This determines whether the paths continue through the area or not. In every outdoor living room there should be a focal point -- a point of interest that dominates the scene. Sometimes this point of interest is in the center of the area, sometimes at the end upon the central axis and other times it is located outside of the garden room area at the end of a vista.
With these suggestions for developing the outdoor room along formal or informal lines, it should be easy to select the type most suitable to personal needs and temperament. It is important to picture the outdoor living room as a whole before working out the details. We must adopt this first preliminary scheme. Next is to then work out a general plan of arrangement. With a piece of tracing paper, or any paper through which lines will show, laid over our survey we can now begin to create a rough draft. In studying our plan we will need to adopt some method of indicating shrub plantings, flower plantings, trees, features and other elements. In other words, a system of symbols will make it easier to draw an understandable plan. Refine the plans to your outdoor living room as needed.