Outdoor Lounge: How One Piece Can Pull Your Patio Decor Together

by Lory @ Designthusiasm

$400

4 Hours

Medium

Want to create an outdoor lounge at home? Here’s how one single piece can pull your entire patio decor together, creating a cohesive outdoor room.

outdoor lounge how one piece can pull your patio decor together

I’ve wanted a proper outdoor lounge space for as long as I can remember.

Not a dining table and umbrella or a few basic lounge chairs. Not a smattering of mismatched chairs facing in various different directions. Not an assortment of disparate planters that look like leftovers from all our past homes.

I wanted a cohesive designed patio space that looked distinctly like an outdoor room.

For some reason this goal has been elusive to me until now. In our old home we never finished fixing the patio so the decor wasn’t even a thought.

But since moving to our new home, I’ve had a few attempts at decorating the space. I started with some key neutral furniture pieces that would function for our needs. I attempted to add color with pillows but the result was underwhelming and never made the right impact.

I tried several styled displays which were lovely for the given moment (and are linked at the bottom of this post if you’d like a peek) but were temporary for a day of entertaining and were never meant to be permanent decor.

I wasn’t quite sure what was missing to pull the elements together and make a bold statement that this was indeed a “room”.

But then I found it…

The answer was, of course, so simple and something I’ve been meaning to get all along. What my space really needed was a beautiful outdoor rug!

I had decided on a blue and white color palette when I bought that first grouping of pillows. But the pillows didn’t go far enough in defining the look and I was afraid to commit to the color. Were they too royal a blue? Should I have gone for a darker navy?

Had I bought the planters right away, I likely would’ve completed the space two years ago. But instead I waffled back and forth and tried a variety of different things. Finally this year I decided to commit and as soon I saw the planters, I knew the original pillows would be workable.

With a blue and white chinoiserie patio, I stay neutral with my serving pieces, favoring whites or gold and silver.

Florals are easy in blues or even touches of lilac.

And to add a note of complexity I added a few new patterned pillows this year. The chinoiserie pattern above and the tonal floral below.

The blue and white planters I filled with white petunias and I love the way they drape over the side. I wanted to stay very classic and ensure the flowers enhanced the vessel.

The tiny blue planter on the coffee table is a vintage piece I found online and the touch of little purple flowers adds just enough color without clashing.

But in the end what really makes this a room is the gorgeous outdoor rug that perfectly captures the mood I was going for. Finally the pillows have their raison d’être, and everything blends as cohesively as it would if it was designed for an indoor space.

I’m now committed to this color palette but I think I can live with that for a while. An outdoor rug is not as expensive as a sectional so it wouldn’t be impossible to have a small collection of rugs and pillows to change out from year to year.

But for this year, I’m delighted with my blue and white outdoor lounge…