Jul 13 2006
Imagine relaxing in your living room, pool deck, favorite restaurant or boat as the cool evening breeze softly spins around you; a glance upward revealing a burst of lingering colors beyond imagination as the day wraps up its final show time performance: sunset. All this comfort & beauty from your living room? Sure, if you have followed the large group of consumers and service businesses that have succeeded in creating distinct outdoor rooms that provide the same ambiance as they have indoors.
"What people are looking for is a way to enlarge their homes," says Mark Chapman, the senior designer for Expo Design Centers. "And that's why you're seeing so many great rooms being created for outdoors."
Today, patios and decks are essential extensions of our favorite rooms -- and increasingly adorned with personalized furnishings that need minimal care. "People are decorating their outdoors like they decorate their indoors," said Audrey Solomon, manager of the 4 Seasons Fireplace & Patio store in Blue Bell, Pa., where among the big sellers are outdoor area rugs and floor lamps.
Now there are outdoor art prints on canvas, for example, that you wipe clean with common house cleaners like 409. They just didn't exist a few years ago. Now they can sit out in the rain along side the outdoor rugs and lamps. Outdoor art prints have come a long way, with brilliant colors that won't fade in the sun or mildew in damp conditions.
"Manufacturers recognize that people are spending so much time outdoors that attention must be paid to décor. Bright colors are in, way in; the outdoors require bolder colors as the art print that would overwhelm a living room looks just great outside among all of nature's competition," says Michael Choo CEO PrintVillage, Inc
"It's a blurring of the lines between inside and out," says Joshua Thomas, a spokesman for Target, a company the features about 200 outdoor giclee art prints on canvas in their outdoor section on Target.com. "Sales have increased significantly as people realize that this art can now be displayed outdoors without suffering any damage from the elements," said Dick Stevenson of Island Girl Publishing, the Target.com vendor of the canvas art prints.
Interior designer Josephine Svalle of New York, NY., who created an elegant outdoor room for Su-Yen Choo's Florida home, cheers the fact that, "Art has finally joined the outdoor living space. Art brings refinement and style to the back yard transforming a patio or porch in to an actual outdoor room."
Home decorating for Bob Gerber, owner of a beach house located in Kitty Hawk, used to be frustrating until he discovered the use of outdoor art prints. "Every season I would buy some art of the Outer Banks area to hang around the deck and patio, and at the end of the season, throw it away due to the abuse the climate and young clients had inflicted. When a friend from Florida told me about some canvas prints he kept outside on his beach side patio that did not get affected by the weather, I decided to try them. They worked amazingly well -- no damage from peanut butter fingerprints or from the salt air. And no replacement costs for me this spring."
The trend extends beyond the domestic patio and outdoor living space. High end Boutique Hotels such as the Delano In in South Beach have been experimenting with the outdoor living concept for a few years now but fine art has always been off limits until now. Resorts and restaurants are also finding this new generation of art prints interesting as they explore new concepts in outdoor design. Bloody Mary's, the world famous outdoor restaurant on the lagoon of Bora Bora, sprinkles their dining area with Guy Harvey's "Old Man and the Sea" series of outdoor canvas prints. Hanging along the walkways leading to the over water bungalows are several canvas prints of stunning island photographs taken by famed artist Erwin Christian, who lived just down the beach from the resort.
"Finally, we can display Guy's stunning prints of marlin and other bill fish here on the island without having the weather conditions destroy them. The sun, rain and wind don't bother them, even the salt spray that prevails everywhere on the Island doesn't seem to affect them" says Captain Richard Postma, Bora Bora's most famous fishing guide and captain of the sport fishing catamaran "Taravana" which became the first boat to ever complete in and to win an international marlin fishing tournament while fishing under sail.