“Life is cheap,” says the fashion maxim, “but the accessories will kill you.” Once confined to our wardrobes and interiors, the notion of decorating has taken hold of our “outdoor rooms,” those spaces formerly known as the porch, patio, pool or deck.
Consider the very term “outdoor room” – increasingly embraced by decorators, architects and design mags – which bestows grandiosity on what previous, plain-spoken generations were content to call the back yard. Like nature itself, the open-air oasis has come to abhor a vacuum: Where there is space to fill, there are so very many things to fill it.
We’re not talking here about your basic table and chairs with matching chaise. Any space that aspires to carry the indoors out requires serious accessories.
Think all-weather area rugs (florals, stripes, bordered sisals). A dedicated bar (not to be confused with the monster grill and food-prep station that supplanted the simple domed kettle grill). Table and floor lamps wired for safety even in a downpour, with waterproof lampshades. Works of art – landscapes, seascapes, botanicals, abstracts – treated to withstand sun, rain and bird poop.
Clocks, fans, fire pits, room dividers and towel stands.
“It’s fashion-driven. Manufacturers recognize that consumers want their outdoor spaces as stylish and fashionable as their indoor spaces,” says Pat Bowling, communications director for the American Home Furnishings Alliance in High Point, N.C., which represents more than 200 of the nation’s leading furniture makers and suppliers.
Much has changed in the past decade or so, when outdoor furniture basically meant “a round table, four chairs, cushions and an umbrella,” says Bowling, who pegged annual retail sales in 1994 at about $2 billion. By 2004, sales had more than doubled to about $4.7 billion.
Fueling the trend is a building boom in large new homes and heavily renovated older ones, with multiple doors leading outside to multilevel decks.
The biggest outdoor furnishings purchases are made by so-called “lifers,” those over 45 who have been in their homes more than 16 years, says Gary McCray, vice president of Laneventure, the North Carolina-based indoor and outdoor furniture company. But the availability of high style in lower-priced goods is luring younger “new nesters” into the market. Outdoor rugs are the fastest-growing category, he says.
Women still do most of the buying, although men go for grills and fire pits. Climate has little impact on sales, according to Laneventure’s home lifestyle report, due this month. Sales are brisk even in such “short-summer” regions as the Northeast and upper Midwest.
Responding to national demand, makers of outdoor furnishings have pressed to develop hardy and handsome all-weather materials such as vinyl wicker and rattan, molded plastic and cast aluminum. Natural wicker, a favorite since granny’s granny rocked on the porch, is highly vulnerable to the elements; new plastic counterparts look so convincing they require a touch test to tell the difference.
That has made faux wicker “one of the strongest parts of the market today,” says Becky Boswell Smith, editor of Casual Living, a monthly trade publication that tracks outdoor furnishings.
But for sheer accessory glut, nothing beats the humble umbrella pole. Clip-on add-ons include rechargeable lights that aim down to illuminate dinner or up to create a mood; a fan to circulate air; citronella candleholders to repel bugs; a vase for flowers; and a server for chips and dip.
Interior designer Annette Hannon of Burke, Va., who created an elegant outdoor room at last year’s National Symphony Orchestra decorator show house, has mixed feelings about exterior overload.
She cheers the fact that “fabrics have just exploded. They are very user-friendly, and the colors are amazing.” Ditto for rugs, “which can make an area look dressy, especially with graduation parties, baby and wedding showers coming up.” But Hannon also laments the gadget boom. Mosquito zappers and large fireplaces “have gone too far. I think it detracts from being outdoors.” (She also warns that laying a moisture-holding carpet over a wooden deck can ruin the boards.) There is also the looming issue of where to put those accessories come winter.
“Maybe the next big thing,” muses Casual Living’s Smith, “will be storage containers for all this stuff.”
