FOCAL POINT STYLING: Outdoor Living Space Designs

Olioboard recently teamed up with Wayfair, a terrific home furnishings source for your online shopping experience (they are LOADED with a diverse assortment of goods!! A Zillion to be exact!). To launch their new partnership with Olioboard, Wayfair will be having 3 weeks of design challenges. This week is The Ultimate Patio Design Challenge. Patios come in all shapes, sizes, climates and locations. Here are a few I put together this week from an urban city patio, to a desert living patio to even poolside or along the beach. You can click any link (links are title + bold) to see details on the board - plus vote for your favorites!

POOLSIDE SEABREEZE

Inspired by the thought of a South Beach Hotel on Ocean Drive - or a patio for a home off Alton Road, Miami Beach.

A more modern loungey feel is what you see in South Beach hotels, Utilizing benches behind the sofa worked great for extra seating or even to hold lamps (various lighting used at night near water adds sexy ambiance). Lanterns tucked in the umbrellas also add to the ambiance at night (it's important to envision a space both day & night) Well manicured topiaries add organic style & structure to the strong architectural lines.

MIAMI SILAN

Inspired by the 80's Miami slogan: MIAMI - SEE IT LIKE A NATIVE.

Remembering much of the clean line architecture of Miami, much of it built in the 60's and 70's, they also used a lot of stone mixed with wood. Many of the exteriors of the modern wave of 80's & 90's architecture is white. The board was conceptualized by combining this memory, along with an old ad slogan from the 80's, "Miami - See it like a native" plus the graphic punch of both bold & zebra stripes to highlight the Wayfair merchandise. I may have been born in New Jersey, and lived there for 10 years, but I did live in Miami for most of my life (33 yrs) so I am kind of native :)

BEACH MOJITO

Lux Beach Outdoor Living Area - Miami Beach Lifestyle board.

Note: This board I created my making a duplicate of an earlier board (Seaside Chic). The "room" was made from photo images - flipped & cropped. After duplicating the initial board, I removed all the furnishings to clear out the space and use Wayfair merchandise for the challenge. The ceiling fan wasn't n the set to choose from. I found the outdoor fan on Wayfair's site to upload to me library.

MIAMI BEACH MOJITO

Lux Beach Outdoor Living Area - Miami Beach - Lifestyle & Product board.

Note: After saving my initial 3D board, I reloaded it to create a new board - and used a linen background, part of the new backgrounds available in Olioboards Pro Tools. Since the challenge called for at least 5 Wayfair products to be used on the boards, I called them out below. I only wish the test tool enabled a means of also creating a background, to better see the text. I might need to go back and crop my own white boxes to make it easier to read.

GUYS URBAN PATIO

Living in the city can mean tight quarters when it comes to an outdoor living space - But these guys have the essentials: A grill, table & chairs, a sofa, TV's and beer + a canvas artwork creates the focal point. (Think outdoor modern mancave)

Note: The greenery walls were inspire from a photo of the West Elm store in Seattle, where recently the CEO of Olioboard, Sheilah Macsporn, gave a presentation about the site. After I did some cropping and editing to the picture, I was able to start to layer and build the space for Guys Urban Patio (think Brooklyn, between buildings)

DESERT MODERN

Living in the desert can be pretty brutal on an outdoor space - But come late September, when the evenings cool down - THIS IS the place to be.

Note: I created this space from cropping and layering a pergola I spotted on Olioboard, but flipped it to work with the cacti image (I found online earlier this year). The layer behind the image is one of the new "Backgrounds" Olioboard added to their Pro Plan Tools. Since we do not have as many shady trees here in AZ, I have seen many of the pergolas used to help defuse the suns light. A pergola gives a great place to hang outdoor lighting or lanterns.

Don't forget to stop by Olioboard and vote for your favorite boards or create one of your own. Voting for The Ultimate Patio Design challenge ends Monday, June 18. Afterwards, a new challenge will be launched! I wonder what type of space it will be? Stay tuned to find out! If you'd like to inquire about me creating a board for you, contact me at nyclqd@yahoo.com.

UPDATE: CONTEST ENDED

CONGRATS TO NEETIB for her win on