By Staff Writer

Decorating a patio room is as exciting as decorating any room in your house, or potentially even more exciting. Your patio room is totally unique in your home; no other room is designed to foster an illusion of being outdoors to this extent without actually being outdoors. In a patio room, you have the beauty of your natural surroundings coupled with the comfort of an indoor room. Because of this indoor/outdoor juxtaposition, you can take the room in different directions when it comes time to decorate your patio room.

  1. How much do you want your patio room to blend into the décor of the rest of your home? If you have a decorative motif running through the rest of your house, you can continue with that kind of décor in the patio room. Regardless, you can decorate the patio room to enhance the feeling that you're surrounded by interior warmth and comfort. Add comfy furniture to the patio room, warm lamps and rich rugs, if the floor is uncarpeted. You could install an overhead light with a ceiling fan. Adding a bookcase to the wall of the house will enhance the interior coziness of the patio room while not detracting from the surrounding view of the outdoors. Rather than a glass patio table, choose a wood coffee table. The idea here is to emphasize the interiority of the patio room, to underscore your novel ability to appreciate the beauty of the outdoors but do it in style without worrying about damage. Heck, put a grand piano out there!
  2. Decorating your patio room with the warmth you find in the rest of your home is a bold move, something akin in spirit to a man-made oasis; you're appreciating the outdoors, but with an irresistible decadence. However, many people want their patio room décor to emphasize not the fact that it's indoors, but to help conceal that reality, adding instead to the illusion of it being truly exposed and outdoors with nothing separating it from the visible surrounding beauty.
    patio decorating
    For this approach, you probably don't want to decorate your patio room with heavy coffee tables, rich rugs and overstuffed furniture. Consider wicker furniture for the patio room, or wood furniture that is more unadorned and not glossy. Embrace rustic touches - why not visit an antique store to find some older chairs? There's nothing quite like an old rocking chair on a porch. Try finding a table that doesn't look like it came out of a catalogue. Or consider buying regular patio furniture that you would ordinarily keep outdoors. Wrought iron chairs and tables are an excellent idea for a patio room, since they are undeniably graceful but inhabit outdoor spaces. Instead of rugs, how about a tile floor in the patio room? Rather than ornate light fixtures, stay in the outdoors frame of mind by purchasing some lanterns that can sit on your furniture, or maybe think of buying some grow-lights.
  3. And that leads us to a topic that should not be overlooked when decorating a patio room, regardless of how you want your patio room to ultimately look - plants! If you haven't already found plants to put in your patio room, go out there and find some. There really isn't a better opportunity for growing indoor plants. In fact, you can move some of your struggling indoor plants into the patio room from elsewhere in your house to help them recover.
  4. Even if you want to emphasize the separation between indoor and outdoor in the patio room, some running water is a soothing touch that rarely seems out of place in a patio room. Consider purchasing a decoration that contains constantly running water.
  5. Ultimately, there are no rules for decorating your patio room. You have to choose the décor that you fall in love with. These are just the basic directions you can take; most people decorate their patio rooms somewhere in the happy middle, embracing both the indoor and outdoor in their patio room. And after all, the confluence of those elements is the essence of a patio room itself.

No matter what way you choose to decorate your patio room, also remember not to overwhelm the greatest element of décor available, part of the original purpose of having a patio room at all - outdoor beauty. Don't fill your patio room with so much that your ability to appreciate the surrounding outdoors is hindered. Keep the patio room tasteful; choose your decorative accents carefully.