The following is an article by our expert guest writer Anthony Braun, who shares his experience in creating outdoor entertaining areas

A house is never just walls because people can’t stand the separation from the nature. Almost always there is a place where we can stay indoors and yet feel outdoors - a pergola, a terrace, a balcony. At least these are the options for multistory buildings.

People who build single story homes on blocks of land have more options for creating outdoor areas as they have the whole allotment to themselves. Let’s discuss how we can use the land better.

Some people prefer to see their yard tidy without putting much work into it - a lot of them are voting for a lawn and a mower, which solves all the problems.

There are people who convert their yards into heavenly gardens or a veggie patch, others don’t see more in it than a parking spot. Everybody is different and none of the allotments look the same.

Let’s talk about people who prefer meeting their friends not in the restaurants, pubs or gyms - which is fine too - but at their homes. As a rule, these people are fans of long conversation over a cup of tea.

Entertaining indoors and outdoors is not the same. The surrounding flowers, plants, trees, birds and the light breeze make all the difference. For such gatherings light wooden arbors (otherwise known as bowers or garden houses) with a light roof are ideal.

When building a wooden arbor, everything is in the hands of the builders. Wood is such a flexible material that allows implementing some very gracious decorative elements, such as arched wooden lace around the arbor, fancy fence design with elements creating a certain “rhythm”, beautifully framed entrance, comfortable benches which are made a part of the arbor.

A good location for such arbor would be a top of a little “hill” (around 30-40 cm) and it would need gutters installed on the roof to avoid rotting of wood that touches the foundation.

The roof of the arbor should be light, for example made of aluminum or some other thin metal with an anti-corrosive coating. There are many materials available on the market to suit that requirement, varying in prices and quality.

However, arbors will suit larger allotments, and owners of smaller blocks of land closer to the city centre need to seek another solution, namely pergola.

Usually a pergola is adjacent to the house; however nothing stops you from building it anywhere else. Constructing a pergola by the house allows you to walk out of the door and right into its shadow. The roof of pergola is not solid as it is an element of sun protection in the open air.

When a pergola is adjacent to the house, it’s construction becomes a lot simpler because a wall of a house is used as an element guaranteeing its stability. Two posts are enough (each post can be assembled from two parts), connect them by a horizontal board and the skeleton of your pergola is ready.

To avoid the contact of the lower side of posts with the floor we must use a metal piece with anti-corrosive coating. This metal part is attached to the floor and serves as a foundation for your pergola.

A word of warning - if you don’t want a boring standard pergola, some architectural imagination is required. The color of the paint you will be using needs some thought as well - in can either complement or be in contrast to the colors of the house.

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