Creating the Perfect Outdoor Space with Emma

Every home deserves a great outdoor living space. The perfect place to spend time with friends and family, or to simply sit back and enjoy being out in the fresh air, your outdoor areas is somewhere that should feel comfortable and inviting.

With warmer weekends on the horizon, F&P Interiors director, Emma shares her expert design tips on how to create a stylish garden living area featuring our favourite outdoor fabrics. Whatever the space; from a cosy patio to a sprawling lawn, we have everything you need to create the perfect outdoor space in time for Summer...

Number one, add plenty of colour! Nothing is more inviting than a pretty seating area or dining table full of pattern and colour to welcome its guests. Whether you have a town garden or are in the countryside, your outdoor space can be an extension of your house, so it is important to make the most of it.

Our beautiful range of indoor/outdoor fabrics are perfect for creating soft furnishings that will see you celebrating with loved ones as the warmer weather arrives. Available in a wide range of colours and designs, whatever your prefered style, we have a colourful outdoor fabric to suit.

Having come a long way in recent years, garden fabrics are surprisingly soft and their appearance and texture often defies expectations when handled in person. Just as beautiful as their exclusively indoor counterparts, they are built to withstand all manner of weather, which is ideal as we navigate the often unpredictable British summertime.

When designing the perfect outdoor space, it is helpful to think of your garden space as an extra room. Adding a rug on the grass, patio or decking can really add a sense of a ‘room’ outside as it creates a defined area on which to build your scheme. Try adding this Andalucia rug for an injection of colour, or the ever popular Normad Tarifa from our Weaver Green collection.

Try mixing some pattern into your scheme with a fun stripe like Kalea, or the beautiful Panarea Ikat in a mixture of colourways. If you have a pergola on your terrace, consider hanging some lovely lightweight curtains to float beautifully in the wind, reinforcing the feeling of sitting in a room outside. Drawn to create an intimate and cosy setting in which to sit after the sun disappears, don’t forget to add some cosy throws in case there is a chill in the air!

If you have a dining area outside pick a fun tablecloth, add some coloured glassware, pretty china and a jug of flowers to dress your table. Complementary napkins are another great way to feature one of your favourite fabrics, and adding some chair cushions and bench seats will ensure guests remain comfortable, long into the evening.

Cushions are a must when it comes to creating a comfortable space to relax on outside. Custom-made to the sizes you wish, they can be mixed and matched, and taken with to whichever part of the garden you wish to enjoy; from a dining table to a picnic blanket on the lawn, round the pool to under a shady tree. The beauty of using outdoor fabrics is they are stain resistant, easy clean and water repellent, so tough to withstand dewy grass, melting ice-creams or mucky pups!