How to Create
a Party Perfect Patio
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Party Perfect Patio: How To Create One.
Since most families essentially live outside during the warmer months, the patio or deck becomes and outdoor room where the kids play from dawn to dusk and the parents hang out and relax.
(What a wonderful concept!)
To fully enjoy it, divide this area into two separate sections:
The Adult Entertainment Area
This part's a breeze. All you need are a party table and some comfy chairs.
This is not the place to scrimp. Sink-in-and-stay-a-while kind of comfortable chairs will make your moderate investment pay off big time.
Top it all off with an umbrella for shade, and your party parlor is open for business.
Optional furniture includes a storage chest for adult toys and stuff you always need outside - such as sunscreen, hats, and bug spray - and folding tables by the grill for serving and cooking.
An ice chest would be nice, too. Steaks, anyone?
The Kids' Deck Zone
For safety's sake, set up the party play area away from the grill and the table. You might even want to make the kids their own little outdoor room delineated by container plants.
I have a sturdy blue kid-size table with six multicolor chairs in my family room that's easy to take outdoors for just such occasions.
Keep favorite toys in a wheeled container or a wagon so kids can roll them outside to play.
Or, consider a deck storage chest for them to use as a toy box. Another way to keep your yard tidy is to provide ample, accessible toy storage in the kids' corner of the garage.
Consider what you would put in a conventional room. For little ones, provide protection from the sun with a "ceiling" (umbrella or awning), a "floor" (a quilt, splat-mat, or old blanket), and "walls" (some sort of barrier such as container plants, toy chests, or fences) that will keep them from wandering off. (Or at least slow them down.)
The older kids might want more privacy, but keep the little ones in view.
If you have a yard and small kids, you're probably running out of room. Outdoor toys, for some reason tend to be big - very big. It takes only a few gifts from the grandparents to seriously junk up the yard.
Let's see, there's the swing set, the plastic playhouse, the sandbox, the wading poo, and the bikes and trikes. Arrgggh! Just moving the stuff to mow the lawn can take an hour.
Unless you're running a day care, set some limits on how much plastic you want in your yard. You wouldn't fill up your lawn with junked cars, why is a trashy swing set any different? Try setting some boundaries.
Give the kids one area of the patio and yard as their play area. Confine toys to that space. Then you and the other grown-ups can have some unobstructed areas to garden, entertain, and just plain relax. We deserve a corner of paradise, too.
Help the kids keep their area tidy by limiting the number of toys that can be out at any given time, just as you do indoors.
Just because your kids have more room outside doesn't mean you have to let them fill it! And the sheer quantity of toys strewn about also reduces the odds that they will actually pick them all up at the end of the day.
Festive Ways to Welcome Your Guests at the Door
How to Create a Festive Home Party
Return to Backyard Living
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