Outdoor · Before & After
From Cracked Concrete to Smoldering Stone: 11 Fire Pit Lounge Transformations
A dedicated fire pit lounge is one of the most rewarding ways to pull a home's living space out into the open air.
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Outdoor Transformations
Backyard, garden, patio, pool, deck and rooftop design studies, planned the way an interior is planned: floor, walls and ceiling, even under the sky. Drainage, lighting and materials decided before the furniture, with humidity, pollen and salt air noted in the cost estimates. The images are concept renderings, not photographs of completed projects.
Articles in Outdoor Transformations
From Tired Concrete Patio to Garden Room: 12 Small Backyard Before & After Ideas
The small backyard is the outdoor room people ask about most: that cracked concrete pad, the patchy strip of lawn, the fence the previous owner stained a color nobody chose on purpose.
From Crumbling Concrete to Secret Garden: 11 Side-Yard Transformations
A forgotten side yard is one of the harder problems in outdoor design. These eleven concept transformations work through it, from material selection to atmosphere.
11 Backyard Pond Transformations: From Suburban Eyesore to Designed Water Feature
In Charleston, the same question comes up almost every spring: what do you do with the tired ornamental pond the previous owner left behind?
12 Rooftop Terrace Makeovers: Design Notes on Reimagining One Crumbling Urban Slab
Urban rooftops are the most under-used square footage in any building.
12 Pool Deck Makeovers Worth Studying: Design Notes on Restyling the Space Around an Existing Pool
Many homeowners with an older pool don't have a pool problem; they have a pool-deck problem. The water is fine.
One Neglected Backyard, Twelve Design Directions to Take It
Take the plain suburban backyard in these renderings: weathered lap-panel fencing on concrete posts, a patchy lawn, a strip of worn concrete slabs by the back door and a thin, weedy border along one side.
11 Backyard Transformations: One Charleston Yard, Eleven Outdoor Living Directions
A simple Charleston backyard has more potential than it shows. This study renders one blank canvas in eleven distinct, luxurious outdoor living directions.
From Cracked Concrete to Pool Paradise: 12 Backyard Pool Deck Transformations Across Twelve Distinct Styles
Start with a Mount Pleasant backyard where the pool deck is a 720 sq ft slab of cracked broom-finish concrete and the perimeter is a 38-foot run of leaning shadowbox cedar held up mostly by hope.
13 Backyard Transformations: One Neglected Corner, Thirteen Outdoor Directions
Start with a 20-by-30-foot corner of trampled mud behind a brick suburban house: a weathered sage-green fence leaning under ivy, a cracked concrete pad, a tangled hose and a rusted watering can, and drainage that leaves.
From Backyard Black Hole to Luminous Living: 10 Patio Transformations Worth Actually Building
Plenty of homeowners land on some variation of the same sentence: “our backyard is a disaster and we don't know where to start.” Cracked concrete, a sagging fence, a second-hand BBQ still wearing last summer's drip pan,.
From Concrete Coffin to Canopy of Comfort: 10 Urban Garden Transformations of One Forgotten Courtyard
Start with a walled courtyard behind a row of brick terraced houses, left to decay: cracked concrete paving, a sagging chain-link panel along one side, and a rear brick wall shedding old white paint in sheets.
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