Almost Summer: Time For Patios For Outdoor Living

I can smell Summer around the corner. In Portland, it went from the 50’s to the 90’s in a couple of days. Weird and powerful, naturally the entire local galaxy is outdoors, lured there by a looming cool front……….. naturally. This year, it honestly figures.

Having whined sufficiently, what it HAS done is take people outdoors. The evenings are gorgeous, sensual with the smells of Spring still in the air and the heat like a warm embrace, full and enveloping. Folks will be wanting to spend that time outdoors. The fact is, it’s cooler there, for one thing. Naturally, it’s also just a great place to be. It reminds me of outdoor environments I have lived in as well as the labors we have put into other people’s prized possession: their homes. There have been many of both. Some smaller:

And some larger:

And some…….Humongous:

In any event, there is still always this: Patios like these are what we have made to allow people to extend their living spaces from the walls of their home, outwards, into the night, into the Sun, and into the Great Outdoors. They provide yet another room, a different place and a virtual connection to Nature. Indoors, we have our mental life and our constructs to provide protection and privacy. Outdoors, these things change. Patios provide us this environment. A good patio, in the end, doesn’t require alot: it is flat and outdoors. That’s about it and just about all one needs. A “great patio” has some other attributes……beauty of form, bells and whistles, even, lights or even a kitchen for the more “barbeque-bold”.

Patios are our way of giving back to ourselves. They provide a warm and intimate place for all of our souls and those of our friends and families. Or a cool one.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.