Summer Kitchen

In your quest for the ultimate in outdoor living one must truly experience the epitome of an oasis by adding a summer kitchen. What is a summer kitchen? It's the outdoor bar-b-q times ten! Imagine your grill standing all alone beside the beige stucco of your house. Kind of a sad existence for such a giving machine. Now imagine a beautiful covered, yet not enclosed, back porch. Surrounding your once lonely grill is custom cabinetry. You have storage for all your grilling utensils. Your mini fridge is stocked with cold beer, a bottle of wine and pure spring water. The beautiful Eco friendly patio furniture you bought is set up to ensure that feeling you're in a five start resort. Your summer kitchen is surrounded by beautiful potted plants native to your climate. Your pergola with climbing hydrangea is nearby only to solidify that you are in the lap of luxury. The meals you prepare taste nothing less that what Wolfgang Puck would create for you in his restaurant. Anybody can go on vacation once a year, but how many people get to feel that way everyday? You could be one of those people sipping a drink, sitting on fine outdoor furniture and eating meals prepared in your very own summer kitchen.

Outdoor Accessories

It seems to me that once you decide that you're going to make your outdoor space a place you want to spend quality time in, why not go all out? If you have a pergola and add some plants, you might get a table and chairs, add some lighting, maybe even a water feature. These are mostly hard surfaces. Why not add an outdoor area rug? If you have your pergola over a patio this is a great way to soften thing up to create your "outdoor room". There are many websites that offer outdoor area rugs. Home Depot and Lowe's carry some as well as my personal favorite, Target. This is a great way to keep that outdoor indoor line seem a little more blurred.

Native Plants

I found a great website http://www.plantnative.org/how_intro.htm to find the native plants in your area. It also has a list of the drought resistant plants in your region. Planting drought resistant native plants is not only beneficial the the enviornment, but also budget friendly since they need to be watered less often. Everybody wins!