Modern outdoor furnishings, the perfect aids for an attractive entrance to the home

A home’s main entrance and the relative outdoor area set the scene for the interior: they introduce its residents and express their style through colors, materials and design choices.

The outdoor furnishings and covering materials for the horizontal and vertical surfaces must thus be chosen with great care over every detail, proceeding as follows:

• be aware of the dialogue between the home’s outdoor and indoor areas, ensuring that shared features link the architecture and the interior design
• resist the temptation to overfill spaces and overdo the accessories: even if actually capacious and functional, entrance furniture must be unobtrusive, enabling light and air to pass unobstructed
• adopt the less is more criterion, but at the same time make it very clear if, for example, you love plants or adore the color red: the surprise of finding distinctive features even from the entrance to the home will never fail to enhance pleasure in use of the lounge and other internal rooms

If your home is entered not through an enclosed interior but through a real garden, the outdoor furnishings can be chosen both to meet the needs of the entrance and to create relaxation and socialisation zones, which can be decorated with carefully chosen plants and accessories.

Outdoor garden furnishings, specifically designed to withstand weather and ensure that their materials and appearance resist over time, are designed to the same high standards as interior furniture lines, and matching between the two is also possible, with all areas furnished in a single style.

How to draw up a perfect shopping list for entrance furniture

Choosing entrance furniture and positioning it inside and outside the home may be a complex operation. The needs these areas have to meet are much less clearly defined and much more vague and personal than those relating to the functions of the other rooms in the home.

If we think of furnishing a living room, for example, a sofa, a pair of armchairs and a wall-mounted TV cabinet immediately come to mind. It is by no means so obvious for the entrance, which has the task of conveying a specific home identity to anyone entering our private space.

In fact, a large family will need to place a number of storage units outside, suitable and large enough to accommodate sports equipment and school and working materials conveniently to hand every morning and every evening, so they can be taken out and prepared for use quickly and easily.

People who live alone, on the other hand, will probably place less furniture in the entrance and will leave it to the outdoor and indoor design scheme to announce the style and functions of the living room.

To draw up a perfect shopping list for entrance furniture:

• decide the functions to be assigned to the home’s main entrance area, listing them in order of importance
• define the materials and colors of the various items, choosing them to match the color scheme already used inside the home
• check the measurements and overall dimensions of the various items, tape measure in hand, to ensure that the space is not overcrowded
• if undecided, proceed in small steps, first purchasing the main items of furniture and then gradually adding complementary pieces and accessories

Indoor and outdoor stoneware tiles, attractive and tough

The floor and wall covering materials used for the main entrance to the home must be not only attractive but also technologically suitable, to ensure strength, reliability and durability over time.

In terms of appearance, many stoneware tile collections, in small, large and extra large sizes, are suitable for use both inside and outside the home, providing an attractive continuity of surfaces.

When spaces are small, this continuity can help to make rooms appear larger by extending the view from inside to outside and vice-versa, underlining the fluidity of routes through the home and also amplifying rooms’ luminosity.

What’s more, on the technological and performance level, stoneware floor and wall covering solutions offer a choice of various installation solutions, such as with adhesive indoors and floating outdoors, which also simplifies any maintenance work which may be required over time.

Which characteristics are necessary for outdoor furnishings to retain their looks and functions over time?

Even if its finishes and design match the indoor furnishings, an entrance cabinet placed outdoors must have specific qualities required by its installation environment if it is to come up to expectations in terms of durability.

Rain, wind, smog and even just dust and the stresses and strains of use make heavy demands on everything exposed to them, including garden furniture placed at the entrance to the home and in the larger areas of the garden and terrace.

Therefore, when purchasing it is important to give careful consideration to the various items’ materials and finishes, and their care and cleaning needs. Choosing furniture which requires constant care may turn out to be a good idea only for people who have the time and patience to do the work required.

Most people appear to opt for solutions which have fewer maintenance demands, especially if the project considers the frenetic pace of our everyday lives today, which mean we must try to take every opportunity to wind down and relax.