Bringing the Indoors Outside ; A New Twist on Upscale Life in Burbs

Back in the day, suburban outdoor living consisted of sitting around a redwood picnic table on a slab of concrete while Dad flipped burgers on the charcoal-briquette-fired grill and the kids did cannonball dives into the pool.

Outdoor furniture meant folding metal chairs threaded with vinyl ribbon, or redwood frames softened by vinyl-covered pillows that left their imprint on your thighs and smelled when they were wet.

Today, outdoor living can be a re-creation of upscale indoor living, with outdoor sitting rooms, dining rooms, kitchens and bathrooms, hearths, sound systems and dramatic lighting.

As Greenwood, Miss.-based Viking Range Corp. puts it, in promoting the company's high-end outdoor kitchen installations, "Forget going out on the town. Go out in the yard."

Vanessa DeLeon, a Ridgewood-based interior designer, said people "want everything from the inside on the outside, so that people are not going in and out, in and out of the house all the time."

Americans spent some $178 billion on home improvements in 2006, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Outdoor remodeling statistics are hard to come by: The National Association of the Remodeling Industry says it doesn't keep that data. But, according to the Health, Patio & Barbecue Association (HPBA), $17.4 billion was spent on additions/alterations to property/outside structures in 2003. And, says the HPBA, a record 17 million grills were shipped in 2006, up 15 percent from the year before.

The cost of an outdoor room can range from $10,000 for a simple grill and sitting/dining area to $50,000 to $80,000 for a built-in pool, outdoor kitchen, pool house, seating, heating, decking, stonework, lighting and landscaping.

Will you get your money back on resale?

"Not only will you get your money out of it, but your home will sell faster," said Robert Johnson, executive director of the National Association of Real Estate Appraisers. "Theoretically, you can extend the seasons a little bit."

A lot of outdoor rooms start with the pool. Robin Doyle and her family decided to put a pool in their Wayne back yard last year, after living in their home for 15 years.

"My daughter is getting older she's 9 and we love to swim," said Doyle. "We weren't spending much time at the house during the summer, because there wasn't that much to do. We're social people, and we wanted to use the house more and have people over."

As the contractors began digging the pool, running the utility lines and regrading the property, Doyle thought about the muddy feet and the dripping bathing suits coming into the house.

"It became obvious to me that we would have a lot of messy traffic," she said. "We have a finished basement with a bathroom down there and a light-colored carpet: It would have been wrecked."

And so, the plan for their outdoor room developed. A cabana was built, with bathroom, shower, storage and kitchen area. The kitchen has a counter with a pass-through opening. Bar stools flank the counter, and comfortable chairs between the cabana and the pool will be shaded by a vine-covered pergola, a structure forming a shaded walk or passageway of pillars.

It took a long time to finish construction, from April until September of last year, and ended up costing more than double the original budget of about $40,000 for the pool. The Doyles still have to buy the outdoor furniture, do the lighting and extend the home- speaker system outdoors. The family can hardly wait for the summer season to begin.

Much has been made of the "McMansioning" of North Jersey, the construction of homes that take up most of their lots and maximize indoor space at the expense of outdoor space. Area interior designers talk about the trend toward creating a flow between indoors and out.

"People are bringing the outdoors in and the indoors out," said Rita Lyons of Marc Design in Midland Park.

Christina Marraccini of Raccini Designs talks about one $800,000 project she is designing for a home in the Rio Vista section of Mahwah. The owners had considered moving but decided instead to double the size of the kitchen, open up the great room and build an outdoor room beyond.

"There's a stone fireplace in the great room, and two big French doors from the great room will lead to an outdoor stone fireplace 20 feet beyond the doors," she said.

In addition, a glassed-in octagonal space will project outward from the enlarged kitchen and will be flanked by mahogany decks on either side of the octagon.

But if you have a high-end kitchen inside the house, why do you need another one outside the house?

"People are looking for the same high performance and high style for their outdoor kitchens as they have become accustomed to in their indoor kitchens," said Kim Donahue, director of marketing for Carl Schaedel and Co. of Fairfield, the local distributor for Viking Range appliances.

Viking has sold movable outdoor grills for a long time. The company began selling stainless steel cabinets and appliance combinations for built-in outdoor kitchens three years ago, Donahue said.

"Every year since then, the business in outdoor kitchens has doubled," she said.

The outdoor kitchen units from Viking range from about $12,000 for a 7.5-foot installation with grill, side burners (to boil water for corn, for example), warming drawer, storage and pull-out trash bins, to about $20,000 for a 16-foot installation with grill and infrared burner, separate side burners, warming drawer, refrigerator, sink cabinet and storage. The price does not include the stone countertops, which owners can choose to match the exterior colors of the house, or the cost of installing plumbing, gas and electric. Viking also sells smokers (to smoke meats) and beverage centers.

In addition to extending the outdoors in and the indoors out, a well-appointed outdoor room can lengthen your outdoor experience into the colder months.

Interior designer DeLeon said she crafts a lot of outdoor rooms with a fire pit, a metal drum in which you burn wood and which guests can gather around like a campfire.

"What's neat about a fire pit is that people use it in the fall," she said. "And if they have a Jacuzzi, they still use it in late fall and early winter."

People can also buy tabletop or free-standing patio space heaters to warm up an outdoor room or install gas or wood-burning fireplaces.

And with the right lighting, you can extend the summer days into summer nights.

To play up their 65-foot pool with streaming waterfalls and columns on either side, the Ciacciarelli family of Mahwah chose dramatic spotlighting and fiber-optic pool lighting that changes color. The Ciacciarellis also had a cabana with a tiled bathroom and changing area built in the last couple of years, along with an outdoor kitchen.

"I have a full, built-in barbecue, with refrigerator and counter space all around, all stone, with a granite countertop," said Ann Marie Ciacciarelli. "I entertain 150 people outdoors for my twin sons' birthday in July. Everybody looks forward to it."

As the outdoor kitchen area has gotten more upscale, so has the outdoor furniture.

"They have fabrics that don't feel like vinyl, comfortable-to- sit-on cushions that can be left out," said designer Lyons. "They have waterproof fabric that does not absorb wetness.. They have outdoor seating that looks like rattan, but is actually weather- resistant plastic."

These new outdoor seating choices don't come cheap. One arrangement of four deep-cushioned, wicker-look chairs, a chaise and conversation table at Expo Design Center in Paramus retails at just under $8,000.

And, Lyons points out, construction takes time as well as money.

"It's like building a little house, even though it's not a lot of square footage," she said. "You may need a roofer, a plumber. You have to bring in the electric. Then there are all the finishes the tile, the stone, the fixtures."

The plumbing, the framing, the electric, the insulation and the drywall all have to be inspected at various points by local inspectors.

But homeowner Robin Doyle has two words of advice if you're considering an outdoor room.

"Do it," she said. "If you're thinking about it, do it. Even though it's expensive and a pain during the construction process, in the long run, it pays off."

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Components of outdoor living spaces

Hearth and heating: Wood-burning fireplaces, gas fireplaces, fire pits, chimineas, fire and fountain combinations, free-standing or tabletop patio space heaters

Kitchen: Barbecue grills, wood-fired pizza ovens, refrigerators, sinks, dishwashers, cocktail bars, food preparation areas

Furniture: Couches, chairs, coffee and end tables, dining tables, hammocks, chaise lounges

Flooring: Wood and synthetic decking, brick, stone, slate, stamped concrete pavers, gravel

Water: Swimming pools, spas, waterfalls, ponds

Shelter: Pool houses, gazebos, sunrooms, awnings, pergolas, umbrellas, tents

Accessories: Sound systems, sculptures, potted plants, fences and walls

Lighting: Landscape lanterns, pathway lighting, candles, spotlighting, pool lighting

Source: Hearth, Patio & Barbecue Association (hpba.org)

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E-mail Mary Amoroso at MaryAmo@aol.com

(c) 2007 Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.