By CHRISTOPHER KAZARIAN
‘Having a space outside you can enjoy, just like you might enjoy the living room, can hugely enhance your experience with the house.’
– Jacob Avakian,
owner of Vineyard Home
Patio design by CMS
Since last March, the relationship with the way we use our homes has undergone a seismic shift. No longer is it solely a place for getting a good night’s sleep and enjoying a meal to start and end the day.
For many, home has now become a place where we work, where we eat, where we play, and where we sleep. The majority of our time is now spent at home. And while the vaccine offers hope for a return to pre-pandemic days, there is still uncertainty about what the future holds.
COVID is clearly not going anywhere, so redesigning our homes to keep us and our guests safe is more important than ever. Perhaps no space more provides the opportunity to do exactly that than outdoor living areas.
Upgrades to lighting, electronics and heating can make these spaces ideal for outdoor entertainment, something that is sorely needed after a year filled with loss, isolation and social distancing.
“It kind of goes without saying that the restrictions that come with COVID have affected our way of life,” said Jacob Avakian, owner of Vineyard Home on Falmouth’s Main Street. “Right now, where people are at home so much, especially on the Cape, if you’re at home, you want to be outside….Having a space outside you can enjoy, just like you might enjoy the living room, can hugely enhance your experience with the house.”
Vineyard Home has the capacity to bring almost every amenity, from lighting to audio to video, to your deck, patio, or yard.
“There are a million different directions people can go in,” Mr. Avakian said. That’s where the knowledge and expertise of a custom design firm such as his can come in handy.
How Will You Use
Your Outdoor Space?
As to where one should start, Mr. Avakian suggested thinking about how you see yourself using the space. “Are they planning on coming out there and just cooking a burger and heading back inside or do they plan on spending a lot of time out there and maybe using it a lot in the summer and the fall?” he said.
His staff can walk through the space to visualize the best place to install a TV, speakers and lights.
With video, consumers have the option of installing either a flat-screen TV or a home theater projector. While televisions are limited in size— the biggest is around 65 inches—they offer better visibility during the day.
“If you’re out sitting by the pool all day, then an outdoor TV would be the way to go,” Mr. Avakian said. “If you want to have outdoor movie nights with the family sitting outside by the fire, then a projector would be the way to go.”
For homeowners looking to impress, Vineyard Home sells a Stealth Patio Theater, starting at 103 inches, that is “basically an underground TV where you press a button and it comes up from an enclosure,” Mr. Avakian said. “Some come in a built-in enclosure and some you can pour a foundation in the yard and it sits in there and rises from that.”
Adding to the experience is audio that can range from the simple—a pair of speakers aimed at a deck—to the more complex, such as an inground system placed strategically throughout the yard so it can be heard by the homeowner while not disturbing the neighbors.
While living near the ocean might cause some to pause before investing in outdoor audio-video equipment, Mr. Avakian assured, they have been tested to withstand the elements. “We have a number of projects on the Cape and one on Rhode Island where the homes are right along the saltwater and the equipment runs without a problem,” he said. “The quality is second to none.”
The Impact Of Lighting
A critical consideration for any upgrade to your outdoor living space is lighting. “It’s something that is hugely overlooked these days,” Mr. Avakian said. “It can really affect how you enjoy the space and people don’t realize it that much.
Deck lighting can enhance your atmosphere.
“One of the beautiful things about outdoor lighting is there’s different levels and layers,” he continued. “You can have little step lights or niche lights that give you a sense of the space and let you know where steps are or the edge of the patio is. And then you can have all sorts of uplighting and wash lighting where you mount the lights up in a tree so it can give you a cool effect where the area feels enclosed at night. It can make a yard feel more intimate or cozy.”
Reg Emino, owner of Premier Landscape Lighting in East Falmouth, recommended low voltage when it comes to outdoor lighting. “It is safe. You can touch it without getting a shock,” he explained. “You’re using LED lights as opposed to old halogen lamps. There is a lot of savings monetarily and they are very inexpensive to run. The nice thing is it does enhance the outdoors and provides for more area at night.”
If consumers are serious about enhancing their outdoor lighting, Mr. Emino is against the solar-powered lights consumers can purchase at big box stores like Walmart or Home Depot. “If you look at solar lights, for the most part, it doesn’t give you much light for the spaces you want to light up,” he said. “They won’t light up walkways too good and people, if they do it themselves, they usually put in too many. It almost looks like a runway at an airport.…And over time, solar lights slowly lose what little light they have.”
Spending a little more money on an outdoor lighting contractor can help identify locations on your property to place lights to give them the best visual effect. “I emphasize less lights, not more,” he said. “I think almost every house could use lighting for various reasons. Obviously, people are staying home more so they want to get the most out of their property and it should include outdoor lighting.”
Over the past decade, said Ben Dodds, construction manager at CMS Landscape in Pocasset, advancements in technology have made it “a ton easier for lighting. You can put a lot more lights on a run of wire because it doesn’t take near as many amps.”
Aesthetic Considerations
A primary consideration for homeowners is whether they want the visual impact of the lights to be from their house outward or from the road looking toward their house. “Sometimes it takes a little time to get to know the customer to know what overall impact they want on their property,” he said. “Oftentimes it will be uplighting the house and putting some lights up in the trees for curb appeal.”
While that is the most common approach for customers, he said, they also tend to want lights along a path or walkway for safety reasons. Also popular are lights to highlight walls in the yard.
“I do think people make the mistake of sometimes putting too much lighting in,” Dodds cautioned. “You don’t want to flood the whole outdoor area with light.”
The final option for homeowners to consider is heating, especially for the spring and fall when temperatures can fluctuate rapidly. With all that has gone on over the past year, patio heaters are particularly popular at Breakaway in Mashpee and Dennis.
“I ran out of the patio heaters in early May last year,” said Kevin Feloney, sales manager at Breakaway in Dennis. “The demand outdid the supply.”
Breakaway features two propane-style heaters. One is similar to those found at restaurants; the other looks more like a streetlight. The company also sells an electric heater.
“The difference between the gas and electric is you always have to fill the propane cylinder with the gas heaters. It’s a heavy item that can be close to 40 pounds. Also, the pilots can be difficult to start for certain brands,” Mr. Feloney said. “The torch-style [gas] heaters are easier to light on a windy day. The electric ones don’t require any pilot lighting. As long as you’re within 15 to 20 feet of an outlet, you just have to plug them in.”
Want to add to the ambiance? Mr. Feloney suggested an outdoor firepit. Breakaway has a variety of round, rectangular, and square ones that were equally as popular as the space heaters last year.
He anticipated that popularity to continue through 2021. “I would say the demand for these is probably going to be high until people feel safer getting together in groups and going out to eat,” Mr. Feloney said.