Spring, and especially summer, invites us to leave home and enjoy the beautiful weather. If we are also lucky enough to have an outdoor area such as a balcony or a terrace, then we can make that area a comfortable and cozy place for these days. For that reason, I was looking for inspiration on how to create these environments. And because I live in Denmark, it includes creating "hygge" spaces that I love so much.
I found 3 books with beautiful images and ideas to make the most of these outdoor areas and even go a little further and enjoy any outdoor area to which we add our style, either within your own home or in a public space.
Happy Home Outside by Charlotte Hedeman Guéniau.
She is the owner of Rice which is a home decorative brand with products full of colors, patterns and a very playful style. In this book I found many ideas on how to decorate balconies, terraces, greenhouses, small houses on the tree, your own picnic, even a mobile home! These spaces are decorated with the products of Rice brand and you will also find DIY ideas that are very easy to make. If your style is bohemian and colorful, this book can be of much use to you, as the interior decoration book: Happy Home: Everyday magic for a colorful life. The textiles and patterns are essential, you will find floral patterns mostly, fuchsia and turquoise colors, but also pastel colors to create a harmony in the color palette that you decide to create. There is also a chapter with decorated spaces for the little ones of the house. You can find this book on Amazon.
Naturen ind i byen by Boe Sallingboe.
This book is in Danish and means Nature inside the city. And that is exactly what is found in the book, many practical ideas of how to plant, cultivate and care for different plants and flowers on a terrace or balcony. Personally, I came from living in a big city of almost 12 million people like Lima (Peru) with unfortunately few green spaces to a very small city (almost countryside) in Denmark, where inside each house you will find plants and flowers, it makes me think in how necessary and valuable is to create these green spaces around us.
In addition, this book has illustrations of where is the best location to place the different plants, aromatic herbs or flowers depending on their orientation to the sun. And it invites you to create green areas not only within the limits of your own home, but to join your neighbors, if you live in an apartment building, to create more beautiful common areas. Both on the lower floors and on the roofs, which are the ideal places to create common areas full of plants, flowers and lots of oxygen! Something very necessary in cities so crowded with people, smoke and noise.
Bliv ven med din have by Dorthe Kvist.
This book is also written in Danish, I love seeing these topics from another cultural perspective. The title means: Become friend of your garden. Dorthe Kvist is a landscape designer, decorative blogger and stylist. The book invites you to create your own garden, telling you about the medicinal properties of aromatic plants and herbs, and encouraging you even more with recipes and images! And the taste of a fruit, vegetable or fresh herbs is unique.
The images as well as practical are beautiful, especially the flower section. Imagine that when we came to live in the house, the garden looked like a football field, just grass hahaha. Now we have pear and apple trees, strawberries, some aromatic herbs. But the flowers are still pending. This book just helps me to design the garden in terms of location of the flowers, playground for the little ones, if I want to raise chickens or guinea pigs, or a zen zone to simply relax and meditate.
In the book, there is an inevitable chapter for those who live in the city and only have a balcony, since there are no excuses to be an "urban farmer".
Do you dare to create these green and colorful spaces in your outdoor area?