When you live in a place as beautiful as the Lowcountry, you can’t help but spend lots of time outdoors. Along the coast, we continue to see a demand for outdoor rooms and living spaces that take advantage of marsh views and ocean breezes.

Particularly in this current economic climate, people are sticking close to home and curtailing their travel. This means finding a way to enjoy your time at home, and landscaping and outdoor rooms are a large part of that.

At our firm, we tend to design houses with a lot of outdoor space and porches, as well as lots of windows to maximize the views and continue to bring the outdoor feeling indoors.

An outdoor room can add significant value to a home. It becomes another useful space and adds to the homeowners’ quality of life. A typical 3,000-square-foot house can feel like a 4,000-square-foot house when an outdoor living space is factored into the home’s usefulness.

Many homeowners add outdoor kitchens and fireplaces to create an entire other room that has both aesthetic value and a high level of usefulness.

As you’re thinking about the design of your outdoor space, keep these tips in mind:

1. Make sure the outdoor spaces easily connect to the indoors. That indoor-to-outdoor connection is the most critical element. If an outdoor living space is tough to access or set apart from the rest of the house, it probably won’t get much use.

2. In the Lowcountry where mosquitoes are often referred to as the state bird, spending time outside could turn into an itchy aggravation. One option is installing an automatic insect spray system to keep the mosquitoes at bay. This eliminates the need for a screen that can obstruct your views.

3. Use care when selecting your outdoor furniture and equipment, such as a grill or outdoor cooking area. The salt in the air can quickly rust your new furniture or the fasteners in your chairs.